Yoshiro Nakamatsu
Among Nakamatsu's early inventions is the Shoyu Churu Churu, a siphon pump used in the home to move soy sauce from large containers to smaller vessels for cooking and serving. His patented inventions include:
Based upon a patent issued in 1952, Nakamatsu claims to have invented the first floppy disk well before IBM's floppy disk patent was filed in 1969. However, what Nakamatsu patented in 1952 was a paper for optical sound player. In contrast to a floppy disk, this Nakamatsu patent discloses the use of printed paper for storage instead of the magnetic material of a floppy disk. It is not rewritable and lacks most elements of the IBM floppy disk patent. Since the paper was 'floppy' material, he claims he had invented the floppy disk (sometimes he uses the phrase "floppy media"); however, it should be noted that flexible magnetic recording media was well known prior to 1952, in tape and wire recording.
History of science and technology in Japan
The Roland D-50 is a polyphonic 61-key digital synthesizer, produced by Roland and released in 1987. Its features include Linear Arithmetic synthesis, on-board effects, a joystick for data manipulation, and an analogue synthesis-styled layout design. It was also produced in a rack-mount variant design, the D-550 (1987–1990), with almost 450 user-adjustable parameters. The D-50 saw widespread use in popular music, with a distinctive sound that largely defined popular late 1980s music. Today, the D-50 is still highly popular as affordable vintage synth. It has the highest score by users of all synths at VintageSynth. The D-50 was the first affordable synthesizer to combine sample playback with digital synthesis, a process that Roland called Linear Arithmetic synthesis.What may have been the first floppy disk, or magnetic disk sheet, was invented by Yoshiro Nakamatsu at the Tokyo Imperial University in 1950. He received a Japanese patent in 1952, and a 1958 American patent, for a magnetic disk record sheet. Nippon Columbia planned to commercialized his magnetic disc sheet recorder in 1960. He licensed a number of patents to IBM, reaching licensing agreements with them in the 1970s.