@thismyusername I still have mine in a drawer. It forever holds the 6 songs I put on it back in 2001 because I don't have any way of changing them anymore.
@thismyusername Oh yeah, the PMP300 was the first portable music player I ever bought myself. That thing could play forever on the single AA battery, though granted with only 32mb of space you got about one CD worth of music on it.
@thismyusername I had the Rio 500. It used SmartMedia cards (always liked those), and USB (whoo!). Unfortunately, the USB mini spec hadn't been finalized yet, so it, too, uses a nonstandard cable. In ensuring that I had the model number right, I found this review, which confirmed my memory that "the Diamond Rio 500 kicks major booty!"
Does my Gameboy count if I listened to Tetris and Dr. Mario and a couple other games rather than pay attention in history? Didn't risk playing the games, but the music and sound effects got me through.
@pooflady A couple of years ago, I was going on a camping trip in an area with no cell or wireless coverage. I knew from experience that I could get a few radio stations and was planning on listening to the World Series, but I discovered the day before the trip that rusty AM/FM/Weather-band radio had died. Obviously I didn't have time to order a replacement, so I tried Radio Shack. Despite the word "radio" still being in the store's name, I couldn't make the 20-something understand what I needed. At first he tried selling me a pair of walkie-talkies, then (missing the point) told me I should try Pandora and/or Spotify. I thought I had gotten thru to him by asking if he ever listened to any local radio stations when he was driving ("oh, yeah") and I asked how one might do that if not in their car, and he replied "Go to their web site."
A portable record player that looked like a large briefcase. You opened it up by separating the handles on top which allowed the turntable part to lay flat. The speakers were then on either side of the turntable.
@compunaut No not making up... I had a silly little kiddie turntable w speakers that folded into a small snapped shut suitcase w handle type thing. Perhaps only played singles?
Re friends and me: i'm sure i had them. I remember. It's not a false memory. I spent the nite. A lot. I swear. The moms liked me also, or pretended to. Now fuck off.
Got this baby circa 1995. It played cassettes and the volume went from Loud to Loudest, but even Loudest was impossible to hear unless you were in like a library. Played the soundtrack to Oliver and Company just fine though
Transistor radios (plural, if including my classmates). 'Cause baseball playoff games, NASA launches, and Presidential visits used to happen during school hours.
Locations: under desk, in lap, in pocket, passed around, or confiscated.
@f00l PS some of my old transistor radio, and various large and small ipods, portable cd players, cassette walkmans, etc still work.
The radios, cassette players, ipods, still get used. I have audiobooks on casette that were never released on cd or digital, and i'm just too damn lazy to convert them.
@narfcake You kids and your new fangled transistory thingamajigs!! In my day, we had battery powered tube radios. They only got AM, but we were glad to have them!!
For me it was the smartphone. Not because I don't remember the time of Discmans, but because I didn't own any portable music players until I got my smartphone.
@SunnyOne99 My dad had a big blue square 8 track player with a T handle on top that you pushed down to change tracks. I was constantly taking it to be my dynamite detonator like in the cartoons and getting in trouble for it.
@SunnyOne99 The best (i.e. worst) part of 8-track players was the need to split an album into 4 roughly equal parts, because the tape length had to accomodate the longest of the four "programs". Some would re-arrange the songs to do this, and some would just keep the songs in their normal album order, often causing a single song to span 2 programs. That long awkard pause smack dab in the middle of Pink Floyd's "Money" was jarring at first, but eventually you came to accept that as normal, and when you heard it without that pause, it didn't seem quite right.
A single-speaker cassette player. It was about the size of a Wii U console (not the controller, the actual console). It was portable because it ran on 4 C-batteries and had a handle.
Transistor radio here. And I invented the mp3 player for a class project about the future in 6th grade (1988/9 - at least 4 years before the mp3 format was released). I brought in a box with a hidden tape player, some lights, and some old ICs and a socket on it. I plugged in an IC, hit play, and told everyone how in the future we would keep our music on a chip. Wish I had some of those royalties!
Also had a portable fisher price cassette recorder when i was 4 or 5. Took it to a friend's house down the street and we recorded a tape of us saying every swear word we knew. That got my mouth washed out with soap when my parents heard it. It had to have been pretty funny, though, to hear a tape of two small boys saying damn, hell, and shit and probably giggling our heads off.
Not my first, but my oldest music player I owned was a tube-type AM-only radio in my '60 Chevy. Took about 30 seconds to warm up before you could listen ... to whatever you could get on AM radio, which occasionally included music at that time.
(Portable in the sense that it could be easily moved, not in the sense you could take it anywhere you wanted.)
See I was all set to post a that my first portable music device was a Creative Nomad Jukebox... until I actually read the entire question and remembered that CDs, Cassette tapes, and the Radio once existed also. So upon further reflection, the first portable music player that I can actually remember owning was a Sony Walkman FM Radio. Man we've come a long way since then.
@Pavlov Now that i see that pic.....i had some kinda radio a much older cousin brought me from Korea (US Army). It has clips, i hooked it to the cast-iron bedframe. It worked. About the same era as sneaking radios into school for the baseball playoffs.
