Suspiciously Prescient Man Files Patent for iPod-Like Device in 1979

Why is his prescience "suspicious"?

time travel shenanigans?

It would be smart if he traveled less than 30 years back.

Goes to prove that timing and execution are more important than the idea.

I saw this device in an episode of the TV show Beyond 2000. And this was back in the early to mid 90s.

Welcome to 15 years ago?

The difference between 1970's and the early 90's is the Walkman. Personal, portable stereos wasn't a proven technology 30 years ago, it was 15 years ago. These "uuh, the future" TV-shows usually predict the future in terms of extrapolating current popular technology, sort of the guys Henry Ford said would have told him to make a really good horse carriage.

Looking at the (cassette-tape) Walkman and extrapolating beyond the limitations into an MP3-player device isn't very rocket science. Making it a marketable product is (almost).

Talk about being before his time.

I wonder if he even thought about it when that whole Napster thing fired up?

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