The miniaturised WALKMAN cassette player became one of the phonographic symbols of the 1980s. Introduced by SONY in 1979, it quickly became so popular that it drove almost every other model of portable tape player off the market, and the name that had been given to this one particular model was adopted for the entire category of tape players. ‘The Polish Walkman’ emerged only in 1986 and was called KAJTEK. Its exported version was named WALKER and was the first and only Polish stereo cassette tape player. As of 1986, it was produced in the Kasprzak Radio Plant. Its premiere was much delayed because the market was flooded with attractive Japanese or Taiwanese models. Despite its outdated design, it was a moderate commercial success thanks to its widespread availability – it could be bought even at newsagents (this applies to the domestic version). The GRUNDIG VCR 3500 video player is another interesting exhibit. VCR or Video Cassette Recording is the first European format of cassettes for video recorders on the 1/2" tape introduced by Philips in the early 1970s. In the VCR format and its derivatives (VCR LP, SVR), the reels are placed one above the other in one axis. The recording time amounts to 60 minutes. Note also the KONCERT tape recorder, the best Polish product that could compete with foreign tape recorders of the same class. The Koncert is probably the first Polish tape recorder in the hi-fi class that was developed in accordance with all the rules. A number of optimised features were incorporated, including separate read and write heads, which resulted in a step-change in performance, a three-motor mechanism with side motors directly driving the reels and three playback speeds: 4.75, 9.5 and 19 cm/s. It was very unlikely to spot it on store shelves in the years when it was being produced. The breakthrough event of the decade was the introduction of the COMPACT DISC by the PHILIPS and SONY electronics companies in cooperation with one another (the CD premiered in August 1982). The first CD music title was ‘The Visitors’ by ABBA. The scientific basis for digital sound processing was already in place in 1925 but the idea was abandoned due to the lack of technical capabilities. The first practical application was only found towards the end of World War II and had to do with the encoding of phone calls (Bell Laboratories). Mass production became possible when analogue-to-digital and digital-to-analogue converters became cheaper and the development of laser diodes began.