Furthermore, in the overview image posted above, there are some lines dedicated to the DD33 and the iconic WM-2 design. This design, combined with the metal housing introduced in the WM-5, would be the base for the signature DD series, except for the curvier DD9 and DD33 near the end of the line. Joe Wada is the designer of the DD33, as is also stated on these pages. I won't quote but summarize, since you can read it its entirety yourself, end of column 3 and first part of column 4: Under supervision of Morita, the WM-2 was designed by Kaoru Sumita. He largely based it on a concept by Shuhei Taniguchi. Sumita even refers to Taniguchi as the true father of the Walkman WM-2. About Shuhei Taniguchi Born in Hokkaido, joined Sony in 1960, part of design team of Black and Silver design language in the 60s. Most notable designs: ICF-5500 Sky Sensor, ICF-SW1 radio and basic design idea for WM-2. Goal: design products for elder citizens, creating a new "universal design" to be applied to all products. About Kaoru Sumita Born in Tokyo, joined the Sony Design Center in 1972, main designer of WM-2, Profeel television and Cybershot DSC-F1. Goal: "to create good designs." About Joe Wada Born in Tokyo, joined Sony in 1986, responsible for 'Spirit concepts' in 1989, the DD Quartz (DD33), MDR-D77 headphones, WM-SX77 Walkman and CDX-99 car CD changer. Goal: "to design a tool that one would want to use forever.”
Congrats for the book ! Great summarize Emiel thanks ! Three designers of great importance : Shuhei Taniguchi , Kaoru Sumita who were responsible for the Sony WM-2 and Joe Wada in my opinion one of the most talented walkman designers ever ! I have lots and lots of files with their work but for now I'll add some key information : SHUHEI TANIGUCHI Shuhei Taniguchi in 1978 designed and awarded for a dictation cassette tape recorder concept with the exterior appearance of what we know today as Sony WM-2 , but he didn't stop there the technical specifications of the concept were even more impressive by any account ! I bet no one is prepared for this , ladies and gentlemen Shuhei Taniguchi's concept tech spec : THREE DIRECT DRIVE MOTORS , NON MECHANICAL SYSTEM TAPERECORDER 1978 ! Unfortunately the future that never was for whatever reason . KAORU SUMITA As already mentioned by @Emiel Kaoru Sumita took the basic layout and pushed the design even further but Kaoru Sumita calls Shuhei Taniguchi " the real father of walkman two ". Responsible for the exterior design as the mechanism of WM-2 was designed by Mitsuru Ida (back in this thread) . . More of his work can be found in this thread page 1 . JOE WADA To my knowledge as of at least 2018 Joe Wada was Sony Chief Design Director , for the moment I'm posting two concept walkmans that the good designer designed for us but only design elements found their way to the market in other walkmans . Probably the supposed successor of DD-9 . The haute couture walkman
Thanks for sharing @Machaneus . I believe that "stayter" / "rotar" in 3 motor direct drive memo recorder should read "stator" / "rotor". I noticed in some service manuals some translation errors, from Japanese to (phonetic) English. One I recall is labeling the "Hall" element as "Hole"; there are many others I can't find that quickly. Fire in the hole! Or hall? From WM-EX606 service manual parts list and schematic diagram: WM-EX555 parts list and diagram:
@Machaneus : can I conclude from the following paragraph it was Ichiro Hino that designed the WM-F5? After this, he designed the My First Sony portables you already posted.
Yes that is correct , although I haven't found yet a patent for "The ornamental design for a tape player as shown" , Ichiro Hino is the exterior designer of WM-F5 . In my introductory post in this thread the first drawing figure posted was the WM-F5 from Susumu Iwasawa but as mentioned in that post it concerns : "The elastic seal members act to make the exterior case waterproof and dustproof." Given the opportunity in the attachments is the first page of Susumu Iwasawa's patent and the last page with what is claimed .
I just added the EX911 to Walkman.land, including the full PDF version of the patent. Great mechanism added to my favorite Walkman (EX511/EX618).
Sony WM EX911 , what a charming walkman and a great team behind its design. Keep up the good work at walkmanland.
Haruo Hayashi seems to have designed the WM-EX7 too. I did search the forum if this was already posted, did not yield any results. Link to patent
Please allow me to add a few items I found for this prolific and influential designer in the 90s for Sony, some he co-designed: 1) the D-ES51 Sports Discman Player: https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/ca/a7/85/a177b3b1d3d64d/USD416897.pdf 2) the Sony WM-FS499 Sports Walkman: https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/e3/eb/5b/1b8fbad1491bb3/USD412173.pdf 3) Another Sony Sports Walkman, is it the WM-FS473?: https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/dc/4a/66/33a9b52021ac6d/USD412908.pdf 4) The RM-WME7, the WM-EX7 remote, I love and hate: https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/3d/aa/7f/ae00d45595dc4f/USD458249.pdf 5) Yet another Sony Sports Walkman, the WM-Fs573: https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/6c/21/2a/5ad912af8edb5f/USD428869.pdf Hope it helps!
Talking about prolific designers co-designer of these walkmans Tetsu Kataoka designed also the first digital walkman , the unique Vaio Walkman and if my memory serves me well the first Vaio laptop computer , beside these he designed super slim discmans a lot of camcorders , a goggle with build in earphones, table top battery chargers even pagers ! There are patents for all of these and more , Tetsu Kataoka deserves a proper presentation with photos , a lot of his work is represented in my collection , when time allows ...
I’ll keep this thread high up in my favorites! We are thinking of a way to add, not too obtrusive but not too hidden (like Walkman parts for now) to the site. For now, we settled on adding patents as documents, and designers as tags. It seems to do the job, at least for now.
Spoiling a bit the surprise factor for the Tetsu Kataoka presentation here are two walkmans not found in patents for @Emiel and Walkman.land , Sony WM-EX20 and Sony WM-FS400 .
