For people that weren’t lucky(?) enough to experience the size of mobile phones in the 80s (I’ll leave the exorbitant running costs for another post), the mobilephone massif has created a cover/case for your iPhone. It’s not truely comparable to the bricks of yesteryear, but it’s the closest you will get to one (that actually still works).

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Live TV demonstrated the unit to show how even scratched discs could still play and being digital, the quality of the sound would never diminish – something laughable today but at the time it was a big selling point.

Even though it was sold as portable, the D50 (which was the first model) required the purchase of a battery pack that attached to the back of the unit which added to the sized and weight. If you didn’t use the battery pack, power was supplied by a conventional plug pack transformer.

The original discman did not like getting knocked or bumped. It was a bit sensitive and it wasn’t the type of thing you could go running with.

I still have my original D50 and after all the years it works flawlessly. Typical Sony quality! Below is a pic of my discman:

I’m sure how many different models of the discman were released, but a few years later the D121 was release. This was a much slimmer unit with additional playing functions and bass boost. Going down the ‘real’ portability path, the D121 ran on a couple of AA batteries with medium to good playing time. It also had technology in it to handle bumps and did it quite well. I found the CD rarely stopped/jumped if I knocked the unit.

I also still have my D121 and shown below is a photo of it. Again, still working as good as the day I bought it.

It is no coincidence that I post about the Discman this week. Sony has announced that Walkman will be officially retired. The last Walkmans were shipped out of Japan in April and once that batch sells out, that’s it.

Even though the Walkman was originally released in the late 70s, it was the 80s that they became popular – for many years even after the Discman was released.

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I still have most of my old vinyl records but the ironic thing is that I have nothing to play them on! That aside, I have no plans to get rid of them mainly because of the memories they hold.

Everything is back in vogue now, and some of it is even worth serious money if you’re into that type of thing.

But what if you wanted to get some of that old stuff back? Where can you get it from? Well, I have a couple of ideas to help point you in the right direction.

Have a think about it – you weren’t the only person that grew up in the 80s and had all this cool stuff (well, it’s cool now).

Ask friends and friends of friends if they have any old stuff from the 80s that they don’t want anymore. Remember, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure! You never know what you could pick up.

You could also look in classifieds etc, but I think your second best bet is to look on Ebay. Search on terms such as retro or 80s, or if you know what you are after, search on the name of the ite, you are looking for.

For a peek of what sort of 80s stuff is on Ebay, check out my page on current 80′s stuff on Ebay.

What sort of 80′s memorabilia have you picked up or kept for all those years?

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