The world's first portable CD player came from Sony at the end of 1985 and retailed for a whopping $800 in the US. But by this time, there were finnaly CDs available from non-classical, non-jazz modern artists like U2 and REM. Thus the slow death of the Walkman began.
I bought my first one, made by Fischer a Division of Marantz, for $350 at Crazy Eddie's in NYC. It was the summer of 1987 and it consumed half of my first paycheck from my first job after college. I remember instantly being the center of attraction during my train commutes to and from the office as people pretended not to stare at this gleaming new and bulky piece of technology.
Well, the battery could barely last 2 hours on a charge and if you tapped the top of the player, it took at least 10 seconds to recover because the read rate was x1 as in real-time, not 80x like today. And if you didn't hold the player exactly level, it wouldn't play a thing.
But hey, I was uniquely cool for at least a year.
Do You Remember Discman portable CD players?
Do You Remember Discman portable CD players?