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When the Sony Walkman was launched, 30 years ago this week, it started a revolution in portable music. But how does it compare with its digital successors? The Magazine invited 13-year-old Scott Campbell to swap his iPod for a Walkman for a week.

My dad had told me it was the iPod of its day.

He had told me it was big, but I hadn't realised he meant THAT big. It was the size of a small book.

When I saw it for the first time, its colour also struck me. Nowadays gadgets come in a rainbow of colours but this was only one shade - a bland grey.


So it's not exactly the most aesthetically pleasing choice of music player. If I was browsing in a shop maybe I would have chosen something else.

From a practical point of view, the Walkman is rather cumbersome, and it is certainly not pocket-sized, unless you have large pockets. It comes with a handy belt clip screwed on to the back, yet the weight of the unit is enough to haul down a low-slung pair of combats.

When I wore it walking down the street or going into shops, I got strange looks, a mixture of surprise and curiosity, that made me a little embarrassed.

As I boarded the school bus, where I live in Aberdeenshire, I was greeted with laughter. One boy said: "No-one uses them any more." Another said: "Groovy." Yet another one quipped: "That would be hard to lose."

My friends couldn't imagine their parents using this monstrous box, but there was interest in what the thing was and how it worked.

In some classes in school they let me listen to music and one teacher recognised it and got nostalgic.

It took me three days to figure out that there was another side to the tape. That was not the only naive mistake that I made; I mistook the metal/normal switch on the Walkman for a genre-specific equaliser, but later I discovered that it was in fact used to switch between two different types of cassette.

Another notable feature that the iPod has and the Walkman doesn't is "shuffle", where the player selects random tracks to play. Its a function that, on the face of it, the Walkman lacks. But I managed to create an impromptu shuffle feature simply by holding down "rewind" and releasing it randomly - effective, if a little laboured.

I told my dad about my clever idea. His words of warning brought home the difference between the portable music players of today, which don't have moving parts, and the mechanical playback of old. In his words, "Walkmans eat tapes". So my clumsy clicking could have ended up ruining my favourite tape, leaving me music-less for the rest of the day.

Digital relief

Throughout my week using the Walkman, I came to realise that I have very little knowledge of technology from the past. I made a number of naive mistakes, but I also learned a lot about the grandfather of the MP3 Player.

You can almost imagine the excitement about the Walkman coming out 30 years ago, as it was the newest piece of technology at the time.

Perhaps that kind of anticipation and excitement has been somewhat lost in the flood of new products which now hit our shelves on a regular basis.

Personally, I'm relieved I live in the digital age, with bigger choice, more functions and smaller devices. I'm relieved that the majority of technological advancement happened before I was born, as I can't imagine having to use such basic equipment every day.

Having said all that, portable music is better than no music.

Now, for technically curious readers, I've directly compared the portable cassette player with its latter-day successor. Here are the main cons, and even a pro, I found with this piece of antique technology.

This is the function that matters most. To make the music play, you push the large play button. It engages with a satisfying clunk, unlike the finger tip tap for the iPod.

When playing, it is clearly evident that the music sounds significantly different than when played on an MP3 player, mainly because of the hissy backtrack and odd warbly noises on the Walkman.

The warbling is probably because of the horrifically short battery life; it is nearly completely dead within three hours of firing it up. Not long after the music warbled into life, it abruptly ended.

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I'm relieved that the majority of technological advancement happened before I was born, as I can't imagine having to use such basic equipment every day.

Losonti Tokash wrote:It took me a minute to realize that by walkman he meant the tape player and not the portable cdplayer. I think the only time I ever saw one of those in person was when cleaning out my dad's storage locker

Resinence wrote:And can't forget the "10 SECONDS DIGITAL ANTISHOCK SYSTEM!!!" discman with a wired remote hah! Sony got there before apple with the new shuffle

Vertigo1 wrote:

Resinence wrote:And can't forget the "10 SECONDS DIGITAL ANTISHOCK SYSTEM!!!" discman with a wired remote hah! Sony got there before apple with the new shuffle

You mean the one with the 80 hour battery life? I have that one. It got that by caching the songs into RAM, and shutting down the motor that spun the CD.

aerius wrote:Heh, I have 2 working walkmans and a discman, plus a turntable, a vacuum tube radio tuner, and a couple vacuum tube amplifiers. About the only thing I don't have is a reel to reel tape machine and one of those big Victrola record players.

We have a couple iPods but I don't use them, my wife uses the newer one on her daily subway commute while the other one just sits around. I've tried using it from time to time but honestly I prefer my Walkman, there's no tape hiss if the recording's done properly and the playback heads are clean, and I don't need 10,000 songs on the thing at once. But I still don't have a cell phone so what the hell would I know about modern technology & conveniences?

Stargate Nerd wrote:Ah I still remember the "thin" Aiwa and Panasonic "Walkmen" my friends had. They sure were more impressive that my dad's red Sony Walkman.

Broomstick wrote:Although my sisters grumble that I can't send/receive text, there no camera, no pictures, no internet, and no ringtones - when it rings it rings like a 1950's style rotary dial phone. BRRRRRRRRING!

TheLostVikings wrote:The funny thing is, I was window shopping in bic/yodobashi camera yesterday, and despite all that stuff there being the latest and greatest, nearly all the current external drives are bigger and clunkier than my ancient discmanthingy relic. Even the plain dvd readers w/o any burning capability (and certainly no internal battery) somehow manages to be bigger than my drive, despite it being nearly a decade old... and that just blows my mind. Sony may have a history of shitty software, but their hardware engineering was always top notch.