Talk:Walkman

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Does anyone know the original list price of the Sony Walkman?

This page[1] says it was Y33,000 in Japan, which at the time was around $130. -- Paul Richter 12:27, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)

In the UK, the original blue-and-silver, two headphone Walkman (Stowaway) retailed at £99. --Pete 14:32, Oct 20, 2004 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Walkman Inventor

The real Inventor of "Walkman" is Andreas Pavel: http://www.applereport.com/apple/german-inventor-may-sue-a.html

Agreed.. an article was just posted to Slashdot noting that Pavel won his court battle against Sony, and his right to claim the title. http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/12/16/news/profile.php 72.131.44.247 17:15, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
Andreas Pavel may have invented the first portable personal stereo player but he did not invent the actual "Sony Walkman" which is the subject of this article.
His invention was never produced (except as a prototype) and was never sold commercially.
He never worked for Sony.
Sony likely had no knowledge of his device when it created the first Walkman.
He actually just owned a patent that he claims gives him rights to any and all portable stereos.
In fact, he lost the court case in Britain. He later agreed to an out of court settlement with Sony in exchange for not filing cases in other countries.
He claims his patent also includes portable MP3 players so in effect he also claims to be the inventor of the iPod.
The name "Walkman" is a registered trademark of Sony Corporation.
That`s false! Sony knew of his invention but they declined to take it, later they produced their own portable using constructional details from his invention. 62.178.137.216 (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 16:54, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Can anyone provide a picture of an early cassette based walkman? I think that an image of an MD walkman is unsuitable.--Malcohol 12:53, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I most heartily agree. I changed the picture ... HarS jan. 26, 2005

Shouldn't it be mentioned that the term "Walkman" is often used for all kinds of portable music machines, even when they aren't manufactured by Sony?
Agreed. I'll give it a first shot.
Yes, it's become a generic term despite being a trademark for one brand.

[edit] Photo

I have never posted on wikipedia but I found an image of the walkman at http://www.ieee-virtual-museum.org/media/DGiAeMFPgy2e.jpg Check it out. I don't know if it is copyrighted material but I doubt it.

[edit] Walkman revival trial in the 90s - name

In the 90s, Sony tried to revive the walkman with a line of products that had a wide variety of designs to appeal to collectors. Those devices were simple yet expensive - does anybody know how they were called? I think it had 4 letters and sounded something like "yipy". Thanks :-) Peter S. 14:10, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Walkman Photo Suggestion

The photo of the TCM-S68V is probably not the best example. This model was not part of the Walkman line. It's not even a stereo unit. Sony's cassette Walkman model numbers begin with a "WM".

Also note the WM-3EX debuted in 1981, not 1983. And Sony did not celebrate any sort of public Walkman Anniversary until 1989. And Sony's first wireless walkman was the WM-505, sold in 1988. My source is "The Walkman Book" by World Photo Press, (c) 1999.

Hope this helps!

[edit] Original Idea

The original idea of the Walkman actually came from Ray Bradbury's seashell radios found in Fahrenheit 451. A Sony inventor read about them and later invented the Walkman.


[edit] TPS-L2

My model does not have the WalkMan logo. I purchased this in the US Army Audio/Photo Club in Germany in 1980. The headphones have orange pads (rather disintegrated at this point) and it came with a nice leatherette case. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 14:47, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The CD Walkman® Player "D-NExxx" models

Can somebody make a more consistent coverage of the D-NE920 and D-NE20 models?

[edit] Phones

Do we really need all these models of phones listed separately? The technological differences between them are mostly negligible. --G0zer 01:35, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pressman

In this article, the word Pressman is employed several times. But I didn't see exactly what is it (I think it's a particular device but not sure) ? Can anybody try to explain me or create the article Pressman. Thank you 16@r 14:47, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

According to Morita's autobiography Made in Japan, the Pressman was a mono tape recorder with a built-in speaker. The walkman product differed from the pressman thus:

  • Walkman was stereo - Pressman was mono
  • The original Walkman could not record - The Pressman could record
  • The Walkman came with headphones and had no internal speaker - The Pressman had an internal spearker
  • The Walkman was really small - The Pressman was larger
  • The Walkman was for the general public - The Pressman was for news reporters as well as secretaries' use
I've approximately had an idea about what it could be, but I wasn't sure. Thank you for your explanation. 16@r 22:02, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] MiniDisc Compression

Whoever wrote this..is wrong. Minidisc ALWAYS employed ATRAC compression. MDLP brought ATRAC3 to the system, an improved version of the original ATRAC compression used on Minidisc. Even in the early days the ATRAC encoders and decoders saw improvement, which casual naming lead to confusion between ATRAC revision 3 and ATRAC3, which were two totally different formats.

