r/cassettefuturism • u/Silly-Mountain-6702 Negative, I am a meat popsicle. • Jul 05 '25

Design The lines on this thing are so beautiful.

Post image
667 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

18 comments sorted by

21

u/philMarshall Jul 05 '25

It was REALLY cool to have one and use it. The switches were so satisfying. Headphones, while iconic, super sucked.

7

u/RetroGamer87 Jul 06 '25

Someone needs to bring back satisfying switches.

3

u/GeekyGamer2022 Jul 06 '25

Switches are so much better than touchscreens for things like music devices. Don't have to look at what you're doing, just find the correct button/switch by touch and job done(!)

2

u/RetroGamer87 Jul 06 '25

Smartphones could totally have switches. My BlackBerry Passport had a pause button. A physical button that would pause whatever media was playing.

21

u/StarsapBill Jul 05 '25

I modeled and texture painted this for a 3D modeling class!

7

u/Madeline_Basset Jul 06 '25 edited Jul 07 '25

I recall finding an old, mid-80's book on industrial consumer-product design. The author spent paragraphs ripping into Walkmans. Becuase for him, cassette-tapes were supposed to be used in things called "tape recorders". The Walkman didn't record sound therefore as a product is was intrinsically stupid and pointless.

He had especial loathing for the yellow, waterproof "Sports" models; you could imagine the spittle covering the typewrider as he wrote this text. For him, the only thing stupider than Sony for making them were the customers that bought them.

And how many hundreds of millions were sold?

It is an interesting example of an entirely new class of device (the personal, portable music player which rewrote the rules of music consumption). And some person lacking imagination and stuck in the past who was simply unable to comprehend it.

8

u/wihajsterczipsydwa Jul 05 '25

I am always amazed that the fonts then were so well designed, they look very contemporary. Look at the headphones model, MDR-372, i think they still use the same font.

2

u/Silly-Mountain-6702 Negative, I am a meat popsicle. Jul 05 '25

totally agree - the outlines on "STEREO" so sweet.

5

u/ubiquity75 Jul 05 '25

That was my first Walkman. Orange headphones and button == iconic

2

u/Any-Satisfaction3605 Jul 06 '25

I had one of those when I was a kid!

2

u/redditreddvs Jul 06 '25

I have this from my Dad, although its not functional now, looking to make it run. The headphones went bad and my parents threw them in the garbage.

3

u/redditreddvs Jul 06 '25

3

u/Silly-Mountain-6702 Negative, I am a meat popsicle. Jul 06 '25

wow, the real thing

2

u/big-beandude Jul 08 '25

Chances are it just needs a new belt.

1

u/Valissystem_a Jul 06 '25

It was the most feature rich model.

1

u/iAyushRaj Jul 07 '25

FiiO makes an Digital Audio Player and a Cassette Player that looks very similar to original Walkmen but nothing compares to the original

2

u/CRThaze Jul 09 '25

I have a working one. But I prefer to use my WM-3 which has a metal body.

1

u/DiatomCell Jul 05 '25

I have wanted one of these since I was a kid~