How about today?

What can I say? Ever heard of an Ipod?


How about a Zune?

Not so much? Well either way, Compact disk technology paved the way for innovating for smaller, easier, more convenient music. Before Walkman, there was Discman, and before that record players. Every piece of technology, no matter how useless it is now a days sets the path for something better in the future.

The components

This is what you get when you remove the 4 small screws of a 1991 portable disk player. Above you'll see the 5 main components of the Discman. The first being the rather large screen in the front, which is controlled by the motherboard below. Speaking of the motherboard, thats the green chip that everything else is planted on. Signals from certain button strokes, or electrical imputes travel through the different components to make everything work.
<------------- Here you can easily see the cover, which contains part of the 3rd main component, the buttons. Each physical button on the case, is linked to a small post that moves down when pressure is applied to the button, this then presses the small black button on the motherboard, telling the different components what to do.

This is the 4th main component, the laser reader. Some of the earlier form of CD's were actually called laser disks simply because they used this same form of laser reader, on a small moving mechanism. The laser shines onto the bottom part of a CD, reading it, and sending signals, once again, through the motherboard.
Lastly there's the battery compartment, and standard power jack. Either one of these will power the entirety of the device.

The Discman

This is the portable disk player from Sony or, better known, the Discman.
While the Discman shown here was one of the newer releases, the original, first, Sony Discman was released in 1889, making my model a 1990 or 1991. This new peice of technology also drove the Compact disc, or CD sales through the roof.
 Before the Discman the Sony Walkman which was used for listening to cassette tapes, and was first released in Japan.
Prices varied from 350$ for larger, higher quality versions, to 175$ for smaller simpler versions (I picked mine up at MCC for 5$)
Obviously once mp3 and digital forms of music came to consumers, the discman became obsolete, and Discmen were forgotten.