NetMD really only added the ability for a user to transfer tracks over USB using a painfully slow process, it's not really a major upgrade to the format, as netMD units used MDLP for the music content. Discs recorded using netMD could be played back in standard non-netMD MDLP players (but not standard ATRAC)

[edit] Walkman Pro

The section on the Walkman Pro is not quite right. The original Walkman Pro was the WM-D6. It was a few years later -- alas, I don't recall the exact year -- that Dolby C capability was added to create the WM-D6C. (I have one of both models. They still work! I will see if I can get a good photo of the D6 to place on the page.) ScottBurson 18:36, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Free image available

This image: Image:NW-E507.JPG is available and I believe it may be useful in this (or another similarly related article). --MECU≈talk 20:56, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wrong! "The player supports ATRAC3, WMA, MP3 and AAC"

The NW-A1000, NW-A1200, NW-A3000 players do not support MP3. They only play ATRAC3. The other formats have to be converted to ATRAC3. The only software that can convert to ATRAC3 is Sony software that runs on Windows only. The only way to play music on these devices is to use hook them up to a windows box running the Sony software. Very very limiting. 1) you can't pass music to other people; 2) other people can't pass music to you. You're locked in. Billy no-mates. Pgr94 10:13, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Update: from firmware version 3.00, AAC format is supported. Pgr94 23:55, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Brand new section

I moved the paragraphs about the controversy over the origin of the Walkman concept to a brand new section. The title is not very good and I didn't do anything to the text, so it still needs some work. Tomhormby 23:10, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Significant Reorganization

I'm reorganizing the article like the iPod:

   * 1 History and design
   * 2 Criticisms
   * 3 Patent disputes
   * 4 Sales
   * 5 Industry impact
   * 6 See also
   * 7 References
   * 8 External links

Comments/concerns? Tomhormby 19:18, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

  • I began the reogranization. I'll rewrite some of the sections to conform to the outline I made. It will require a criticism section to be written, which will concentrate on the seclusion of PAPs and SonicStage/ATRAC3. Otherwise, not many changes will be needed. Tomhormby 19:28, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The Latest Walkman = advertisement?

Rewrite it please. Added neutrality tag. DDRRE 17:34, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sony Walkman B100 Series

Don't forget to add this to the article, a new DAP from Sony, the Walkman B100 Series, more info? check this webpage http://www.atraclife.com/2007/04/25/sony-to-release-b100-series-drag-and-drop-walkman/ --MarioV 18:07, 30 April 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Unsourced statements in Patent Controversy

I removed a paragraph from the unsourced statements section. It refers to some one having invented, and patented, the personal stereo in 1974. I have searched for the given patent number and the inventor and found only copies of this page and one article repeated on several forums. It was placed in August 2006 by an IP user who appears to have inserted various other spam-like statements in other articles.

Of course, if someone can actually find the referenced patent, by all means add it back in. Stattouk 01:30, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fair use rationale for Image:Sony Walkman.svg

Image:Sony Walkman.svg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images uploaded after 4 May, 2006, and lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.BetacommandBot 04:49, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Shouldn't this be a disambiguation page?

The word 'walkman' has 2 distinct meanings:

1. Walkman: the Sony brand

2. walkman: a generic term for a personal stereo casette player

Sony no doubt aren't happy that walkman has become a generic term, but that's the fact of the matter. In terms, of common usage I think that 'walkman' as personal stereo is more common than Walkman as a branded range of various Sony products. Certainly, the term personal stereo casette player is hardly ever used by anyone over the term walkman.

Thus is makes sense for a disambiguation page to separate these two meanings. Alternatively, allude to the two meanings in the introduction and link to Personal Cassette Stereo. Compare Kleenex.


Macgruder 02:59, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] SONY D-50

The Sony D-50 referred to in this article under DISCMAN was released in the UK in 1984 but was not, in my understanding, officially known as the DISCMAN. The one I have is called "CD Compact Player" and has this printed on its top cover. It was powered by mains electricity using an AC adaptor to provide the operating 9-Volt DC supply. The CD player was attached to the AC adaptor along its top edge and the adaptor also had two phono sockets to provide Left and Right channel LINE-OUT audio to an external source. For portable use there was a robust battery case, the "Battery Case EBP-9LC", which either contained six disposable C-cells or a rechargable battery. A flying lead connected the AC adaptor to the battery case. Battery life was limited to a few hours only.

The next model in production, which may have been called the D-50 Mark II, was, as far as I remember, the first to bare the name "DISCMAN". This model, from memory, did in the spirit of Walkman devices, have the batteries integral to the unit.LONDONUSER (talk) 23:00, 2 March 2008 (UTC)