Seen via Slashdot: The BBC asked a 13 year old to give up his iPod for a week and use a Walkman instead. Here are some of his reactions:
“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.”
“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.”
“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 I managed to create an impromptu shuffle feature simply by holding down “rewind” and releasing it randomly – effective, if a little laboured.”
“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.”
“The tapes which I had could only hold around 12 tracks each, a fraction of the capacity of the smallest iPod.”
“The Walkman actually has two headphone sockets, labelled A and B, meaning the little music that I have, I can share with friends. To plug two pairs of headphones in to an iPod, you have to buy a special adapter.”
Ah, the memories. I remember my first car sound system: a portable cassette player (a Zenith or a Craig) that I sat on the seat, and connected via an audio in to something that bypassed the radio speakers. My ham radio friend build me the car power adapter, which attached with a heat sink and magnet under the dash.
