Funny that, also first saw one in a hi fi shop around 1980. The sound
was excellent,
but they were extremely expensive at the time. (may have been $500 or
more, but I cant
be sure of this).
I did buy a Hanimex version for a much more reasonable $40 a couple of
years later to use on the bus.
From what I remember of it, it looks almost identical in layout of
controls etc to the Sony device pictured.
The first one I saw was called a "Duo" or something like that, it came
with 2 pairs of headphones so that you and your girlfriend could walk
down the road cabled together and listening to the same tracks.
Even so, I'm very surprised that Sony still made them. I would have
thought that at least people would be using the
discman players, assuming that they hadn't bought some sort of MP3
player years back. (now can be bought off Ebay for next to
nothing). I would have thought the cost of making and recording
cassettes would be many times more than CD.
I still have an original Sony Diskman that I bought in Tokyo in 1985, it
seemed so small then, although, if you wanted to use it as a portable,
you had to put it in a cradle with a bunch of C-cell NiCads that weighed
a ton (and they only lasted for 2 disks at the most).
I don't think I have seen a cassette tape for years, except at the
rubbish tip sale.
There are a few kicking around in my garage, my wife's elderly Subaru
Liberty is equipped with one of those new fangled cassette players. I
have no means of recording them anymore though, but I do have one of
those cassette adaptors that you can plug an iPod into for it which is
more convenient than the near new Forrester which has a CD player
instead so you have to use an RF modulator to play the iPod on long
journeys..
