The Discmans known as Sony Discmans were portable compact disc players with battery-powered headphones. It was used to listen to music on the move. There were several evolutions in the Discman product, including the addition of radio, reception, and the ability to play recordable and rewritable discs.
Personal audio equipment such as mini radios capable of receiving SW, MW, and FM broadcasts became very popular in the 1960s. The demand for portable cassette players that allowed choice of music playback was high in the 1970s.
Sony was the first company to introduce the mini radio to the market in the late 1950s. A culture of miniaturization developed resulting in the launch of the first Sony Walkman on the market in 1980. It was a quick success because it was little larger than a tape cassette. He encouraged Sony executives to invent a compact disc player to achieve the same goals.
The first compact disc player was introduced to the market in 1982, it was called the CDP-101 and was marketed by Sony. Sony announced that compact disc technology was jointly developed by Philips, Polygram and CBS / Sony. Billy Joel’s 52nd Street was the first commercial audio compact disc and was released through the CBS / Sony label.
The head of the Engineering Development Department, Katsuaki Tsurushima came up with the idea of creating a portable CD player in 1983. He hoped to create a CD player that was no bigger than three or four CD cases stacked and sold at a price. affordable. The idea became known as the CD CD project.
In late 1984, Sony engineers managed to fit a CD player in a box slightly smaller than a block of wood. The D-50 dubbed Discman was Sony’s first portable CD player released for Japanese music lovers and Sony was confident of its cost effectiveness. The D-50 was never shipped under the Discman brand and is never the forerunner of all Sony Discman portable CD players.
CD players were very vulnerable to skipping in the early days. Since the D-50 was no different and Sony’s first portable CD player was portable only, using this first-generation Discman while on the go required careful walking, jogging, and other similar activities.
Technology did not improve significantly as the international Sony Discman models were very similar to the D-50. The Discman D-100 is slightly thinner than the D-50. Compact display technology had improved in 1987 to the point that the D-20 could offer a built-in battery compartment. Sony had produced the Discman D-66 in 1992. In the early 2000s, there was a growth in MP3 music and a significant Sony Discman design with Sony’s ‘G Protection’ anti-slip system.
The Discman nickname was dropped and CD Walkman was the new name given in 2000. During the same time, Sony introduced the ‘W’ logo made up of joined dots. The trademark remains the property of Sony, which reserves the right to revive the brand in the future.