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
reliefThroughout
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.