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May 16, 2024 18 mins

Every time you throw in some bluetooth ear buds and go for a walk, did you know that you are following in the footsteps of the OG of personal soundtracks? The Sony Walkman was introduced in 1979 and was originally designed out of a desire that the head of Sony had at the time to listen to music on his walks! This innovation eventually lead to the Walkman with a radio built in, the disc-man, the MP3 player, the iPod and even the Microsoft Zoon! If you ever owned a Sony Walkman, you'll definitely want to check out this trip down technology memory lane - and spoiler alert - this one leads to a dead end!

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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Alex (00:05):
Kelly, what's up, man?

Kelly (00:07):
Alex, good to see you, buddy.

Alex (00:10):
You know, you know, we're about to do a dead ends

Kelly (00:14):
Oh, I love these. These are fun. Yeah,

Alex (00:17):
these are things that normally we talked about
anymore. This is when we talkabout anything. It's not a
anymore, right? Yeah,

Kelly (00:28):
we've had some fun with these with CD ROMs and photo
all kinds of fun stuff.

Alex (00:35):
So I know, we say we don't take requests. That's
requests, you've taken numberof requests. You've said that
number of requests from yourmom.

Kelly (00:48):
I think I think when it comes to this, this duo like
kind of a

Alex (00:53):
good cop. Bad Cop. Yeah, yeah. And I'm not making an
tell you we have a superlistener. Chris from Austin.

Kelly (01:04):
Oh, Chris from Austin.
Yeah, I think I've I thinkstuff. I think I know. Yes.
Yeah.

Alex (01:10):
And he recommended a subject for dead ends. That
I don't know if you have alist, but I have a list of
next one up anyways.

Kelly (01:22):
You're not only the mean one, you're also the gonna

Alex (01:26):
sound like complete kidding, Chris from Austin.
up, buddy. But it gave me alittle lift under my wings to
the people are looking for.
Chris is kind of the the, whatour of our listening audience?
Like I think of Chris When Ithere.

Kelly (01:48):
Yes. I think he even has a dirt nap city t shirt.

Alex (01:52):
the first one? He did?
Yeah, he

Kelly (01:55):
got the very first third nap city t shirt that'll
Hold on to that Chris. Justlike a just like a AOL CD

Alex (02:02):
Have you ever mentioned Patreon on here? Or is it a

Kelly (02:07):
Oh, no, no, it's not a secret at all. As a matter of
Patreon as well out fromAustin. So

Alex (02:13):
how would somebody what is Patreon? And how would

Kelly (02:18):
Well, Patreon is a way to support the show
have to pay every month for ahosting, we have to pay for
recording. And then of course,there's just our time and all
we're not trying to make abundle on this. But we're also
so if you were to go to thePatreon link, which is in the

(02:41):
join for a very small dollaramount, you would get all
get a t shirt or a stickerright out of the gate, because
least for the first few peoplewho support us on Patreon. So
just sign up and it's likethree or four or five bucks a
our show. And when we havehundreds or 1000s of you,

(03:02):
this full time.

Alex (03:03):
Hundreds of 1000s hundreds or 1000s. So if we
now hundreds with an S or B200 200 200. Since we as soon
we're both quitting our jobs

Kelly (03:19):
at three bucks. That's $600. That

Alex (03:25):
I think that's a good plan. I'm gonna go tell my

Kelly (03:28):
Yes, yes. I'm not going to tell my wife a secret. She

Alex (03:35):
Chris, and I want to talk about the Sony Walkman.
Sony Walkman. Let me just takeyou back to the mid 70s. And
up in Michigan, we used to skiand we had a family friend who

(03:57):
he skied. So he took like, youknow, the cassette players you
know, the little flat one withthe big flat ones. Yeah, with
the record button was red.
Yep. He would take one ofthat around his chest like a
suicide bomber. Duct tape thatwould put on these big cans,

(04:21):
like the ones that we'rethat kind of had in the 70s
that were heavy. Yeah, youinto the tape player and he
would play music while heis predates the Walkman by
about five years. So

Kelly (04:41):
he's playing like Sonny and Cher at this point.

