13-year-old trades iPod for Walkman, reports on mysterious ancient artifact

If you want to get an idea of just how fast technology moves, a brilliant piece from the BBC should help light the way. The setup is simple enough: 13-year-old Scott Campbell is given a Walkman and told by his dad that it was "the iPod of his day" -- and that's when the fun begins. Having never used or even seen the device, the young man proceeds to experience the kind of equilibrium-destroying confusion which we can only imagine the elderly first felt when attempting to set a VCR timer (you do remember what VCRs are, right?). We've collected a few of the choicest bits from the teen's observations, but we highly suggest you read the full article... you won't be sorry. Our favorite picks (direct quotes):

• When I wore it walking down the street or going into shops, I got strange looks, a mixture of surprise and curiosity, that made me a little embarrassed.
• It took me three days to figure out that there was another side to the tape. That was not the only naive mistake that I made; I mistook the metal/normal switch on the Walkman for a genre-specific equaliser, but later I discovered that it was in fact used to switch between two different types of cassette.
• I managed to create an impromptu shuffle feature simply by holding down "rewind" and releasing it randomly - effective, if a little laboured.
• When playing, it is clearly evident that the music sounds significantly different than when played on an MP3 player, mainly because of the hissy backtrack and odd warbly noises on the Walkman.

[Via Richard Lai]

[saul95 Posted Jun 29th 2009 9:06PM]

i miss walkman!! and my cd player..and mini disk! haha
i'm only 19 and this is making me feel old! haha

but walkmans do not have better sound quality then ipods!! maybe over the shuffle..or maybe if you have 64kbs mp3!!

[webterractive Posted Jun 29th 2009 11:06PM]

That's a sweet trade ipods are a dime a dozen but this thing is rare

[riotous Posted Jun 29th 2009 11:46PM]

The article lists the kids site at the end of the story:

http://netnewsdaily.com/

He's a giant nerd that writes articles all the time; hence why it appeared to be well written. Not that it was some work of art or anything; I wrote better at 13 than I do now. Constant English homework vs. working as a software developer for a decade who only writes e-mails and code comments will do that to you.

[jhowlett Posted Jun 30th 2009 12:28AM]

i've had my share of portable music players. i hated having to get batteries all the time. i had pretty much given up on portable music players by the time ipod launched because of batteries and not wanting to be distracted out in public.

[(Unverified) Posted Jun 30th 2009 9:30AM]

My daughter told me once I've had lived in the Middle Age, considering I was listening to vinyls.
Today I don't feel alone anymore. ;)))))

[(Unverified) Posted Jun 30th 2009 1:27PM]

I've a walkman with a voice recorder. Boy I'm advanced.

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 1st 2009 6:30PM]

"It took me three days to figure out that there was another side to the tape."

Seriously? I'm 16 and I've known that since I was probably 5 or so.

[jafoman Posted Jul 1st 2009 6:40PM]

This is in the desk at my office... Haha. http://img44.imageshack.us/img44/178/walkman.jpg