On July 1, 1979, Sony introduced the first Walkman and was sold for around $150.00, total sold a cumulative 200 million units. Sony predicted it would sell about 5,000 units a month, it sold more than 50,000 in the first two months. Its release changed the way I, we listened to music, allowing the world to hear the favorite songs everywhere.
Masaru Ibuka, Sony's co-founder, traveled often for business and would find himself lugging Sony's bulky TC-D5 cassette recorder around to listen to music. He asked Norio Ohga, then Executive Deputy President, to design a playback-only stereo version, optimized for use with headphones. Ibuka brought the result — a compact, high-quality music player — to Chairman Akio Morita and reportedly said, "Try this. Don't you think a stereo cassette player that you can listen to while walking around is a good idea?"
On June 22, 1979, the Sony Walkman was launched in Tokyo. Journalists were treated to an unusual press conference. They were taken to Yoyogi (a major park in Tokyo) and given a Walkman to wear.
Mid July my father brought me one, probably one of the first in Europe, with a demo-cassette containing all kinds of sound effects favoring stereo sound, including the passage of a jet, from left to right, making most people ducking down.