Random picture thread for Friday

@Tibor said:

@1630Boston said:

Who are they?

@PerryHall knows who they are

Yesterday Matt Alt, author of “Pure Inventions” offered his insights on a YouTube “Only in Japan” livestream as to the unique importance of Sony's Walkman as it became a world wide cultural phenomenon in the 80’s and arguably led to the smart phones of today. His book explores the impact Japanese inventions have had upon the entire world. As significant as the Walkman was, it actually depended on two other Sony products that preceded it: a mono, and then a stereo, portable cassette recorder.

When I lived in Japan in 1969 Sony came out with a Walkman-sized portable cassette recorder known as the TC-50. NASA was so impressed with its small size and portability that each of the Apollo astronauts from Apollo 7 in 1969 and onward were given one to take into space where they were used both to record data and play prerecorded music. That Japanese contribution to the U.S. Space Program adds to Matt's premise as to the world wide influence of Japan's inventions.

In 1976 Sony added a stereo version of a portable cassette recorder known as the TC-D5. It became an added predecessor to the stereo playing Walkman.

The Walkman itself reached the US in 1980 as the TPS-L2 model with the name of "Sound-About" before it got quickly renamed the Walkman.)

Anecdotally it was a Sony executive who would take a TC-D5 with him so he could listen to music on long flights which led to his request for Sony to make a play only version with headphones. That led to the original Walkman in 1979. That original Walkman, like the Walkman sized 1969 TC-50 Portable Cassette Recorder from a full decade earlier, had an aluminum case although subsequent models used plastic.

I should add that I actually had one of the Walkman-sized Portable Cassette Recorders known as the TC-50 made originally in 1969. I brought it back to the US but ended up selling it while I was in college. As a piece of nostalgia I wish I still had it.

At least in Japan, Sony marketed the TC-50 by highlighting its Space connection showing it in ads being held by astronauts seated in a space capsule headed to the moon. It is more than ironic - given the consequences of both events - that its manufacture coincided with Mans’ first landing on the Moon. (Having been in Japan at the time of both the Walkman’s manufacture and the First Moon Landing, I don’t know if that same association was shown in U.S. ads at the time.)

Below are photos that I took at the time of its Space connection being promoted in Japan. Also added is a photo I took showing its then advertised price of 36,000 Yen (at the time the conversion rate was close to 360 yen to the dollar.)

@ifthevamzarockin said:
RIP

A native Chicagoan

:'(

@joeykoins said:

@ifthevamzarockin said:
RIP

A native Chicagoan

:'(

While born in Chicago .....

... became Miss La Jolla and Miss San Diego. (Graduate of La Jolla High and attended San Diego State college before she quit college and took a job as a weather girl on TV there in San Diego.)

@1northcoin said:
Is that on the shoreline where lots of houseboats are moored?

No. It's on Harbor Ave going toward Alki Point. It's in the Salty's parking lot to keep folks from going overboard after few too many pops.

men in black

@JWP said:
I took these pictures when I was assigned to the Aircraft Carrier USS Ranger in 1979 during a short port call in Hong Kong

The crowded sidewalk seen in that photo is literally what every sidewalk I walked in Hong Kong looked like. On one of my visits there was a reporting that someone jumping out of a building ended up taking out several pedestrians when she hit the ground because the sidewalk was so crowded.