I mostly use it to listen to AM radio, which is great because the batteries last practically forever, well past the point that you could hear a cassette. Heavy for the job, but I like the feel of it.
It's my third walkman. My first was actually a no-name brand (yellow) and my second was a Sony with a 3-band graphic equalizer, making it just bulky enough and heavy enough that no one in the mailroom wanted to borrow it unless they had no other choice. (College job on Wall street).
The headphones are long gone. And the belt clip broke off one day while it was on my belt. And the cassette door has its problems. But I aint ready to get rid of it yet. My wife is used to it. I leave it by the door and she doesn't complain that it's there. It's my "walking music" for trips to the store.
I thought I was the only one who kept their old walkman. I also use mine for AM radio. I love to go walking and listen to Rush, or Mark Levin, or Dennis Miller.
Makes the time pass and you burn a lot of calories.
I had a Sports walkman, bright yellow, with a flip-top lid with little gaskets around the edge to seal it up and be ‘water-resistant’.
I still recall mowing the lawn and listening to Pyromania on that thing. Till it ate my tape.
I have a Sony FX-251 on my desk, right by my MacBook Pro and my 3G i-Phone. A lot of the music I recorded from FM is on tapes, and I use the Walkman and an excellent Sony desk type tape player to listen to them.
And I have a large library of 33 rpm vinyl. Just bought an Ion turntable to convert these to MP3.
Old goats do learn new tricks, but sometimes older technology is useful, too