Sony walkman

Last week, Sony announced it would be ceasing production of its cassette Walkman after 30 years. The original Walkman, which debuted in 1979, sold over 200 million units in its history.

Since then, the Walkman has given its name to many Sony personal, portable players like this waterproof model perfect for working out and the latest colorful release, currently only available in Japan.

Obviously, the demand for cassette players is gone, much less the demand for a portable cassette player weighing ten times as much as a typical portable digital music player. It's certainly become an icon in gadget history, even inspiring at least one modern MP3 player's design, not to mention its effects on headphone design. Still, it's always a sad day when a beloved gadget goes the way of the 8-track. Perhaps the Walkman will some day make a comeback similar to the record player.

Source: Flickr User edvvc

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Sony is getting ready to drop two new Walkman devices this Fall — the S Series and the more affordable E Series. The S Series features an FM tuner, a 2.4-inch LCD screen, iTunes, and codec support, and a stellar lithium ion battery, which is said to last 42 hours. It will be priced at $110 for the 8GB and $130 for the 16GB.

Meanwhile, the E-Series has a smaller screen (only two inches), will support a variety of file types (unfortunately not H.264), has a battery life of 10 hours, and will cost $80 for the 8GB model and $100 for the 16GB.

The S Series will be coming in stores this September, while the E440K kit will be available for purchase in October.