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.
VideoWriter
The groups that became PHIS included the Philips division that invented laser disc technology and designed the first laser video disc player (Bob Gepp was the project manager of this effort). After specifying along with partner Sony the fundamental specs for CD music and CD-ROM (the so-called Red, Yellow, and Green Books), the storage area was split off into Philips LMS (Laser/Magnetic Storage), which eventually moved from the PHIS office location to Colorado, forming the nucleus of what would become the storage products industry there. Meanwhile, the Odyssey group had finished designing the next generation Odyssey console as well as the C9000 personal computer system, which would have been the first CD-ROM-based and GUI-based Unix-family system in the personal computer industry. According to PHIS president Lou Arpino, referring to game consoles and PCs: "It's just a Cabbage-Patch Doll phenomenon"—and thus dropping all products except the VideoWRITER.