Some of my friends that some folks dont believe ever existed (fuck off again) made crystal radios from Radio Shack kits. And some parents went to the tube and transistor stores or the Radio Shack warehouses and got lots of raw parts and did stuff. No electronics person here, so i dont understand most of those projects.
Yet another real memory as proof positive i had friends.
Kenny Rogers and Anne Murray 8-tracks... Could be argued that it wasn't portable, but my brother and I had to share it .. so it did travel from room to room.
@Pavlov I think the original image was better.
@simplersimon
@Pavlov LOL....I watched you change that first post so many times I would think you are me.
which scares me
@mfladd
Two of you would be scary, although @jaremelz would have a blast.
@FroodyFrog Two of him, a blast? Even then, he'd never hit his targets.
@jaremelz that's because I would rather dance!
(@Thumperchick ;)
@mfladd
Abe! Let's get down, bro!
@f00l
@mfladd I have a T-shirt with this picture and the caption "'Drop Beats, Not Bombs' -- A. Lincoln"
I love how Lincoln had quotes about so many things that didn't even exist when he was alive!
anyone remember the Rio?
@thismyusername I still have mine in a drawer. It forever holds the 6 songs I put on it back in 2001 because I don't have any way of changing them anymore.
@thismyusername What is that connector?!
@jqubed the little bit is the special rio connector and the big one is a parallel port!
@thismyusername I remember using those for printers; I can't believe someone used that for a media player!
@thismyusername I had a few Rio's. I still have my Rio Volt CD/MP3 player -- great condition too!
Despite owning MANY music players (iPods, iRiver devices, and many others), one of my favorites was the Rio Karma:
I had that thing mounted in the car, and it was a godsend for my 90 minute commute. Good memories!
@thismyusername Oh yeah, the PMP300 was the first portable music player I ever bought myself. That thing could play forever on the single AA battery, though granted with only 32mb of space you got about one CD worth of music on it.
@thismyusername I had the Rio 500. It used SmartMedia cards (always liked those), and USB (whoo!). Unfortunately, the USB mini spec hadn't been finalized yet, so it, too, uses a nonstandard cable. In ensuring that I had the model number right, I found this review, which confirmed my memory that "the Diamond Rio 500 kicks major booty!"
@thismyusername
@lisaviolet
Does my Gameboy count if I listened to Tetris and Dr. Mario and a couple other games rather than pay attention in history? Didn't risk playing the games, but the music and sound effects got me through.
A transistor radio. Still have one for when there's bad weather and the electric's out. One of the first thing's I grab on the way to the basement.
@pooflady I had a transistor radio way WAY back in the day
, but I only used it for listening to baseball games, not music
@pooflady A couple of years ago, I was going on a camping trip in an area with no cell or wireless coverage. I knew from experience that I could get a few radio stations and was planning on listening to the World Series, but I discovered the day before the trip that rusty AM/FM/Weather-band radio had died. Obviously I didn't have time to order a replacement, so I tried Radio Shack. Despite the word "radio" still being in the store's name, I couldn't make the 20-something understand what I needed. At first he tried selling me a pair of walkie-talkies, then (missing the point) told me I should try Pandora and/or Spotify. I thought I had gotten thru to him by asking if he ever listened to any local radio stations when he was driving ("oh, yeah") and I asked how one might do that if not in their car, and he replied "Go to their web site."
@DrWorm These youngsters!
A portable record player that looked like a large briefcase. You opened it up by separating the handles on top which allowed the turntable part to lay flat. The speakers were then on either side of the turntable.
@AnnaB That rules.
@AnnaB
Had one of these low-rent kiddy turntables-in-a-wee-suitcase. Took it room to room, and to friends' houses.
Yeah, i had friends. Fuck you.
@AnnaB I forgot I had one of those!! I guess I need to change my post.
@f00l I think you're making this up
@compunaut
No not making up... I had a silly little kiddie turntable w speakers that folded into a small snapped shut suitcase w handle type thing. Perhaps only played singles?
Re friends and me: i'm sure i had them. I remember. It's not a false memory. I spent the nite. A lot. I swear. The moms liked me also, or pretended to. Now fuck off.
Got this baby circa 1995. It played cassettes and the volume went from Loud to Loudest, but even Loudest was impossible to hear unless you were in like a library. Played the soundtrack to Oliver and Company just fine though
Transistor radios (plural, if including my classmates). 'Cause baseball playoff games, NASA launches, and Presidential visits used to happen during school hours.
Locations: under desk, in lap, in pocket, passed around, or confiscated.
@f00l
PS some of my old transistor radio, and various large and small ipods, portable cd players, cassette walkmans, etc still work.
The radios, cassette players, ipods, still get used. I have audiobooks on casette that were never released on cd or digital, and i'm just too damn lazy to convert them.
Mine wasn't actually a Discman, it was from Philips or something.
Another vote for transistor radio. Now get off my lawn! ... or what's left of it, at least.
