Tech & Biz

13-Year-Old Scott Campbell Reviews 30-Year-Old Sony Walkman

by Jordan Yerman | June 29, 2009 at 11:38 am

741 views | 12 Recommendations | 4 comments

In the article below, 13-year-old Scott Campbell reviews a 30-year-old Sony Walkman, which uses a technology he'd be utterly unfamiliar with: the cassette tape. Campbell had all kinds of problems getting the Walkman to work, not even realizing that there's such a thing as "Side B", even though CD singles still reference the B-side.

Hilariously, he critiques the device's size, not understanding that, at the time, the Walkman was the the very bleeding edge of portable rock-out functionality. However, he also finds some aspect of the neolithic gadget that he likes.

1: Clunky buttons 2: Switch to metal (that's a type of cassette, not heavy rock music) 3: Battery light - usually found flickering in its death throes 4: Double headphone jack (not to be found on an iPod) 5: Door ejects - watch out for flying tapes and eye injuries

Also, cassette-based media (i.e. "tape" plays sequentially, as the tape is dragged across that little metal plate thingie. This means no shuffle function, which came to the fore with CD players, and whose apotheosis is in the iPod Shuffle.

Another notable feature that the iPod has and the Walkman doesn't is "shuffle", where the player selects random tracks to play. Its a function that, on the face of it, the Walkman lacks. But I managed to create an impromptu shuffle feature simply by holding down "rewind" and releasing it randomly - effective, if a little laboured.

I really liked this, and it'd be awesome if Campbell did a whole series of such stories: I want him to review rotary-dial phones, Those giant brick mobile phones, old-school action figures, the Atari 2600... you name it.

(Thanks, boingboing!)

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stevesmys

at 11:52 on June 29th, 2009

And a gramophone!

chrisfer64

at 12:29 on June 29th, 2009

I wonder what he would think of my turntable and hundreds of records. And my film cameras. When we popped popcorn on the stove. No rentable movies, you had to read the TV guide every Sunday and plan your viewing. LOL, I love all the mod cons though!!

Paschen

at 18:25 on June 29th, 2009

This is great.

ivanjeronimo

at 17:56 on July 1st, 2009

Sony Walkman WM-172 inner parts. It was branded as a 10th anniversary edition of the Walkman brand. It does not have a built-in radio so its dimensions are pretty minimal, only slightly larger than a cassete tape.

ivanjeronimo has contributed a photo to this story.