JVC PC-100

When I think about the 80’s and portable radio culture, I realize how different the world is today. The world of sharing music in parks and on city streets now resides in cyberspace as we share in anonymity online. The radio that marked this change from public music “broadcasting” to private consumption was the JVC PC-100 a mini unit with a detachable walkman. Now you could share your music in the public sphere, or keep it private by ejecting the cassette deck and plugging headphones into it. In many ways the descendant of the walkman today is the MP3 player, the ubiquitous Ipod. Indeed, all the radios I have mentioned here were all built with the ability to plug a portable media player into them, so you can easily plug your IPOD into these radios and mix the digital age with the warmth of analogue amplification and sound.

Audio track for the PC-100