It’s hard to think of many products as groundbreaking as the TPS-L2 Walkman. It was the first truly portable cassette player available on the market, and it paved the way for an exciting new era of portable listening.
There are a lot of reasons to love the TPS-L2. Not only was it the first ever Walkman model, but it was a joy to use. The minimal design; the tactile controls; the satisfying ‘click’ sound as you pressed the ‘Stop’ button. It even had two headphone inputs so you could share your music with a friend - “a social feature for an anti-social music device”, as described by Minimally Minimal.
The product was an instant success. Distributors struggled to cope with demand, and within ten years of its release in 1979, 50 million units had been sold.
The Walkman name quickly became synonymous with innovation. There was the WM-101, the first Walkman to come with rechargeable batteries, the MZ-1, the distinctive D-E01 ‘Discman’, the classic WM-F5 sports Walkman and, most recently, the formidable ZX2, which provides the ultimate hi-res audio listening experience.
The Walkman design has more than stood the test of time, cementing itself as one of the ultimate design classics within modern technology, while at the same time it perfectly embodying our Japanese heritage. In a 1990 BBC documentary celebrating 10 years of the Walkman, Stephen Bayley, author of Sony Design, holds one of the very first Walkmans in his hands and says: ”Anything as beautifully detailed, as small and as well-made as this could come from nowhere other than Japan.”
An enduring legacy
With such a vast history, it’s no surprise that the Walkman has now become a universal household name - in 1986 it was added to the Oxford English Dictionary, and it was a major influence on Steve Jobs when it came to designing the iPod. Its legacy has been documented in books and on fan-made websites - filled with fellow Walkman lovers getting nostalgic over the first time they laid eyes on the TPS-L2 - and its influence on the tech world is echoed in the form of incredible fan art from all corners of the world.
To this day, each product we make carries the same innovation and attention to detail that made the TPS-L2 such a success.
