Remember the Sony Walkman - a walk down memory lane.

[Brandane]

Note the lack of a pause button. When taping multiple songs off the radio you either had to record the massive "clunk" of the stop button or switch it off at the wall. First time I saw a pause button I thought it was wizardry.

Then along came cassette players with a radio built into them, and you could record direct from the radio. No background noise on your recording of the Sunday afternoon top 30 on radio 1. Life was complete! 😄

 

[Deleted member 1258]

Then along came cassette players with a radio built into them, and you could record direct from the radio. No background noise on your recording of the Sunday afternoon top 30 on radio 1. Life was complete! 😄

I used to cover the tape player and radio with a towel to reduce the background noise.

 

[Arrowfoot]

The inventer of the cassette tape has passed away.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-56355444

I don't know why but I loved the cassette tape in the physical sense. It was small and came with a protective cover with labels that you write on. My favorite brand was TDK. It was also a way to get the girls in school to notice you. Sadly I did need help.

 

[Moodyman]

Surely, I can't be the only one who used a Bic biro to rewind/fast forward the cassette to save the batteries?

 

[raleighnut]

I don't know why but I loved the cassette tape in the physical sense. It was small and came with a protective cover with labels that you write on. My favorite brand was TDK. It was also a way to get the girls in school to notice you. Sadly I did need help.

big fan of Maxell, the XL II were/are fantastic for a 'type II' (chrome) cassette but for general use the TDK D90 was good as were BASF
Still got Cassettes I recorded 40 years ago that play fine.

 

[Moodyman]

I don't know why but I loved the cassette tape in the physical sense. It was small and came with a protective cover with labels that you write on. My favorite brand was TDK. It was also a way to get the girls in school to notice you. Sadly I did need help.

Ahhh...yes, TDK C60 and C90. They had that iconic sign in Piccadilly Circus so must have been good. I believe the sign has now been removed?

 

[Electric_Andy]

I never had a Sony.
My first one was a cheapo rip off. Only 3 buttons, play, stop and FF.
It took another few years before I got one with a rewind and graphic equalisers 😁

Me too. Mine was an Alba IIRC. It was still great though. I saved up and bought an actual Sony when I was about 14 which had dynamic bass boost, and was much smaller.

 

[MontyVeda]

Note the lack of a pause button. When taping multiple songs off the radio you either had to record the massive "clunk" of the stop button or switch it off at the wall. First time I saw a pause button I thought it was wizardry.

Or take out the tape and rewind it by hand about half an inch and pop it back in... taking advantage of the distance between the erase and record head could make for some really tight mixes

 

[fossyant]

I bought myself a decent walkman in the end - had a couple of el-cheapo ones. All metal construction, 5 band graphic equaliser, auto reverse yadda yadda. Not much bigger than the cassette box.

This one !

 

[Bonefish Blues]

When i first joined the Feds as was in Kennington for 3 months I bought the top bollards walkman, all electronic servo controlled mechanism, remote controls in the headphone cord, barely bigger than the cassette itself. IIRC it was 150 odd quid even back then.

The Walkman Pro was a mainstay of the broadcast industry reporter for many years, as I recall. Still command very strong money s/h.

 

[Brandane]

Then along came cassette players with a radio built into them, and you could record direct from the radio. No background noise on your recording of the Sunday afternoon top 30 on radio 1. Life was complete! 😄

Although I had forgotten that radio 1 was on 247metres on MW, so how we were supposed to know what was background noise on the recording or just MW static, I don't know! Was that a nationwide thing; no radio 1 on FM until the early 80's? I remember when they did start to broadcast on FM, you could actually make out the lyrics on songs .

 

[MontyVeda]

My first personal cassette was a Lloytron (very cheap, very basic)... couldn't find a picture of it but did find this page

'Auto stop' is a feature!

 

[mustang1]

I had a Walkman 2. I recall the sleek design, the slanted control buttons, and especially the two headphone jacks. What a beautiful little device that was.

 

[HMS_Dave]

Yes I had one similar. Even when the first cd players came out I stuck with tape. The early cd walkmans used to scratch my cds and skip every 3 seconds. The later ones had mitigated the skipping by essentially pre loading some of the song into memory before playback. I also remember the Ill-fated minidisc players. I remember arguing with a friend at the time that they were a waste of money... They weren't cheap!

 

[MontyVeda]

Yes I had one similar. Even when the first cd players came out I stuck with tape. The early cd walkmans used to scratch my cds and skip every 3 seconds. The later ones had mitigated the skipping by essentially pre loading some of the song into memory before playback. I also remember the Ill-fated minidisc players. I remember arguing with a friend at the time that they were a waste of money... They weren't cheap!

had it not been for MP3... the mini-disc would have gone a lot further. Far superior to CD for music on the move and for lovers of the 'mixtape'... the mini-disc was a fantastic bit of kit.