5 ms·

I've got a couple of these bad boys in my retro tech collection. I've only got a couple "books" and fewer in English. The books are much harder to find than wor

I've got a couple of these bad boys in my retro tech collection. I've only got a couple "books" and fewer in English. The books are much harder to find than working players, at least in the US. If you're thinking of getting one I don't recommend it. Finding a properly working model is non-trivial and once you do finding content is harder. At the end of the day you've got a hard to use dictionary. I didn't find out these details until I owned them. However I have a soft spot for Sony's industrial design from the 90s. I've got a couple of these, Pyxis GPS receivers, and some Hi-8/Digital-8 pieces. I think they just look cool and some I lusted after when I was younger. It's way more techno looking than their 70s and 80s ID and way cooler than their post-2000 retro-esque ID.

fumar 6y ago
Same, I love 90s peak Sony. It is amazing the amount of products they released. They had an offering for every niche.
- baybal2 6y ago
  And that was their downfall. Nobody cared for a gazillion cartridges, sticks, disks, drives etc if it all sounded exactly the same in the end.
awhitby 6y ago
This made me nostalgic for a 1990s Sony shortwave radio that I had as a kid. It replaced a much larger probably 1980s era radio that my grandfather passed on to me. By comparison this 1990s one was magically miniature - and very similar design to book reader: https://swling.com/blog/2016/09/the-sony-icf-sw100-a-miniture-dx-marvel-never-likely-to-be-repeated/ https://swling.com/blog/2016/09/the-sony-icf-sw100-a-minitur...
- giantrobot 6y ago
  Oh man that's a looker. *Sony desire rising*
- reaperducer 6y ago
  Thanks for the link to that site. I expect I'll waste most of this evening looking through it. It brought back memories of my SWL days. My favorites were Radio Sofia, Radio Habana (when playing music), and RNZI. I even sent away for an RNZI t-shirt, and was wearing it in Pennsylvania one day when a Maori recognized it and came running across the room to ask me about it. I still listen to RNZ Pacific online, but it's not the same.

fumar 6y ago

Same, I love 90s peak Sony. It is amazing the amount of products they released. They had an offering for every niche.

baybal2 6y ago
And that was their downfall. Nobody cared for a gazillion cartridges, sticks, disks, drives etc if it all sounded exactly the same in the end.

awhitby 6y ago

This made me nostalgic for a 1990s Sony shortwave radio that I had as a kid. It replaced a much larger probably 1980s era radio that my grandfather passed on to me. By comparison this 1990s one was magically miniature - and very similar design to book reader: https://swling.com/blog/2016/09/the-sony-icf-sw100-a-miniture-dx-marvel-never-likely-to-be-repeated/ https://swling.com/blog/2016/09/the-sony-icf-sw100-a-minitur...

giantrobot 6y ago
Oh man that's a looker. *Sony desire rising*
reaperducer 6y ago
Thanks for the link to that site. I expect I'll waste most of this evening looking through it. It brought back memories of my SWL days. My favorites were Radio Sofia, Radio Habana (when playing music), and RNZI. I even sent away for an RNZI t-shirt, and was wearing it in Pennsylvania one day when a Maori recognized it and came running across the room to ask me about it. I still listen to RNZ Pacific online, but it's not the same.