Who? Kozo Ohsone, Masaru Ibuka and Akio Morita.

Er, who . . . ? These Sony personnel comprised the general manager of the Japanese electronics giant's tape-recorder business division, co-founder/chief adviser and co-founder/chairman respectively.

Did the public go for the invention immediately? You betcha! Within two months the initial batch of 30,000 had been snapped up by those keen to add such hi-tech wizardry to their collection of cutting-edge accessories to flaunt: multi-functional calculators and digital watches. Two years later, 1.2 million units of the TPS-L2 had been sold globally.

How basic was this original model? Very. Forget auto-reverse, radios or microphones, which were all innovations for the next decade. The original listeners were just happy to be able to use and parade their chunky Walkmans and headphones about town - and hey, flipping the tape over to hear the other side might turn a few heads.

So when was it realised the Walkman was no passing fad? Probably when the next model, the considerably lighter WM-2, was launched in 1981, swiftly selling 2.5 million units and landing itself in noted French dictionary Petit Larousse as a noun. 'Walkman' made its entry into the Oxford English Dictionary in 1986.

What interesting technical developments occurred? Apart from those mentioned above, an even lighter and more robust sporty version was introduced in 1983, becoming an instant hit with joggers. The first CD version was available way back in 1984, which makes the advent of wireless remote controls seem a little late in 1990. With audio cassettes on the wane by the end of the 90s, the mini-disc player launched in 1999. There was yet another addition to the family when a year later the first digital Walkman was born.