Comment by ndiddy

The first Walkman from the late 70s was just an existing Sony portable cassette recorder (the TCM-100B), but with the mono head replaced with a stereo head and the recording functionality removed. Once that first unit proved there was a market, they were able to continually re-invest the money into miniaturization and new features so by the mid-90s Walkmans (Walkmen?) were high-quality cassette players that were barely larger than the size of a tape. All the tape enthusiasts would want a recreation of a high-end 90s Walkman, but the tooling and supply chain required to build one no longer exists and can't be recreated without the revenue stemming from portable cassette players being the predominant way to listen to music on the go for 15+ years.