Walkman is a brand of portable audio players manufactured and marketed by Japanese company Sony since 1979. The original Walkman started out as a portable cassette player and the brand was later extended to serve most of Sony's portable audio devices; since 2011 it consists exclusively of digital flash memory players. The current flagship product as of 2022 is the WM1ZM2 player.
MiniDisc (MD) is an erasable magneto-optical disc-based data storage format offering a capacity of 60, 74, and later, 80 minutes of digitized audio.
The Compact Cassette, also commonly called a cassette tape, audio cassette, or simply tape or cassette, is an analog magnetic tape recording format for audio recording and playback. Invented by Lou Ottens and his team at the Dutch company Philips, the Compact Cassette was released in August 1963.
Digital Audio Tape is a signal recording and playback medium developed by Sony and introduced in 1987. In appearance it is similar to a Compact Cassette, using 3.81 mm / 0.15" magnetic tape enclosed in a protective shell, but is roughly half the size at 73 mm × 54 mm × 10.5 mm. The recording is digital rather than analog. DAT can record at sampling rates equal to, as well as higher and lower than a CD at 16 bits quantization. If a comparable digital source is copied without returning to the analogue domain, then the DAT will produce an exact clone, unlike other digital media such as Digital Compact Cassette or non-Hi-MD MiniDisc, both of which use a lossy data-reduction system.
Betamax is a consumer-level analog recording and cassette format of magnetic tape for video, commonly known as a video cassette recorder. It was developed by Sony and was released in Japan on May 10, 1975, followed by the US in November of the same year.
Hi-MD is a magneto-optical disc-based data storage format. It was a further development of the MiniDisc. With its release in later 2004, came the ability to use newly developed, high-capacity 1 gigabyte Hi-MD discs, in the same dimensions as MiniDisc. The last recorder and player was discontinued in 2011. Blank discs stopped production in September 2012.
The Microcassette is an audio storage medium, introduced by Olympus in 1969.
The 8mm video format refers informally to three related videocassette formats. These are the original Video8 format and its improved successor Hi8, as well as a more recent digital recording format known as Digital8. Their user base consisted mainly of amateur camcorder users, although they also saw important use in the professional television production field.
Discman was a brand name used by Sony for their portable CD players. The first Discman, the Sony D-50 or D-5, was launched in 1984. The Sony brand name for Discman changed to CD Walkman, initially for Japanese lineups launched between October 1997 and March 1998, and then entirely in 2000. Discman and CD Walkman players were discontinued at the beginning of the 2010s when they lost popularity with the general public.
SonicStage is a discontinued software product from Sony that is used for managing portable devices when they are plugged into a computer running Microsoft Windows. It comprises a music player and library manager, similar to iTunes, Windows Media Player and RealPlayer. It is used to manage the library of ATRAC and MP3 recordings on a PC.
A personal stereo, or personal cassette player, is a portable audio player for cassette tapes. This allows the user to listen to music through headphones while walking, jogging or relaxing. Personal stereos typically have a belt clip or a shoulder strap so a user can attach the device to a belt or wear it over their shoulder. Some personal stereos came with a separate battery case.
The Sony Ericsson W850i is the first 3G slider mobile phone by Sony Ericsson, introduced in Q2 2006. It is a member of their Walkman line, succeeding the Sony Ericsson W600. The phone made its first public appearance in the 2006 movie The Da Vinci Code, months before its release. It is similar mechanically to the Sony Ericsson K800i{{cn}}, but differs in form factor, use of the Memory Stick PRO Duo instead of the Memory Stick Micro, and camera quality.
Nobutoshi Kihara was an engineer at Sony, best known for his work on the original Walkman cassette-tape player in the 1970s and was commonly called Mr. Walkman in the press.
The Walkman effect is the way music listened to via headphones grants the listener more control over their environment. The term was coined by Shuhei Hosokawa, a professor at the International Research Center for Japanese Studies, in an article published in Popular Music in 1984. While the term was named after the dominant portable music technology of the time, the Sony Walkman, it generically applies to all such devices and has been cited numerous times to refer to similar products released later, such as the Apple iPod.
The Japanese technology company, Sony, engaged in a variety of different marketing efforts, as one of the world's largest and most pervasive corporations.
The Walkman DD was an early series in Sony's Walkman line of portable audio cassette players. The "DD" stood for 'disc drive', with the unit's main motor being directly coupled to the 'disc' of the capstan flywheel assembly while lying perpendicular to it within the unit. This feature was later shared with the Walkman Professional series.
The Walkman A Series is a flagship line of mid-range digital audio players (DAP) by Sony as part of its Walkman range. The A Series has been marketed since 2005, initially as the top spec Walkman players and since 2014 as a mid-range following the introduction of the ZX Series. The "A" originally stood for "All in one, Advanced, and Attractive".
The Walkman E Series is a line of digital audio (DAP) and portable media (PMP) players, marketed by Sony as part of its Walkman range. E Series devices have been marketed since 2000, although in its current form since 2008 as entry-level, candybar styled players.
My First Sony microphone
My First Sony Walkman
My First Sony FM radio receiver ICF-1 shown in the Huis van Alijn museum
My first Sony Portable Cassette Player
