It’s hard to believe that it has been 30 years since the very first Walkman came out. In honor of the occasion (or perhaps in spite of it) Scott Campbell gave up his iPod for a week and was asked to try it out. Some of his comments were worth repeating:

• “When I wore it walking down the street or going into shops, I got strange looks, a mixture of surprise and curiosity, that made me a little embarrassed.”
• “It took me three days to figure out that there was another side to the tape.”
• “When playing, it is clearly evident that the music sounds significantly different than when played on an MP3 player, mainly because of the hissy backtrack and odd warbly noises on the Walkman.”
• “I managed to create an impromptu shuffle feature simply by holding down ‘rewind’ and releasing it randomly.”

His dad’s comment when he told him about his idea, “Walkmen eat tapes.” P.S. We liked that hissy backtrack.