The Sony Watchman was must-see TV

"To understand the Sony Watchman, you have to go back. Way back. Back to when "TV" wasn't just a way to refer to any piece of content between 20 and 89 minutes, available on every screen everywhere for a few bucks a month. In 1982, when Sony first started selling its new device, "TV" was a piece of furniture. It was probably humungous, and often made largely of wood. Sony helped change all that."

"The Watchman wasn't the first portable TV - news junkies around the world had devices from Casio, Sinclair, and others that were aimed at "keeping you in the know while you're on the go" - but it had a couple of clever upgrades over the competition. The most important was the Flat Display Picture Tube, which took traditional CRT display technology and twisted it into a much smaller shape."

"Ultimately, the Watchman lasted almost two decades, but you know how the story ended. Nobody owns a "portable TV" anymore, and in fact Sony lost the race long before the smartphone came along. But in its heyday, Sony's handheld screen was a big deal. It also raised questions about social isolation and what would happen when we filled the world with screens, the likes of which we're still grappling with today. For better and for worse, the world never went back."

The Sony Watchman launched in 1982 as a compact handheld television that helped shift TV from large furniture to personal devices. The device built on portable electronics momentum initiated by the Walkman and competed with earlier portable TVs from Casio and Sinclair. Sony's key innovation was the Flat Display Picture Tube, which miniaturized CRT technology into a pocketable form. The Watchman remained commercially viable for nearly two decades while broadcast TV provided steady content. The device provoked concerns about social isolation and the proliferation of screens. Market changes and the rise of smartphones ultimately ended the era of dedicated portable televisions.

Read at The Verge