A Walkman is a brand of portable audio players manufactured and marketed by Sony since 1979. The original Walkman was a portable cassette player, and the brand was later extended to serve most of Sonys portable audio devices. Since 2011, it consists exclusively of digital flash memory players. The Walkman was created because Sony co-founder Masaru Ibuka wanted to be able to listen to music on long flights. The first model of Sony Walkman, the TPS-L2, was released in 1979, and it proved to be a huge hit. The Walkman was a revolutionary device that enabled people to create soundtracks to their lives in ways that hadnt been possible before.
The Walkman was a massive success, with over 350 million units sold, making it one of the most successful consumer electronics products in history. The Walkman was the progenitor of all the portable tape and disc music players that followed. The Walkman brand was used for its portable CD player (originally named Discman), Video8 video player, MiniDisc player, MP3 player, and Sony Ericsson mobile phones.
The Walkman was designed to be small and sturdy, and the original Walkman was created from aluminum, while later models were made from plastic. The Walkman was not much bigger than the cassette tape itself, and it was the first device that required headphones that you could wear while walking. The Walkman was initially designed to be used in tandem, with two headphone jacks and a built-in microphone. The Walkman instantly entrenched itself in daily life as a convenient personal music-delivery device, and within a few years of its global launch, it emerged as a status symbol and fashion statement in and of itself.
The Walkman has been cited to not only change peoples relationship to music but also technology, due to its "solitary" and "personal" nature, as users were listening to their own music of choice rather than through a radio. It has been seen as a precursor of personal mainstream tech possessions such as personal computers or mobile phones. The Walkman has been a significant cultural icon, and its marketing helped introduce the idea of "Japanese-ness" into global culture, synonymous with miniaturization and high-technology.
