I used to own a Sony Walkman that played cassette tapes. It wasn’t as brick-like and huge as the Sony Walkman Scott Campbell swapped with his iPod. It was as big as a book and cassette tapes were absolutely alien technology for Scott. It was three days of using before he figured out it had two sides. Also, it doesn’t shuffle. Scott has to be careful since Walkman’s actually destroy music…

I managed to create an impromptu shuffle feature simply by holding down “rewind” and releasing it randomly - effective, if a little laboured. I told my dad about my clever idea. His words of warning brought home the difference between the portable music players of today, which don’t have moving parts, and the mechanical playback of old. In his words, “Walkmans eat tapes”.

Scott has a number of cons going against the old cassette player. Sound quality wasn’t as good as the digital music nowadays. I totally agree with the hissing, and battery life, those AAs, just didn’t last long enough. Of course, Sony Walkmans have gone more hi-tech since then.

[read: bbc, via engadget]