Taking It to the Streets: A History of Portable Music

It has been over 50 years since music first went portable. It caught me by surprise when investigating the history of the iPod that its predecessors are vast and date back much further than I originally expected. In Van Morrison's song, "Brown Eyed Girl" the lyrics, "Chasin' down the old man with the transistor radio"give us the first real glimpse at music portability. In March of 1957 the Sony Corporation launched the TR-63 Pocketable Transistor. This audio device was literally small enough to fit into your pocket. It was the first transistor radio to be commercial shipped to the U.S. and sold for 39.95. The TR-63 was so popular it never met demands for its supply in the U.S. and was sold out virtually for its lifetime. Mary Bellis of "About.com" attributes the Casette Tape to be the first real predecessor to the iPod but I contend that portability from a music device had been very present even from the late 1950's with the first portable transistor radio.

In 1964 Sony initiated a movement towards "reel-to-reel" technology that used a magnetic strip to create frequencies which were then amplified by a power source. This was our first glimpse at live recording technology and was in the form was what today is called analog. The company worked to perfect this technology from magnetics on a paper strip to digital technology and focused more on positively and negatively charged atoms to create this frequency. This technology would later become referred to as digital technology. While experimentation and research was being done with this technology much also was being done to make this new cassette tape technology portable. One of the sincere draw backs of the Pocketable Transistor is that head phones could not be used with it and so you had to be in a quiet place to hear what was being sent out. As cassette tape technology began to sky rocket so too did sales for the 1980's coined "Boom Box". The Boom Box was a personalized Pocketable Transistor on steroids. For the first time DJ's at house parties could record their music and take it to the streets for other people to listen. They wanted the "Boom Boxes" louder and louder and it became a huge trend in urban cultures. One could see that a need for a portable and personal device was much needed and the commercialized Walkman was born.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e84hf5aUmNA&feature=player_embedded#at=629

In 1979, Sony introduced the Walkman it was a lighter, more portable, cassette player that came with only two AA batteries and 50 gram as opposed to a 400 gram pair of headphones with the same audio qualities as the much larger head phones. As soon as the technology for the portable cassette tape hit the commercial market in the U.S., Sony dropped another bomb; the Compact Disk which offered soaring audio qualities with the use of a laser and a diode and a playback of more than one hour. Less than 3 years later that technology had been made portable and in 1984 the D-50 the world first portable CD player was made public. Sony, true to form would try to improve on the CD technology by creating the minidisc in 1992, but CD's would dominate the market until the introduction of the first solid state portable mp3 player.

The birth of the mp3 player was only made possible in the wake of the vast explosion of the computer technology of the 80's, 90's, and 00's. The mp3 player held a chip inside that could store data and save data that was far more extensive than any tape or cd player could. The mp3 player began to move forward but it wasn't until Apple released its iPod that sells for mp3 players soared. Apple had tapped into the market and got in touch with its target. The iPod had a personalized feeling to it, and ease of use, and a screen that made looking for any particular song enjoyable for the user. I believe that iPod gained the head of the pack in demand because of its willingness to take this technology to the people instead of constantly expecting the people to find the technology.

http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/CorporateInfo/History/SonyHistory/index.html

http://gadgets.softpedia.com/news/History-of-the-Portable-Audio-Player-046-01.html