Actually it is not a dream, it just a little desire to have something that my schoolmate have which is more cool than my cassette Walkman, however i have experience listening it, so, it is not really disappointing. What is it? It is Discman and MiniDisc Walkman.
From wikipedia again, this is the second part of Walkman history.
CD Walkman (Discman)
The first CD based Walkman was initially launched in 1984 — the D-50 (D-5 in some markets). It was officially called the 'Discman', and this name has since been used informally to refer to such players. In recent years, Sony has dropped the Discman name and markets all its personal stereos under the Walkman brand.
Later Discman models featured ESP (Electronic Skip Protection), which pre-read the music from the CD into on-board memory and formed a type of buffer to prevent the CD skipping when the player was moved. The technology was since renamed 'G-Protection' and features a larger memory area, providing additional protection against skipping.
For years, the Discman and MD Walkman were successes in the marketplace. However, newer technologies, such as flash memory and hard drive-based digital audio players have caused the CD- and MD-based Walkman to lose popularity.
Sony still makes CD Walkmans — the newer models are capable of playing ATRAC3, ATRAC3plus, and MP3 CDs, and have become progressively thinner and more compact with each revision.
MiniDisc Walkman
Initially the MiniDisc was comparable to a miniaturised CD, capable of storing up to 74 minutes of near CD-quality audio on a disc roughly two-thirds the size of a CD. Today MiniDiscs can hold music as well as data files, with the ability to record and reproduce audio in CD-quality (without ATRAC lossy compression).
MiniDiscs come in a plastic caddy protecting the disc's surface from dust and scratches. MiniDisc Walkmans are able to play and record MiniDiscs from digital and analogue sources, such as live audio from their microphone inputs. The first unit on the market, the MZ-1 was relatively large and unpocketable, but following model, MZ-R2, and subsequent MD Walkmans are quite compact, with today's MiniDisc Walkmans not much larger than the discs themselves.
Gradual improvements were made to MiniDisc Walkmans through the years. The addition of MDLP (MiniDisc LongPlay) codec allowed up to 4 times the amount of music to be stored on one MiniDisc, at the sacrifice of some sound quality. NetMD followed. In 2004, Hi-MD was introduced, enabling computer files as well as CD-quality audio to be recorded on the discs for the first time. By 2005, Sony had relaxed the restrictions in its SonicStage software to allow unrestricted digital transfers to and from Hi-MD and the computer.
So, this is the second part of my Walkman history. I hope you will gain knowledge from my post.
Mata ne,
