A What-man?

[ShriDurga]

The BBC asked a 13-year old to put away his Ipod and try using a cassette Walkman for a week. Among his comments:

It took me three days to figure out that there was another side to the tape.

To read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8117619.stm

[Abby Normal]

I thought the comment about the Metal/Normal switch being a genre-specific equalizer was much funnier.

Edited June 30, 2009 by narp

[Giant_Rick]

It took me three days to figure out that there was another side to the tape.

I don't know if to cry or to laugh!

I'm 17, but I used to use walkmans long before the CD player (my first one in 2003).. and we, who grew up without that technology, were not that lazy and silly.

That guy seems a lazy and spoiled one.. lucky us who grew up last century!

Btw my walkman back in the school days (when I was maybe 6) was the most technological thing.. and it was like Holy Grail for everyone!

[brian10161]

Ah man, some of the youth of today (Younger than me anyway) are not too keen on learning much of anything are they? I use to have an old Sony tape Walkman. It was a Sony Walkman F1 (Exactly the same one that is pictured in that article by the way ). It was a fairly large player, 4 AA batteries, probably about 1 1/2" thick, but I'll tell ya, they don't make stuff quite as strong as that anymore.

That thing is still going actually, and I used it when I was around 5 or 6 until maybe 12 or 13 when I got a Sony CD player. So it lasted with a young kid for approximately 6 years. I use to get my dad to make me tapes on his stereo then I'd take that thing with me everywhere. I loved the idea you could get sound from a thin piece of plastic tape on two reels, and with that player the sound quality was pretty good if you ask me.

It did't have any form of Dolby NR or anything, but my Dad's deck in his stereo has Dolby HX Pro. Cassettes and MD's go hand in hand in my books

Edited June 30, 2009 by brian10161

[tekdroid]

Dumb

This is the equivalent of whipping out the first iPod and comparing that brick to today's models. Bah.

It seems every mainstream article goes out of their way to exaggerate differences and pick sides, or laugh at some bygone era or fashion.

Yet I am laughing at what's selling today, in many ways.

I love the sound of many older Walkmans with a good tape (TDK SA or similar) and I've never experienced bad battery life or 'warbling'...which I presume to mean obvious wow & flutter. Non-issues.

Size

Plenty of tape Walkmans as far back as 15 years ago (older than that kid) were farrr smaller than the one they chose (and he can see them on ebay with a simple search for Walkman), so points to them for picking something truly hard-to-get and large to emphasize a point (?).

I doubt 99% would choose their crapPods over a good tape dubbed from CD or vinyl on a half-decent unit, sound quality-wise. Plenty of older units sound damn great.

Storage

just a few short years ago 128MB, 256MB and 512MB flash-based portables were common. Why doesn't this article compare how many tracks you can get on those to how many you could get on tapes?

What am I getting at?

Technologies are not talked about fairly or given the respect they deserve.

Instead these so-called journalists and so-called kids go out of their way to present 'caricatures' for people to laugh at in mainstream media. Each have advantages and disadvantages, but when they dumb it down with articles like this, presumably done for so-called entertainment and advertising hits more than reasoned discussion - it really annoyes me. Especially when the closing paragraph makes it out to be an iPod versus Walkman comparison. Please.

The article also sounds nothing like that kid wrote it!

Yes, all this means I take stupid articles like this way too seriously...but...I'm just sick of caricatures.

Great technology not given the respect it deserves all under the banner of "OMG, it's so big and old!"

"I created a makeshift shuffle feature!" Please.

Caricatures. Dumb.

Has nothing to do with the youth of today either, but rather the same old tired mainstream media mantra:

bring in more advertising revenue.

make headlines where there are none.

Sensationalism.

Contrast this-versus-that (unfairly)

Etc.

Just once I'd love to see them point out that stuff fairly - and maybe even mention that the stuff selling today is designed for disposal. Silly embedded batteries and fixed-storage flash media that often do little more than haave to last out their warranty period. Bah x2. Tapes have feelings, too! I say that without ahint of nostalgia! (haven't used tape Walkmans in a while)... just purely on the grounds of "Enough fricken caricature reporting!".