{"id":7641,"date":"2019-07-02T10:44:27","date_gmt":"2019-07-02T05:14:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.digitalcreed.in\/?p=7641"},"modified":"2022-05-16T17:10:42","modified_gmt":"2022-05-16T11:40:42","slug":"happy-40th-sony-walkman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.digitalcreed.in\/happy-40th-sony-walkman\/","title":{"rendered":"Happy 40th Sony Walkman!"},"content":{"rendered":"
UPDATED AGAIN: It was in November or December 1979 that I first encountered the Sony Walkman. A family friend who was an air hostess with Air India walked into the room with the gadget in her hand. A little blue box with ultra-light headphones (the model was TPS-L2). I asked her what it was. She placed the headphones on my head and pressed a button. I was astounded at the sound quality because until then we had only heard mono sound.\u00a0My generous uncle observed my delight with this new gadget and promised to buy me one. The next year he gave me a silver Sony Walkman II, which was even smaller and lighter than the first model.<\/p>\n
The TPS-L2 (see video below) had two headphone sockets for two people to listen to music at the same time. It had a distinctive orange button called the “hotline” to suppress the volume in case you wanted to listen to your companion. This feature is now being introduced in modern-day Bluetooth headphones, but Sony thought about it in 1979.<\/p>\n
The word “Stereo” was a big word in 1979 because until then, all music and music systems were monoaural (mono). “Stereo” was monogrammed on the Sony Walkman and on all the cassette players that came out after that. For the first time in my life, I was listening to two-channel stereo sound, and it sounded superb!<\/p>\n
The Walkman became a status symbol and everyone wanted one. It featured in 80s movies like Back to the Future <\/em>and Footloose<\/em>. Many years later, I saw Bollywood actress Sonam Kapoor listening to a walkman in the movie Neerja<\/em>, and I felt nostalgic. The other day I saw Chris Pratt with a Sony Walkman TPS-L2 in the movie\u00a0Guardians of the Galaxy<\/em>.<\/p>\n I keenly followed the evolution of the Sony Walkman over the years, requesting friends and relatives to bring back catalogues from electronic stores during their international trips. We did not have the Internet or eBay back then, and the local stores were not yet selling personal stereos. The only way to get one was to beg a relative to buy one during their “foreign” trip — or to sneak across the border into Nepal and smuggle one back to India!<\/p>\n <\/p>\nThe Evolution<\/h3>\n