Hasta La Gadget!

Shocking news, the death of the Walkman–almost certainly because, like most of the rest of the developed world, you likely weren’t aware that Sony still made the branded music player whose name has long been synonymous with portable cassette players.

The player, which had been in production since 1979, has remained on sale in the company’s native Japan, in recent years. Sony apparently unceremoniously ended production on the once-popular player back in April. Once all of those players are sold out, that’ll be the end of the thing.

In its 30 year existence, Sony sold more than 220 million units–not too shabby, especially given the fact that nearly every electronics manufacturer created its own, nearly identical version of the player. In recent decades, the player’s success had been eclipsed, first by CDs and then MP3 players like Apple’s iPod.

I’m not going to get all nostalgic here–there’s plenty of such sentiment floating all over the Web this morning. Let’s face it, the cassette was never the ideal format. It was clunky, had low-fidelity, and often got tangled up during playback. In retrospect, it feels like something of a stopgap between vinyl and the compact disc.

It was, however pioneering in its promise of mainstream consumer portability and recording. It was also the chosen format for a generation of budding music lovers. Maybe it’s worth pouring one out for yet another fallen format, after all.