Before smartphones, iPods or iTunes, there was the Sony Walkman, which went on sale four decades ago. More than 400 million have been sold over the years.

The Walkman wasn’t a giant leap forward in engineering: magnetic cassette technology had been around since 1963, when the Netherlands-based electronics firm Philips first created it for use by ...

The Sony first Walkman (TPS-L2) was born: The original Sony Walkman TPS-L2, launched in 1979, revolutionized personal audio with its compact design and dual headphone jacks.

On July 1 of 1979, Sony first began to sell the TPS-L2, first known as the Soundabout and soon rechristened the Walkman. This original Walkman wasn’t the first portable tape player, but it was ...

The first Sony Walkman went on sale in Japan on July 1, 1979, introducing both a new concept in music and a device that would become an icon of modern pop culture -- a personal, portable stereo ...

In this July 2009 File photo, Sony Corp.’s first Walkman is shown at a special display commemorating the Walkman’s 30th anniversary at the Sony Archive building in Tokyo, Japan.

An '80s icon, the Walkman made Sony the undisputed king of portable music (well, until someone had to come along and ruin everything). It's natural to associate these game-changing gadgets with a ...

The Walkman débuted in Japan, in 1979, to near silence. But, within a year and a half, Sony would produce and sell two million of them. Photograph from Alamy ...

It was clunky, with big buttons and bright colors, and in the 1980s, every kid desperately wanted one. Before there was an iPod, there was the Sony Walkman, and Tuesday marks the 35th anniversary ...

The first thing he did with his was take it apart and he looked at every single part. How the fit and finish was done, how it was built." So, the Walkman's designers likely influenced the eventual ...

For a tour, check CNET's photo gallery of the Anrdoid-powered Walkman. "This is our first try to make convergence between Android products and our own technology," said Toshimichi Nagashima ...