Talk:Walkman
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Does anyone know the original list price of the Sony Walkman?
- This page[1] says it was Y33,000 in Japan, which at the time was around $130. -- Paul Richter 12:27, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)
In the UK, the original blue-and-silver, two headphone Walkman (Stowaway) retailed at £99. --Pete 14:32, Oct 20, 2004 (UTC)
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[edit] Walkman Inventor
The real Inventor of "Walkman" is Andreas Pavel: http://www.applereport.com/apple/german-inventor-may-sue-a.html
- Agreed.. an article was just posted to Slashdot noting that Pavel won his court battle against Sony, and his right to claim the title. http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/12/16/news/profile.php 72.131.44.247 17:15, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
- Andreas Pavel may have invented the first portable personal stereo player but he did not invent the actual "Sony Walkman" which is the subject of this article.
- His invention was never produced (except as a prototype) and was never sold commercially.
- He never worked for Sony.
- Sony likely had no knowledge of his device when it created the first Walkman.
- He actually just owned a patent that he claims gives him rights to any and all portable stereos.
- In fact, he lost the court case in Britain. He later agreed to an out of court settlement with Sony in exchange for not filing cases in other countries.
- He claims his patent also includes portable MP3 players so in effect he also claims to be the inventor of the iPod.
- The name "Walkman" is a registered trademark of Sony Corporation.
Can anyone provide a picture of an early cassette based walkman? I think that an image of an MD walkman is unsuitable.--Malcohol 12:53, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I most heartily agree. I changed the picture ... HarS jan. 26, 2005
- Shouldn't it be mentioned that the term "Walkman" is often used for all kinds of portable music machines, even when they aren't manufactured by Sony?
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- Agreed. I'll give it a first shot.
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- Yes, it's become a generic term despite being a trademark for one brand.
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[edit] Photo
I have never posted on wikipedia but I found an image of the walkman at http://www.ieee-virtual-museum.org/media/DGiAeMFPgy2e.jpg Check it out. I don't know if it is copyrighted material but I doubt it.
[edit] Walkman revival trial in the 90s - name
In the 90s, Sony tried to revive the walkman with a line of products that had a wide variety of designs to appeal to collectors. Those devices were simple yet expensive - does anybody know how they were called? I think it had 4 letters and sounded something like "yipy". Thanks :-) Peter S. 14:10, 23 September 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Walkman Photo Suggestion
The photo of the TCM-S68V is probably not the best example. This model was not part of the Walkman line. It's not even a stereo unit. Sony's cassette Walkman model numbers begin with a "WM".
Also note the WM-3EX debuted in 1981, not 1983. And Sony did not celebrate any sort of public Walkman Anniversary until 1989. And Sony's first wireless walkman was the WM-505, sold in 1988. My source is "The Walkman Book" by World Photo Press, (c) 1999.
Hope this helps!
[edit] Original Idea
The original idea of the Walkman actually came from Ray Bradbury's seashell radios found in Fahrenheit 451. A Sony inventor read about them and later invented the Walkman.
[edit] TPS-L2
My model does not have the WalkMan logo. I purchased this in the US Army Audio/Photo Club in Germany in 1980. The headphones have orange pads (rather disintegrated at this point) and it came with a nice leatherette case. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 14:47, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
[edit] The CD Walkman® Player "D-NExxx" models
Can somebody make a more consistent coverage of the D-NE920 and D-NE20 models?
[edit] Phones
Do we really need all these models of phones listed separately? The technological differences between them are mostly negligible. --G0zer 01:35, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Pressman
In this article, the word Pressman is employed several times. But I didn't see exactly what is it (I think it's a particular device but not sure) ? Can anybody try to explain me or create the article Pressman. Thank you 16@r 14:47, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
According to Morita's autobiography Made in Japan, the Pressman was a mono tape recorder with a built-in speaker. The walkman product differed from the pressman thus:
- Walkman was stereo - Pressman was mono
- The original Walkman could not record - The Pressman could record
- The Walkman came with headphones and had no internal speaker - The Pressman had an internal spearker
- The Walkman was really small - The Pressman was larger
- The Walkman was for the general public - The Pressman was for news reporters as well as secretaries' use
- I've approximately had an idea about what it could be, but I wasn't sure. Thank you for your explanation. 16@r 22:02, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
[edit] MiniDisc Compression
Whoever wrote this..is wrong. Minidisc ALWAYS employed ATRAC compression. MDLP brought ATRAC3 to the system, an improved version of the original ATRAC compression used on Minidisc. Even in the early days the ATRAC encoders and decoders saw improvement, which casual naming lead to confusion between ATRAC revision 3 and ATRAC3, which were two totally different formats.
NetMD really only added the ability for a user to transfer tracks over USB using a painfully slow process, it's not really a major upgrade to the format, as netMD units used MDLP for the music content. Discs recorded using netMD could be played back in standard non-netMD MDLP players (but not standard ATRAC)
[edit] Walkman Pro
The section on the Walkman Pro is not quite right. The original Walkman Pro was the WM-D6. It was a few years later -- alas, I don't recall the exact year -- that Dolby C capability was added to create the WM-D6C. (I have one of both models. They still work! I will see if I can get a good photo of the D6 to place on the page.) ScottBurson 18:36, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