Alex (04:43):
Um, I actually think he was into a band called Roxy
I do remember Roxy Music.
Yeah, yeah, he was into early

Kelly (04:58):
Sort of the earliest New Wave Yeah, yeah,

Alex (05:01):
yeah, exactly. And the thing is that even taped down
this and that tape didn't dowell with bumps anytime there
you're, you're going over itwe kind of the shock

Kelly (05:19):
probably didn't do well with didn't do well with the

Alex (05:23):
um I don't remember that I just remember it being real
wearing gloves and just havingto open your coat and then
and and then and then like Isaid whenever there was kind
skip like a record would butit would sometimes turn off.

(05:43):
would lighten would get hitYeah, just all kinds of
But at the same time he wasdoing this in our little town
Sony Masaru Ibuka was doingthe same thing while he was
to his music. Now this guy wasthe head of a big company that

(06:08):
So we asked one of thedevelopment teams to make him
to while he was on his morningwalks. Okay, they came up with
and brought it to market. Youknow what year it came out.

Kelly (06:23):
I'm gonna guess 8219 7979 79

Alex (06:30):
It came out it was a cassette player, and it sold
money would be about $680.

Kelly (06:40):
Okay, so So let me just interject real quick because I
probably was around 82 was thefirst time I saw one. And I
the campers, one of the otherkids I was, you know, I was 12
old, one of the other kids hadhad one with him. And I

(07:00):
thing. You know, he waslistening to music on it. Let
know, in portable, you couldwalk around with it, you could
whatever you wanted to do. AndI remember when I got back
was like, I really want that.
And I remember checking theand something dollars.

Alex (07:22):
It was a model. Well, that was yeah, 50 and 79. So
got popular, and everybodywanted one, and they got a
8283 Yeah, we're it's probablyover $200 Which again, in bucks.

Kelly (07:38):
Yeah. And I just remember being shocked at how
wow, this is just a cassetteplayer. But it was really the
that did it right.

Alex (07:48):
Yeah, absolutely. They thought originally that was
a month and it sold 30,000 Inthe first two months. They
they stopped production of thecassette Walkman.

Kelly (08:03):
Probably 95

Alex (08:06):
of these things are always a little later than you

Kelly (08:10):
was the last Wow. still buy a cassette Walkman in

Alex (08:14):
and it's funny because I went to eBay and checked I
expensive. If you had like,No, you can still buy one for
Walkman. In fact, you can buysome of the originals from
called Walkman yet. When theywhen they came out in the US

(08:38):
in Japan which is kind of whenyou think about Walkman is
doesn't make a lot of sense inEnglish. Now it does. Yeah,

Kelly (08:46):
you said that you said the Sony founder wanted to go
makes sense. And he was

Alex (08:52):
a man that's true. Yeah.
But it's not really an Englishthe first one was called the
sound about

Kelly (09:02):
okay, and that was a Sony product or something else

Alex (09:05):
it was the sony sound about which was the same thing
call it Walkman in Japan. InAustralia and Sweden they call
they call it the Sony stowawaybut really the Walkman is the
And and it's what we we knowtoday but I found a sound

(09:28):
$48 like an original 1979Sound about

Kelly (09:32):
it's still in the packaging or no

Alex (09:36):
gently used

Kelly (09:37):
had gently used Yeah

Alex (09:39):
45 years later it was gently is double A batteries.
that, that's kind of a gamechanger. You didn't have to
that. Just throw some double Abatteries in that thing and
million of these cassetteplayers before it was all said

(10:02):
everybody had one by the endof its run right at some at
later they came up with thethe disc man you remember the

Kelly (10:11):
Now that had a lot of problem with skipping. You
anything with that it wouldskip Yeah,

Alex (10:16):
they changed the name of disc man to CD Walkman. I
keep that Walkman brand, but Ilike describe better, they
players that are kind of stillgoing into that walk Walkman
thing anymore.

Kelly (10:37):
You remember the Microsoft Zune? I think we
talked to

Alex (10:41):
him before. Yeah. Yeah, that was kind of a failure,
introduced Walkman in theOxford English Dictionary,
really made it right. Whenjust anything to refer to a
Walkman. It doesn't have to bethe Sony brand anymore. You

Kelly (11:01):
I think with I think with older people, people are
younger. But people who grewup with that, you know, you
somebody who's listening totheir phone, you know, who has
into their phone, or your airpods, or you know, whatever
you're listening to, you couldsay turn off that Walkman,

(11:23):
Walkman. And people would knowwhat you were talking about?

Alex (11:25):
Absolutely. They ended a radio in 82. That might be the
on to.