@narfcake
Any Glenn Miller or The Four Freshmen handy?
(Like both)
@narfcake You kids and your new fangled transistory thingamajigs!! In my day, we had battery powered tube radios. They only got AM, but we were glad to have them!!
Wow. I am so glad I'm not the only one to post having had a transistor radio (AM only) as my first portable music player.
A Casio cassette/radio player my grandparents bought me. I used it for years to listen to cassingles and tracks I recorded off the radio.
For me it was the smartphone. Not because I don't remember the time of Discmans, but because I didn't own any portable music players until I got my smartphone.
I think this was really a survey to determine our ages.
@ceagee
No kid.
All you youngsters go stand in a damned corner with your noses pressed against the wall till i tell you you can stop.
Do it now!
Why? What do you mean, why? You reminded me i'm old, that's why!
Fuckers.
@ceagee Totally. And the answer is, on average, way older than I thought.
8 Track Player + book of matches
@SunnyOne99 My dad had a big blue square 8 track player with a T handle on top that you pushed down to change tracks. I was constantly taking it to be my dynamite detonator like in the cartoons and getting in trouble for it.
@SunnyOne99 The best (i.e. worst) part of 8-track players was the need to split an album into 4 roughly equal parts, because the tape length had to accomodate the longest of the four "programs". Some would re-arrange the songs to do this, and some would just keep the songs in their normal album order, often causing a single song to span 2 programs. That long awkard pause smack dab in the middle of Pink Floyd's "Money" was jarring at first, but eventually you came to accept that as normal, and when you heard it without that pause, it didn't seem quite right.
A single-speaker cassette player. It was about the size of a Wii U console (not the controller, the actual console). It was portable because it ran on 4 C-batteries and had a handle.
@HutcH I was just reminded from an earlier post about the portable children's record player I had circa 1972 as a wee child.
The first Discman I used didn't have any anti-skip feature, so the supposed activities I was supposed to be able to do with it just never happened...
Transistor radio here. And I invented the mp3 player for a class project about the future in 6th grade (1988/9 - at least 4 years before the mp3 format was released). I brought in a box with a hidden tape player, some lights, and some old ICs and a socket on it. I plugged in an IC, hit play, and told everyone how in the future we would keep our music on a chip. Wish I had some of those royalties!
Also had a portable fisher price cassette recorder when i was 4 or 5. Took it to a friend's house down the street and we recorded a tape of us saying every swear word we knew. That got my mouth washed out with soap when my parents heard it. It had to have been pretty funny, though, to hear a tape of two small boys saying damn, hell, and shit and probably giggling our heads off.
Well technically mine was this...
Not my first, but my oldest music player I owned was a tube-type AM-only radio in my '60 Chevy. Took about 30 seconds to warm up before you could listen ... to whatever you could get on AM radio, which occasionally included music at that time.
(Portable in the sense that it could be easily moved, not in the sense you could take it anywhere you wanted.)
@smyle
60's Chevy...
I remember getting a yellow Sony Cassette Walkman that came with the single "I can't dance" from Genesis.
See I was all set to post a that my first portable music device was a Creative Nomad Jukebox... until I actually read the entire question and remembered that CDs, Cassette tapes, and the Radio once existed also. So upon further reflection, the first portable music player that I can actually remember owning was a Sony Walkman FM Radio. Man we've come a long way since then.
Channel Master 8 transistor radio with an 67 volt A battery and a D cell B battery.
Wow, I totally forgot about my Raggedy Ann and Andy radio. Thanks for this question, meh! Good memories.
I recall it was a crystal radio from General Mills, like this one. I lent it to a kid who broke it. Sigh.
http://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/NDc4WDY0MA==/z/-ikAAOSwrklVNWGg/$_1.JPG
@sligett FTFY
@Pavlov
Now that i see that pic.....i had some kinda radio a much older cousin brought me from Korea (US Army). It has clips, i hooked it to the cast-iron bedframe. It worked. About the same era as sneaking radios into school for the baseball playoffs.
@Pavlov Thanks!
@sligett I had a similar one that was a Maxwell Smart pen radio.
@sligett My first radio was a small crystal radio also. It was actually advertised in a Bazooka gum comic for 50 cents or something. It worked great!
@daveinwarsh Bring back the 50 cent radio! Now we're all fucked up with blueteeth and USBses.
Some of my friends that some folks dont believe ever existed (fuck off again) made crystal radios from Radio Shack kits. And some parents went to the tube and transistor stores or the Radio Shack warehouses and got lots of raw parts and did stuff. No electronics person here, so i dont understand most of those projects.
Yet another real memory as proof positive i had friends.
:p
@f00l Based on what we see of your current behavior, we should probably review false memory syndrome
I love you too
@compunaut
Had friends, goddam it! Was just a kid. Hadnt encountered Total Rejection yet. You can torture me, i'll never give that up.
Kenny Rogers and Anne Murray 8-tracks... Could be argued that it wasn't portable, but my brother and I had to share it .. so it did travel from room to room.
Bicycle mount AM radio
@Bingo