Introduction On December 22 1981 Mitsuru Ida applied for patent the designs of a tape transport mechanism for cassette tape player, assignee was Sony Corporation ,among the many designs for the various parts of the transport mechanism fig.22 is of particular interest : Right, the infamous (for all the wrong reasons) dd center gear ! If it wasn't the breaking plastic part of the gear due to age we probably wouldn't give any further thought to that part of an otherwise brilliant tape transport design. So the father of the dd center gear was Mitsuru Ida or we should call it the Ida Center Gear ?! The Idea I always try to find information for people who make things that I like ,movies ,video games ,music , cars and more or less there is plenty, things are getting tough when you enter our hobby . When I hold my beloved walkman or boombox I like to know who and what else has designed, in this topic you'll be able to see what I have found so far and in the future. The Inventors Most of the information was gathered from patent applications where the designers ,technicians etc are referred as "inventors" which oddly enough I find more appropriate . The Inventions In patent applications there are no model designations (e.g. Sony wm10) only descriptions, so let's start : Susumu Iwasawa on January 26 1984 applied for patent. From the description: "The elastic seal members act to make the exterior case waterproof and dustproof." ................ Mitsuru Ida - Minoru Shimada May 31 1984 , patent title : "Battery Holder Of Single Head Minimum Size Cassette Tape Player" ................ KAORU SUMITA Patent title: TAPE PLAYER Inventor: Kaoru Sumita Assignee: Sony Corporation Filed: Dec. 2, 1983 CLAIM : The ornamental design for tape player, substantially as shown and described. ................... Ichiro Hino Filled July 24 1985 ,patent title "Tape player" Patent filed March 17 1989. Title : Combined Radio Tuner and Tape. Inventors : Ichiro Hino Patent filed: October 28 1987 Title: Cassette Tape Player Inventors: Ichiro Hino - Masayoshi Tsuchiya Patent filed: October 13 1989 Title: Tape Player Assignee :Sony Corporation Inventors: Akiyoshi Okada - Ichiro hino
KAWASE DESIGN STUDIO From Atsushi kawase Design Studio comes one of my favorite ,rare, top performance and least known walkmans the Sony WM-DX100. Date of patent 15 June 1999 , "Audio Disc Player Combined With Radio Receiver and Cassette Recorder" Assignee Sony Corporation Inventors Atsushi Kawase - Keitaro Tsuboki : This design looks similar to Sony CFD-S47 only with double cassette mechanism. More interesting stuff from Kawase Design Studio at :http://www.kawasedesign.com/top_e.html
Some great information here. I like the fact that all the drawings are obviously hand drawn. I don't know if people have looked at the Sharp service manuals but some of them have superb isometric drawings of the units showing all the parts which are a work of art for the technically minded. I am not sure what some of the patents are about e.g the My First Sony. They look more like design copyrights to stop other companies making blatent copies of the Sony equipment. Reading the names I think it would be fascinating to see pictures of the designers. Were they young guys in their twenties or Sony veterans with many years of designing behind them ? I just checked on Wikipedia and Akio Morita was 58 when the Walkman (as name he apparently hated) was launched.
You're right in many cases you can read something like : "CLAIM :The ornamental design for a tape player, as shown and described." or "CLAIM:The ornamental design for a combined radio tuner and tape player, as shown" which is the exact patent description for the two My First Sony walkmans above. Indeed that would be fascinating ! Although too difficult to find any information but there are exceptions ! Just stay tuned.