Kelly (11:32):
So so let me let me talk about that real quick.
getting me one. And I have tosay my parents usually got me
throughout my life, when Iwanted something, we wouldn't
wait a little while and thenthey would get the slightly

(11:52):
more advanced things. So forexample, I got an A television
And then television was sortof next generation. We've

Alex (12:00):
established that you're kind of silver spoon

Kelly (12:06):
I remember when they got me the they got me a
for a certain camcorder. Andthey got me a better one that
the Walkman, they got me aToshiba, and the Toshiba.
a radio, it did the cassetteplayer thing, but it had auto
the tape and play the otherside, which I don't know if

(12:29):
had actually pop the tape outand flip it over. But also it
of a cassette tape. I wish Istill had this thing that was
the cassette slot, and it wasthe radio module.

Alex (12:43):
Remember those had like an antenna inside it?

Kelly (12:47):
I guess I don't, I can't remember what it looked
Toshiba. But yeah, I was sohappy when I got that thing.
years. Well,

Alex (12:57):
it really changed society. When you think about
listen to your own musicprivately. In fact, a lot of
about, about some of theseconstructs called like
things like this. But the ideais that you had control over

(13:18):
people say the world changedthe day that the Walkman was
how we move about our world.
Here's something that's crazy,1997, the number of people
that walked for exercisecould say it's because of the
Walkman. Or you could, youanswering this demand. It

(13:41):
might have been Jane Fonda andtalking about something coming
at the right time, andmean, you could just have
control over your own world.
for the first time out soldvinyl records. And yes,

(14:03):
portability. Yeah, of course.
Now the founder of Sony, hekind of shutting down and
putting these this Walkman on,have those in public. So he
had what they call a hotlinethese on some of the early
ones, where if someone wasbutton and had a microphone,

(14:26):
so it would, it would make thewhat the person was trained to
say to you, Hey, I like athat people would want to talk
to you and it would be rude towas removed because what
happened and we know this nowby having control of your own

(14:50):
environment and wearingbusy. And nobody does come up
to you and try to talk to youthat's a bad thing. And some
say that's a good thing. It'swith a Walkman, as you know
makes boring thingscar drive, it can be a

(15:11):
soundtrack to a boring carAnd this idea of auditors
looking is the idea that youby putting headphones on the
people don't mess with you, ininvisible. It's almost like
wearing dark sunglasses. It'ssome might say that's a bad

(15:33):
thing that we are disengagingit's control. And sometimes
when we're out in the public,engage with other people. And
this is a way to kind of mutehave a secret from the rest of
the world. They can't hearfound that people that wear
headphones tend to be morebecause they're enjoying the

(15:55):
world around them.

Kelly (15:59):
So you know, you know that when we do these
soundtrack for a boringrecording session. I'm
has headphones. Theseheadphones. Oh, don't don't
have music playing I'm reading.

Alex (16:13):
I thought you meant that we are the boring soundtrack

Kelly (16:18):
yeah. That's man. This is getting really meta, isn't

Alex (16:22):
You know, there's a statue. You remember the
ones? Yeah, yeah, there's astatue of a sports Walkman in
of the Walkman. They erected astatue in downtown Tokyo. So
add that to the list of thingswe need to check out statue of

Kelly (16:47):
also, you know the other sort of, I guess, next
quest. And then the new AppleVR headset, or AR augmented
they're calling it somethingelse is something computing.
it. I can't remember augmentedcomputing or spatial

(17:09):
they're calling it. But if youhaven't seen it, Casey Neistat
around New York City wearing aset of those glasses. And
were talking about the passthrough for audio. Now they
So you can see everything isgoing around. You can hear

(17:29):
you can also see you could belistening to dirt nap city,
videos while you're walkingdown the street and still see
It's great. It's

Alex (17:40):
kind of transparent. You can kind of see through the
right now. It doesn't make youinvisible though. It makes you
those glasses now. Yeah,

Kelly (17:51):
like a weird and standout like a weirdo. Not
sounds very positive. I thinkif I saw somebody walking down
those glasses, I think theywere more of a weirdo. throw
of course kick him. Well,Alex, thank you that that's
from Austin. Thanks for thatsuggestion. We really

(18:13):
to get you a dirty city sticker.

Alex (18:15):
All right. Take it easy, Kelly Bye.

Kelly (18:18):
All right, let's hit stop on the cassette and stop
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