The stretch 'Walkman'
This is showcasing a really pleasing piece of tech from thirty years ago, when Sony were at the top of their game.
Unusually I’m quite satisfied with how this video has turned out, it seems to flow better than most.
It’s also got a longer than typical comedy outro which took a full day to make due to the complexity of having a video within a video. It’s the Inception of outros.
I’m posting this one quite a few days early on Patreon as the weekend seems like a good time to watch youtube.
Everyone else will be seeing this in a few days.
Comments (68)
Matt: Next time you're confronted by sticky belt residue on capstans and idlers, try a Q-tip (or whatever you call cotton swabs in England) dipped in 92% isopropyl alcohol. Change the Q-tip as soon as it gets dirty. If you're careful to stay away from the plastic and nylon bits, you can also use lighter fluid (in a well-ventilated room). Been removing gummy old seals from the film door grooves on vintage 35mm cameras (which are about the same width and depth as the grooves on your Sony's moving parts) that way for years.
Kudos to Sony: As a quality company they designed for repair, and not just for lowest-cost assembly. Take apart the typical "no-name" brand portable electronic gizmo, and you'll enjoy the exact opposite approach (as you cuss and swear).
Another Walkman resurrected from the dead. I'm amazed how often the Sony stuff still works. Love that video, it somehow reminded me of the Monty Python word association sketch.
Loved the outro sketch! Had me laughing!
Thanks Mat! Great clip :D
Dang...another super-cool piece of kit I'd never heard of. Great video.
80s shortwave listener kid and radio amateur here. :) This looks like it came right out of the middle of what is now a completely vanished market sector - "travellers wanting news from home". It's made to be briefcase sized, not pocketable. You can use it to listen to music on the plane on batteries (because the plane probably only had a pair of stethoscope-like earphones and a couple of onboard music channels, one of which went away when the film was being shown). Once you get to your hotel, it's a reliable alarm clock and you can use it to tune into the BBC World Service (or, if you must, VOA) to hear the news from London or listen to music while you study your briefs (it's a business thing, apparently). Plug in the mic and you can use it to record important meetings and conversations. This stuff was usually aimed at a fairly upmarket demographic, so I suspect that it would have been marketed as "World Band Radio" or something rather than as a mere Walkman, in a brochure of its own along with things like the ICF-2001D and so on. This one was apparently manufactured until 1991 - I've not checked, but I'd almost be willing to put money on there being a successor model which replaced the 8-band SW tuner with a PLL synthesised unit. There was always something like this in the Sony "world band radio" catalogue. Other things you'd have probably received in the box as purchased: an AC adaptor (a pretty good multivoltage unit) and the latest revision of Sony's "Short Wave Guide", a small book which provided the frequencies and times for those all-important shortwave broadcasts and which could be consulted to find, say, the frequencies for receiving Radio Australia at 5pm in India. (Essay on shortwave radio propagation elided for length.)
... and I forgot the wire antenna! A lot of Sony shortwaves included a simple wire antenna for better reception - a long piece of wire on a spool which you could string up in your hotel room or on the balcony. connected to the receiver either via an antenna socket (usually a 3.5mm mono jack, which is just weird, Sony) or via a simple coil at one end which slipped over the rod antenna and coupled to it inductively.
Hey, Mat,,, in the next video, you should talk about the Sony Walkman. That would be interesting.
Outro almost made me choke on my lunch. Very funny.
The video is really good but the outro was amazing and very true.
That comedy outro is the best one yet!
Always a great thing when a vid has all the pieces fall into place. Great stuff!!
Reminded me of the hell of a black gloopy mess I got into last year with a Phillips reel-to-reel. My solution was to just buy the same model again, but fully refurnished!
Sometimes you’ve got to know when to throw in the towel.
Zac needs his own channel.
If he does all the work on it - he’s welcome to give it a go. I’ll have to keep out of it though.
Too big to be a Walkman, too small to be a boom box.
That muppet skit was spot on! Loved it! 😂😂😂
how do you feel about the ps5 dev kit design? i feel like it has a very "old sony" style to it
I’m always happy to see ‘crazy Sony’ make an appearance. Unfortunately in recent years I’ve lost all desire to play any games.
Great repair video and excellent outro! I wonder if the people you are making fun of will watch until the end.
