Items15The creator’s order
  1. 1Regency TR-1Regency TR-1This is where carrying music around begins. The TR-1 reached U.S. stores in October 1954 at $49.95, built around four germanium transistors from Texas Instruments, and it was the first transistor radio American shoppers could buy. You could not choose the songs, only the station, but you could…0
  2. 2WalkmanWalkmanSony Walkman TPS-L2, 1979 The player that made private listening in public normal. It went on sale in Japan on July 1, 1979, for ¥33,000, and cost $200 when it reached the U.S., where buyers in 1980 faced a month-long wait for stock. What makes the first model worth knowing is how sociable Sony…0
  3. 3DiscmanDiscmanSony D-50 Discman, 1984 The D-50 put the compact disc in a bag barely two years after the format arrived. It appeared in Japan in 1984 and was the first of Sony's Discman family, measuring roughly 126 by 130 mm and only 39 mm thick. The story that it was designed to be no deeper than four stacked…0
  4. 4WalkmanWalkmanSony Sports Walkman WM-F5, early 1980s The first Sports Walkman took the cassette player outdoors, into the kind of weather and activity that would have ruined an ordinary one. Sony fitted soft rubber seals around every opening to make it splash proof, and it added a built-in FM radio. Its loud…0
  5. 5MiniDiscMiniDiscSony MZ-1 MiniDisc Walkman, 1992 The MZ-1 introduced MiniDisc, and with it the idea that you could record your own digital mixes onto a disc small enough for a shirt pocket. It used the first version of Sony's ATRAC compression and recorded up to 74 minutes, from a microphone, a line input or an…0
  6. 6MPManMPManSaehan MPMan F10, 1998 Before the Rio got the headlines, a South Korean company got there first. Saehan launched the F10 in March 1998, and it is widely credited as the first commercially released portable player that could handle MP3 files. It held 32MB of flash memory, enough for only a handful…0
  7. 7Rio PMP300Rio PMP300Diamond Rio PMP300, 1998 The Rio matters as much for the courtroom as for the hardware. Released in September 1998 at $200 with 32MB of memory and a SmartMedia slot for more, it was sued by the Recording Industry Association of America within weeks. The RIAA lost. A judge refused to block sales,…0
  8. 8Creative NomadCreative NomadCreative Nomad Jukebox, 2000 This is the answer to anyone who thinks the iPod invented the pocket music library. Creative began shipping the Nomad Jukebox in the U.S. on September 18, 2000, with a 6GB hard drive holding over 100 hours of music, roughly 150 CDs' worth, more than a year before…0
  9. 9IPod ClassicIPod ClassicApple iPod, first generation, 2001 Apple did not invent the hard-drive player, but it made one people actually wanted to carry. The original iPod put 1,000 songs on a 5GB drive in a 6.5-ounce case that fit a pocket, played for up to 10 hours, and went on sale on November 10, 2001, for $399. The…0
  10. 10IPod MiniIPod MiniThe iPod mini is where the iPod became a fashion object. Announced in January 2004, it squeezed the original's 1,000 songs into a 4GB player half the size, weighing 3.6 ounces, in an anodized aluminum body offered in silver, gold, pink, blue or green. It also brought the touch-sensitive Click…0