TAKASHI SOGABE Takashi Sogabe was born in Tokyo in 1960 ,received wide media attention at the launch of the Playstation Vita when was found that he was also involved in walkman design. Occasionally ,that time, was credited for the first walkman, the TPS-l2 of 1979 but Sogabe joined Design Center of Sony Corporation in 1983. In charge of over 80 design projects in 2007 joined Sony Computer Entertainment and was involved in the design of the Playstation3 system. He won the red dot award 2008 Best of the Best award, and IDEA award 2008 Gold Award with the Portable Reader System PRS-505. Sony's web site in a bio credited him for a "transparent walkman" and a "beautiful walkman" ,the WM-504 and the WM-EX5 sadly that link seems that no longer works. ................ Title: COMBINED TAPE PLAYER AND RADIO TUNER Inventor: Takashi Sogabe Filed: May 17, 1988 Assignee: Sony Corporation Date of Patent: Sep.18, 1990 ..................... Patend filed:November 21 1988 Inventor: Takashi Sogabe ............... Patent filed: May 15 1997 Inventors: Haruo Hayashi - Takashi Sogabe ................ Patent filed :October 4 1988 Inventor: Takashi Sogabe .............. Patent filed: January 24 2012 Inventors: Kenji Sakakibara - Takashi Sogabe - Kazuya Wakabayashi ............... Patent filed:April 5 2013 Inventors: Takashi Sogabe - Yasuhiro Otori .............. Portable Reader System PRS-505 Red dot award 2008 Best of the Best award IDEA award 2008 Gold Award Here is an extraction from the interview of Takashi Sogabe at the Red Dot website. The interview is about the red-dot award for the Portable Reader System PRS-505 but in this question the good designer expresses his philosophy and inspiration in design. You can still read (recommended) the whole interview in the link below. Interview with Takashi Sogabe : http://en.red-dot.org/2870.html What is the design philosophy behind all the products you create? Takashi Sogabe: The source of my designs are all the things that catch my visual attention every day. When I see something that appeals to my eyes, like a car, a building, or a nicely decorated room, somehow I’m able to grab hold of its design details or elements, and store them away in my mind. Then, when I have to work on a project design theme, some of those design elements come back to me one after another, creating images that become a new product. It’s a bit like a chef being given some fresh and attractive ingredients – suddenly ideas for a great meal come to mind. I think that’s part of being a designer to keep storing design elements in your mind, and have them ready for use. ...............
Thank you sickly_b for your generous comment ! Really appreciate it ! Thank you all who find this topic interesting! The purpose of this topic is to give credit to people that have made ,years now, our lives nicer even in small details like the feel, the look ,the crisp clear sound or the positive feel when we press the play button of a well designed tape transport mechanism of the devices we listen to music.
This is an amazing thread. Thanks Sotza! Design is what made Sony's products stand out. The WM-2, F5, 10... they set the standard for everyone else to follow.
Great thread, very informative thanks Sotza. Any chance you could source information on WM—7. One of my favorite model which I always regard its design of the future alongside with the soft touch logic mechanism and auto reverse. I will salute the designer for his amazing ideas to this Walkman!
@bub Thank you bub! So glad you like it! Indeed it comes as no surprise that Sony is dominant in that field as they brought portable music to the masses. Though is not exactly my choice that so far the information is only for Sony. This kind of information is scarce even for Sony, you can imagine for other makes,nevertheless I have gathered some but I need to find more with a rather significant historical importance that will be included later on. @Ken80s Thank you Ken80's ! Actually I'm scanning the web !Manually, which is time consuming, if it is out there and find it will posted here immediately .WM7 is one of my favorites too and actually the one I would keep if I was forced to choose only one! @retro Thank you Retro!
This is a glorious topic which reminds me of the gorgeous articles TheLion used to write in the old site. I wish I could do the same on the subject of boombox designers. I had, in fact, opened a thread on this point in the old s2go, only to find out that (1) the question had already been investigating, to little avail, by member Lasonic TRC 920; (2) with all his expertise, even him had come to the conclusion that the names of most boombox designers, at least those of the 70s and 80s, are pretty unknown (there are several reasons for that, but it's not the case to discuss them here). Please don't stop digging up new information sotza. Your contribute is unvaluable, which makes me think that "Walkman Designers" is right now in pole position for a nomination as thread of the year
Alerady made this topic as a sticky one. Glorious topic. This is a similar site from (miles) boomboxcreators for those who want to have a look. http://boomboxcreators.org/
You guys are so wonderful people ! Thank you all for your kind comments ! @samovar I'm honored this search reminded you TheLion he is really missed and I had the opportunity to tell him that personally in the old forum, he still can be found at his wonderful blog :http://personalhifiblog.blogspot.gr/p/aiwa.html You and Deech are among the most passionate boombox experts/collectors I know but have no fear I'm a boombox collector too and there is no way to miss anything important or not so important, already have included what was found . The title of this thread "Walkman Designers" is just a priority not a limitation as you have already seen with the inclusion even of a portable reader system ! Definitely I will not stop digging (even if I wanted I can't ) ,the real enemy here is my very very limited time. As for the thread of the year ....you are so so kind. Thanks again! @deech I'm so lucky to have friends like you, not a compliment, actual fact !Thank you Dimitri ! @Boodokhan Thanks Boodokahn! I'm so glad a passionate walkman collector like you appreciate this thread !
A small pause until I prepare the next installment,as soon it is ready and when Mela my assistant and layout supervisor give it a go it will be posted here.See you soon.
