Sony MiniDisc Walkman Officially Retired

Oh dear god WHY?! My favorite of all formats, the MiniDisk, will be officially shunned by Sony starting in September of 2011. This news comes as a shock to absolutely noone, or at least it should, since this format has been essentially on a downward spiral into obscurity since the 90's when it first started taking a foothold. As I'm sure you've already guessed, the advent of the MP3 being played on the now still gigantic iPod line all but signed a death warrant for this mystical, magical format, and Sony's stopping production of the MiniDisk compatible Walkman will certainly knock in the last nail in the coffin.

I must admit, I've only ever really used a MiniDisk one time in my life. It was back a few years when I was still in college, going to design and art school at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. It was there that the epic interactive professor and artist Piotr Szyhalski handed the class one MiniDisk each, demanding that we use them for optimal awesomeness. In truth it was more for the devices we were using which used the disks in a unique way that allowed them to hold audio in a way that our design project called for. And that's just it – uniqueness is the name of the game here.

This is the MiniDisk Walkman, one in a long line of Walkman devices that you really should own if you wanna catch em all. Device collectors, get our your pocketbooks, you may be in for a bidding war against the rest of the ebay collectors soon, or, more likely, you'll be getting a device for next to nothing much sooner than you think. Demand has diminished, and since they were introduced in 1992, they've only really been popular in Japan.

Now I ask you: have you ever used a Walkman of this caliber before? Or better yet, do you STILL own one and use it to this day?