29Jun/09Off
The Walkman Turns 30
And a 13-year-old takes one for a test drive. Cute.
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June 29th, 2009 - 09:22
That is brilliant. You should steal this idea for your freak nieces! I would love to hear more kids commentary on vintage gadgets. The Metal/Normal button had me floored. – LOVE IT
June 29th, 2009 - 09:40
That was very well written for a 13 year old! And very funny.
June 29th, 2009 - 09:42
“It took me three days to figure out that there was another side to the tape.”
I’ve been thinking about this type of thing the last few days, brought to mind when I realized I bought Thriller in 1982 on LP! Is that possible? I also remember having a CD player in 1986, though, so maybe I was an early adopter even then.
June 29th, 2009 - 09:50
I wonder what tape he was listening to.
Michael, in 1986, my car still had an 8-track tape player installed.
June 29th, 2009 - 12:02
I had an ENORMOUS first walkman that had an external speaker if you unplugged the headphones. (Perhaps it split the difference between Walkman and boom box?) I actually still have a Walkman that plays cassettes and one that plays CDs, because they both still work, and they both get the local stations’ TV audio for those times when the power goes out.
June 29th, 2009 - 12:45
I had a similar conversation about rotary phones the other day. Two of my co-workers have never used one.
June 29th, 2009 - 12:56
I miss rotary phones. The clunk and the “clickclickclickclick.” I want one. eBay, here I come!
June 29th, 2009 - 12:57
Mindy, what you said reminded me that as a kid, I used to lay in bed with my little transistor radio and an earphone and listen to one of the local network TV stations — NBC, I think? It always felt like I was getting away with something, and it forced me to do a lot of imagining about what people were doing on the screen.
June 29th, 2009 - 13:00
I used to do that, too!
June 29th, 2009 - 13:13
I have a hard wired rotary phone in my basement! (My house was built in the 40′s) The handset cord is only 3 feet long, too, so, if you use it, you have to stand RIGHT THERE. That may be the weirdest part about it after all these years of cordless/wireless phones. I use it sometimes just because, like you, I LOVE the clunk and click sounds.
June 29th, 2009 - 13:27
Did you ever get shocked by the phone during an electrical storm? Good times.
I used to love when the cord would get all tangled, and I’d stand on a chair and dangle it, watching it unspool itself. My friend Gail and I used to unclick the wire out from each end and hide it from her mom when she wanted to use the phone.
Plus, you could really wale on someone with those old rotary phones.
June 29th, 2009 - 15:02
I had the same exact Walkman pictured in that article. God, I was so in love with that thing when I got it.
As for phones, I have a pink Princess rotary phone in my bedroom, and a boring old cordless in the living room. But the only ringer that’s turned on is the rotary, and man, when I get a phone call, the room vibrates. Very loud. I love it.
June 29th, 2009 - 15:18
Ooh, mine is so old that the cord is hard wired into the handset, no unclicking! But you are right, they were quite the weapons!
And you just reminded me of one of my most vivid 25+ year old childhood memories – every time we went to visit my grandmother (she lived 2 1/2 hours away) the first thing my dad would do is the dangle/untangle the cord on her kitchen phone. Hers was a zillion feet long so it got REALLY twisted.