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 the floppy disk
Shugart's initial 5.25" drive was the 35-track, single-sided SA-400, which was widely used in many early microcomputers, and which introduced the 34-pin interface that would become an industry standard. It could be used with either a hard or soft-sectored controller and storage capacity was listed as 90k (single density) or 113k (double density). The drive went on sale in late 1976 at a list price of $400, and $60 for a box of ten disks. The new, smaller disk format was taken up quickly, and by 1978 there were ten different manufacturers producing 5.25" drives. At one point, Shugart was turning out 4000 drives a day, but their ascendancy was short-lived and the company's fortunes declined in the early 1980s. Part of this was their failure to develop a reliable 80-track drive, increasing competition, and the loss of several lucrative contracts--Apple by 1982 had switched to using cheaper Alps drive mechanisms in their computers, and IBM chose Tandon as their sole supplier of disk drives for the PC. By 1977, they had been purchased by Xerox, who closed the operations in 1985 and sold the Shugart brand to a third party.