There was a time where choosing what you wanted to listen to was hard. Today as we sit in the car we listen to NPR but not on the car radio but to the NPR podcast on out phone, streamed from T-Mobile. We have come a long way.
2. Gramophone
The phonograph, the graphophone, and the gramophone emerged from the workshops of
independent inventors Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, and Emile Berliner. http:
//historywired.si.edu/detail.cfm?ID=187
Image credit - http://scienceservice.si.edu/pages/093020.htm
The gramaphone or the Phonograph allowed for cutomization.. You
bought the records you loved and played them to your heart’s content.
I never owned a Phonograph and I am pretty sure my parents have one vinyl
record from a Tamil movie.
My experience of phonographs is from neighbors who brought one from theur
travels abroad.
3. Cassette Player
Growing up in India you had yo have someone bring you a casette player from their trips outside the
country. Not only di we use this to record and play our voices and also listen to music. in casettes. I
remember Cliff Richards, Grease, Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini
I aslo used casette tapes with my Timex Sinclair computer to store games and data
Image courtesy : http://www.radiomuseum.org/r/matsushita_national_panasonic_rq_2106.html
4. All India Radio was goverment owned in India and had a show called Vividh Bharati. The popular
shows I remember are :
● Binaca Geethmala that came to us from Radio Ceylon http://en.wikipedia.
org/wiki/Binaca_Geetmala
● Tamil requests from LR Narayan
I was also an avid listenrer to BBC World Service and Radio Australia. When we sent in a
request on a post card we would get a post card in advance letting us know when our request
eas being playes.
Radio DJ’s and Music
5. CD players / Walkman
After the Casette player came the walkman. Of course this was the first mobile device i know
of. Sfter casette tapes came CDs and the Walkman adapter to CDs,
6. Mp3 Players / Hard Drives
The walkman did not disappear, it became a MP3 players.
MP3 stands for MPEG Audio Layer III and it is a standard for audio compression that makes any music
file smaller with little or no loss of sound quality (http://inventors.about.
com/od/mstartinventions/a/MPThree.htm)
7. iPod/iPhone
2001 - The first ipod came into existence http://www.apple.
com/pr/products/ipodhistory/
This was the first Apple product in my house bought for my
ddaughter/. in 2003 the millionth iPod was sold
January 9, 2007—Apple® today introduced iPhone, combining
three products—a revolutionary mobile phone, a widescreen
iPod® with touch controls, and a breakthrough Internet
communications device with desktop-class email, web
browsing, searching and maps—into one small and lightweight
handheld device.