After retiring the floppy disk in March, Sony has halted the manufacture and distribution of another now-obsolete technology: the cassette Walkman, the first low-cost, portable music player.
The final batch was shipped to Japanese retailers in April, according to IT Media. Once these units are sold, new cassette Walkmans will no longer be available through the manufacturer.
The first generation Walkman was released on July 1, 1979 in Japan.
Although it later became a huge success, it only sold 3,000 units in its first month. Sony managed to sell some 200 million iterations of the cassette Walkman over the product line’s 30-year career.
Somewhat ironically, the announcement was delivered just one day ahead of the iPod’s ninth anniversary on October 23, although the decline of the cassette Walkman is attributed primarily to the explosive popularity of CD players in the ’90s, not the iPod.
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(Source: Mashable / CNN)
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5 Responses
What a shame! Cassettes are much better than CD’s for listening to shiurim. Cassettes stay in the same place when you shut them off. You can take them out and put them into another cassette player and pick up where you left off — not with CD’s!
Also, they can be handled easier without worrying about scratching.
We want cassettes back!
so sad… although honestly? – I agree that there’s no need for walkmans anymore!
#1, you are 100% right. Of course, cassettes had problems of their own: getting caught in the mechanism, for example, but the problem of scratches on CDs is much more prevalent and reminds me of the records of once-upon-a-time.
reminds me of the records of once-upon-a-time.
They are not so once upon a time. I was recently in a very large book/music store and there is an enormous display of brand new LP records – the display said that they have all been re-released from the “vaults” of the record company. Everything old is new again. I have been told that true audiophiles believe that the clearest sound comes from vinyl.
other companies till make cassette players