*pause* Where do you get those replacement bel.. https://youtu.be/Iu7vySQbgXI *ahem* To be serious: do you know if there's been an improvement in rubber belt formulations over the years, or is it likely that a replacement will eventually gum up once more? I know that alternator belts are more likely to dry up and crack, so that's at least something...
On the website FAQs he says that: “ Q: How long do belts usually last? A: Usually about 20 years. It depends on the amount of additives added during vulcanization process. I tried to avoid using too much additives for increasing the material elasticity, so I hope the belt will last longer. But who knows..” That should be enough for me.
*pause* Nice magnetic tray, that. Any link to it? Could certainly do with a few of those myself.
It’s one of these https://amzn.to/33EdFkY (Affiliated link)
It is a curious thing that most Walkmans (men?) at that time all had dual headphone jacks. In case one breaks? In case you are a conjoined twin? Sharing music with such units is almost a contradiction in terms.
It was a sharing thing. Now I believe people share their audio via their smartphone’s speaker with everyone on the bus - whether they want to hear it or not.
Nice! Not bad sounding at all. Love the title, BTW,
It does sound really good - I was pleasantly surprised. It’s not easy coming up with a snappy descriptive title. Anything longer than a few words will scroll off the screen on many devices, so I’m glad you thought it worked.
I think you should do an episode showing Zak watching Techmoan - how 'meta' would that be? Probably not at all, my teenage son tells me I never use 'meta;' in the correct context. Super repair/cleaning video, Mat. I wonder if you could easily clean the muck out of the speaker grilles - either with a mini-vac or a blower. Incidentally, I got fed-up buying expensive cans of compressed air for blowing dust off photo and computer equipment and got one of these - very powerful and never runs out. https://smile.amazon.co.uk/Dusters-EG-1000-UK-Electric-Air-Duster/dp/B073F9NY1X?ref_=ast_sto_dp
I really thought I’d cleaned everything - it was only when I looked at the video closeups that I realised I hadn’t caught it all.
Outro. Stupid autocorrect.
I think it’s because there’s no such word as outro. This time the computer is right.
Love the outright! So, I have to wonder...is the stream of consciousness, answering without thinking part a hint of what goes on at the Techmoan dinner table? I’m asking, because for me, I tend to complete my wife’s sentences with song lyrics. After 20 years together, she’s started doing it as well.
While making it I realised it’s more of a reference to a reoccurring Two Ronnies sketch.
Brilliant as usual. Or even more brilliant, especially with the outro. Good mocking of Youtube commenters :D
Very nice video and a very funny episode of the Moans. To clean dust and dirt (maybe goo, too) I use a 8-15 mm pig bristle brushes, these are quite sturdy and can be cleaned very good with IPA and/or Aceton. And they reach borders and edges much better than cleaning sticks. Maybe a try worth. PS: "Like a... - the Russian space dog?" xD
That doll in the end, looking like Bert is fainting after Ernie did something too clever ;-)
Congrats on the repair! I have never successfully repaired anything that needed a belt, usually because I can't find a proper replacement. But that's because most of the things I've dealt with have been obscure, unlike a Sony walkman. Also, when the video was over, I knew there had to be a muppet section this time because there was a lot of video left. And it was a great section too! I got the feeling you were making fun of the viewer (for commenting without finishing) and also the content-creator for constantly telling people to subscribe and hit the notification bell! hahah
Commenting in the first few seconds has seen quite an increase recently. - I’ve seen other commenters getting a bit frustrated with them with responses like “did you even watch the video dude?” - then they’ll say ‘oh, I hadn’t got to that bit yet’ It’s an unusual phenomenon. Yes the ‘hit the bell’ thing is a bit of poke - but also might remind people, so I get to have my cake and eat it too.
Loved the outro. Is Zach (Zak, Zack?) a new puppet? I don't recall seeing him before, but I know I haven't seen all the puppet videos. Where do you get your puppets and where did your appreciation of puppetry come from? Sorry if you have answered these things before. Maybe something you can talk about in your next patreon update video thing.
