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Posted on 07/01/2009 9:06:57 PM PDT by posterchild
What better way to commemorate the 30th anniversary of Sony's iconic Walkman than to ask a teenager for some feedback on the device?
The BBC couldn't think of one, and neither can I.
I like to imagine that the experience was similar to an archaeologist rediscovering how a recently excavated artifact was employed thousands of years ago. But I'm well aware that it must have been different for 13-year-old Scott Campbell, who co-edits his own news Web site. For one, teenage impatience must have stood in the place where I fantasize scientific curiosity should have been.
"My dad had told me it was the iPod of its day," Campbell wrote. "He had told me it was big, but I hadn't realized he meant that big. It was the size of a small book."
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
I was in college when my friends and I pooled our raffle tickets at a fundraising event and together we won a walkman. The first time I put the headphones on, I thought I had died and gone to heaven. Supertramp and Vivaldi never sounded like this on my clock radio or my crummy “stereo” record player.
We all thought this prize was too extravagant to try to hang onto and share effectively, so we sold it to one girl’s brother for $80.00. My share, $20.00, was a significant amount of money to me at the time.
I guess I’m showing my advancing age. I don’t know what today’s teenagers would value as much as this, but I hope they have something that amazes them and impresses them like that Walkman did for me.
This applies to more then just teenagers. I accidentally proved this already.
A few months back I posted a thread about the death of the lady who had portrayed the Rollergirl in the 1980s Dire Straits music video “Skateaway”. I linked the youtube url for the video and she is shown wearing an early model Walkman. Several replies in the thread were discussing what that big thing was hanging on the lovely young lady.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2114805/posts
I have the Walkman MP3 player and it’s tough.Gets thrown all around my truck,takes a beating and never misses a beat.I only wish it had an expansion slot for a microchip.Creative Labs has one with XF-I that does.An 8 gig at that I might get next.
Wow. Look at that UNfaded denim. Try and find denim today that isn’t prewashed and pre faded.
Has anyone on here ever heard of “BonePhones?” I remember seeing an ad in a magazine for them and wondered what the heck it sounded like. The were supposed to go over your shoulders.
I'm still trying to get the tape out of my car's 8 track tape player........its all jammed up.
<That’s when you know you’ve found a truly great innovation - something you never wanted, but now that you have it, you don’t want to do without it.
That’s pretty good.
I teach info policy. In this and other classes, when students are asked to suggest a tech fix for a problem, I require that they also include a low tech or no tech approach as well. I like technology but don’t want students to think if it as a problem solver in and of itself, only a tool.
And yet, here I am in love with my iTouch and it does solve a lot of problems and low tech ways of doing the same thing (carrying around maps, books, tapes, etc.) just don’t hold a candle to it.
That said, screw Apple. I would never have paid $300 for one of the early iPods.
>> Didn’t he know we had to wear it while we went to and from school every day, uphill both ways in the snow?
You rich kids make me sick. You had a Walkman in the winter? My Dad took mine away every September. He sold it to buy me shoes for the uphill winter hikes to school. Sometimes, if times were good and there was work, I’d get a new one in the spring.
>> I teach info policy
WTF is “info policy”?
Talk about a great innovation...last year I bought a Logitec Squeezebox Boom internet radio. I never used to listen to a regular radio (I don't even own one), but I use this thing quite a bit. You can find almost any genre you want...my favorites are Big Bands, Blues, Bluegrass, and Smooth Jazz. Plus you can listen to your digitized CD collection stored on your computer (or dedicated server, in my case).
Ah yes. The Sony I Can't Walkman.
(didn't it come with roller-skates?)
For all the music I have on my computer, I do not have an mp3 player. Hadn’t looked into it, since I figured they were expensive like ipods. How much are they now?
You can get a cheaper one for $20-25. Of course, they go up in price to several hundred dollars. If you need or would like your music to be portable then you definitely need to get one.
With that and my Pioneer (all analog) component deck in the pickup with some nice heavy duty drivers & piezo tweeters in the doors, and a nice Kenwood unit in the car (which actually had some nice speakers factory installed), I was rockin' wherever I went.
I don't have any walkaround type stereo now. If somebody made one with a good AM/FM radio I might buy it. My ever present cell phone has a good MP3 player though I seldom use it.
#1 train in upper manhattan? i’d say maybe 207th street?
free wifi all over my city will have that effect on me.
Information policy. Policy related to information acquisition, access, and dissemination at the fed, state, and local levels. For example, HIPAA and filtering on public library computers. Also work policies regarding how people use technologies (like counting keystrokes, blocking websites, using GPS to track employee movement, and privacy in the workplace, etc.)
With Obama’s push to use paperless technologies for patient records, one of the topics we’ll be talking about is the risk of hacking, costs in terms of technology and personnel in implementing the technology, who should carry those costs, & who should have access to how much info in your patient records.
Before the PhD, I used to work in a DC think tank on these issues. Fun stuff. I like to make people aware of what the gubmint is doing behind their backs. You’d be surprised how much input these think tanks have on legislation. I don’t bring my politics into the classroom; I just try to open the students’ eyes to what is going on.
Sounds like the same one I had. I still got mine in the box it came in. Model RX-1960.
I used to wear a BonePhone while skiing. It was pretty good, but not as good as a Walkman. They also weren’t as personal, others around you could hear the music. They were good for outside stuff, but not for wearing on buses and such.
The first time I heard a Walkman was while I was playing Star Raiders on an Atari 2600. I was deep in the game, and a friend stuck his new Walkman’s headphones on me as I played. He had Switched on Bach playing. I was transported to another—electronic—world. I didn’t come back until the tape came to an end. The Zylons never had a chance.
A couple of year ago I took my old Super Pong down to our local videogame center, where kids go to rent time on PS3s and XBox360s. The owner and I decided to see what a couple of his “regulars” would make of the ancient game. We hooked it up to a TV/Monitor and showed it to them.
I saw them throwing “this is soooo lame” glances back and forth, so I taunted them until one of them picked up a controller to play me. After a while the other teen was giving him a bad time, so I said, “Think you’re hot, Halo-breath? You’re pretty tough there with no paddle controller in your hand. Let’s see you put your money where your mouth is!” and I handed him the controller.
Within a few minutes the two of them were going at it just like we did so many years ago. They were smack talking each other and having a great time playing the games on the Super Pong. All the teens that came through had to give it a try.
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