Before Cassettes And CDs, Boomboxes Played Vinyl


MP3s, compact discs and even cassette tapes made our music portable, but before they arrived, vinyl records were pretty much the medium of choice. And with a little help from Sharp, people were still able to enjoy those giant (relatively speaking) 12-inch discs wherever they went with this impressive old-school vinyl bombox.

This beast, known as the VZ-2000, was released in Sharp in 1982. And while it includes a cassette slot, its real appeal was the front-loading vertical record player. Not only did it provide skip-free playback, the boombox was also capable of playing both sides of a record without needing a flip. That mind-blowing innovation was probably the 1980s equivalent of pinch-to-zoom for us. [YouTube via Boing Boing]