The original puppet story is here: http://www.techmoan.com/blog/2009/2/26/the-muppet-whatnot-workshop-experience.html Since then Dad and Zac came from eBay - discarded mementos from other people who visited the same store. Zac has appeared a couple of times before https://youtu.be/oRSp-KODVog https://youtu.be/0-VYYpZEaik The only reason I first used them was when I needed to show something that featured two people - but there was only myself in the house. I’m not really a puppeteer, however if you’re a certain age and from the UK then approximately half the characters you saw on TV growing up were either puppets, animated or stop motion. I think this must have been a very specific period in time as older people and younger people often think a puppet is silly, but to many people my age they’re as normal as anything else you see on TV. The good thing about puppets is that it’s hard to argue with them and when you see one it’s clear that they aren’t being serious. Just like a ventriloquist’s dummy (something else that was far far more common when I was a child) - they can get away with saying things that the ventriloquist definitely wouldn’t have been allowed to say.
Good video, and excellent outro, one of the best I have ever seen on this channel ! Everything is good, the writing, characters reactions and movements, definitely a great work ! 😊👍
These tiny dental brushes are from Japan, but available everywhere, and made in different diameters - would have made that dental floss job a 20 minute affair rather than 2 hours! - I use them for getting flux out from under micro-circuitry after soldering with hot air station. - www.gumbrand.com/between-teeth-cleanings/interdental-brushes/gumr-go-betweensr-proxabrushr-cleaners-ultra-tight-10-ct.html
Thanks for the tip - they don’t look all that absorbable, but I’d give them a go. Hopefully I won’t need to though.
Another lovely Sony machine. You know, when you develop a product to fill a niche in the market, you create two new niches on either side of the new product that you now need to fill--talk about Inception! It seems odd that Sony just didn't go ahead and slap a Walkman label on this item as well, but there may be corporate naming conventions that they followed.
Looking out for Linda! Was not expecting a Hue and Cry reference. Although cleaning that cassette mechanism looks like it was a labour of love!
Well done - although I suspect this humour is not going to travel well.
Great video and loved the Puppet sketch. So much so am now looking for Zak's Patreon account...
ISTR that Zak doesn't have that many videos ... but "Zak's Tech Minute" could be a lucrative sideline for Mat and maybe could even re-use footage saving some time.
I've paused the video ... did you know that ... Kidding. Have you figured out the Walkman/non-Walkman rules? Is it the speakers maybe?
I guess it’s just down to size. However it’s more than likely they also moved the Walkman goalposts a few times over the years. Here’s a Walkman with a speaker. https://images.app.goo.gl/VSPbZNt6o37MwiQH8
Great video and outro.
Sorry to say I wish all your hardware was broken and had gooey belts. I’m sure it’s quite frustrating but I love the disassembly and repair. Great video!
Love it when you are able to bring an old piece of history back to life. The outtake was spot on.
Nice work Mat - It’s an excellent reminder of how good Sony were. I don’t remember this mini-boom box but I now really want one retrospectively.
Even for the original WA-8800?
There’s a lot of factors and I wouldn’t want to put anyone off doing what they want. If you need recording then perhaps - but the WA-8000 is still big - very big for a Walkman. If you just want a portable stereo tape *player* there are a lot of more portable and much cheaper alternatives.
Best after credits show EVER. Fantastic.
Would you say that either one of those would be a good substitute to an actual Walkman? I've wanted a professional one for a long time now, but don't have the money.
It’s a nice machine - but if you wanted to carry it around like a normal Walkman you’d need one of those goth/matrix coats with an inside pocket suitable for carrying a sawn-off shotgun.
I really do love the walkman videos. being in my mid 30s a lot of these devices were around when i was a kid, but of course i had no where abouts as to their existence. Imagine going into an electronics shop and seeing the dc6, the dd33, the nakamichi dragon, all ready to purchase brand new (if you had the money). Must have been awesome. I guess i'll go over here and look at the new iphone...
Sadly even though I was around when all these things were new - the only shops I could visit erred more towards the budget end. So I still never got to see many of these things new in box and on a shelf.
Was going to like the video before watching it, now I am glad I waited. This was a doubly great video.
"The attention span of a Higgs Boson" Oh yes, I'll be using that one! :-) Seriously though - that was an interesting video, Mat and a good conclusion to your hours of cleaning. Well done.
Haha, best outro in a while, and the cassette deck repair videos are getting me motivated to fix mine up. Last time I checked, it still worked but the belts were slipping a lot. I’ll definitely be checking out those links for belts and info. Much thanks!
If you can swap them before they turn to goo it’s definitely going to be a lot easier.