In The Beginning :" The Osone Troop" The year is 1978 .On the 2nd floor of the building once known as the "Shibaura Factory",located in the ocean side of Shinagava, is the "Tape Recorder Department",a small branch belonging to the Audio Headquarters at the time.Internally the Department was referred as the " Osone Troop",fondly named after their leader, Kouzo Osone. The young engineers in their 20's and 30's worked hard under Osone,a man well known for his broad mindedness.The team was always filled with excitement and the relationship that was developed among the individuals exceeded the realm of a "team" ."Family" is the better word in describing the air of respect the engineers had for each other. This patent document under the name Koozo Oosone from June 11 1969 already shows an autoreverse mechanism with some interesting features. In the text I'm using the spelling Kouzo Osone as is found in the English translation of the source article from the special edition Japanese magazine "Mono" for the "20 years of the Walkman",author :Megumi Yanahara. SHIZUO TAKASHINO One of the men who build the first walkman model."It surprised us that such a small device could produce such a high quality sound I guess that our surprise was directly conveyed to the customers ",says Mr Takashino.He said that he was able to experience the valuable moment when the creation of the Walkman coincided with the wave of "personalisation" of the music.He still does not forget the Sony's motto "do not be afraid of failures". Shizuo Takashino who used to be a member of the Osone Family, recalls the days he spent at Shibaura : "Everyone enjoyed their work from the bottom of their hearts .The budget was tight,but we created new products like children playing with toys.It might have been closer to playing than working. We used to gather up in cheap bars near-by and pass the night away.Nothing bad was ever mentioned about our bosses, ironical in the fact that it was something commonly practiced in the Japanese company.[ probably translation error of the magazine and Takashino said "Japanese industry"Ed.]. If someone came up with an idea, we'd converse and debate over it... and that basically became our daily routine." Next day Osone remembered what was said the night before and simply stated, "Let's give it a shot"."When you make something ,the next idea just flows out of that process .It couldn't be rationalized.We gave birth to something that would have been impossible to conceive by just sitting at a desk." Takashino ,who joined Sony in 1962 ,was one of the members that witnessed the historical development of the cassette recorder.When entered Sony ,his boss commented on his height."Since you're so small,maybe you should handle small products ",was what he was told. That was how he became a member of the Open Reel Development Team.Takashino was of course recognized for his ability and his boss was only joking,but an episode such as this one conveys the openness in the workplace.He participated in designing the open reel tape recorder ,and then took part in designing the mechanics of the "TC-100". The birth of the walkman was only a matter of time.Takashino recalls: "In those years of the Osone Troop ,the stuff made whatever they wanted to make,regardless of marketability .But our boss never stopped us from doing so .He in fact encouraged us.He even told us to forget the mistakes we made.Take baseball ,you'll never hit a home run if you tried to bunt ,but if you take a full swing, you'll either hit a home run or strike out .Sony allowed us to take the full swing ,even if the ball ended up in the catcher's mitt." This freedom allowed ,among other factors, was essential in driving the team.In the autumn of 1978, Masaru Ibuka (Honorary President at the time),the founder of Sony said the following : "I'm going on a business trip again and I wish there was a stereo type cassette player that I could listen to on the plane." Ibuka always carried a recorder , the TC-D5, on his business trips. The portable TC-D5 , one of the "Denske" series,came out in 1978 , and was popular among fanatics of live recording .Ibuka connected headphones and used it,but it weighted 1kg and thought of it as being too heavy for portable use . So ,Ibuka asked Norio Ooga (theVice President at the time )to make something more compact and Ooga then talked to Osone. The Osone team tried hard to surprise Ibuka with an amazingly compact device. It was during that time when Ibuka visited the Osone Troop unexpectedly.Although being on top of the pyramid of Sony,he often visited his staff like that. The staff was never nervous in front of Ibuka and welcomed his sudden appearances.They were chances to show Ibuka the prototypes they were working on. During this particular visit ,Ibuka took note of the Pressman [the BM-12 as I believe : http://stereo2go.org/forums/threads/tps-l2-the-missing-link.1272/ Ed.] had been modified by one of the engineers ,Toshio Asai .Asai was nicknamed "the electrician" because he materialized products out of junk. He integrated a stereo pcb into the Pressman and pierced a hole next to the headphone jack,modifying it for stereo use. But it was merely the toying of the Osone Troop and Asai made for himself to enjoy his own music. This modified Pressman impressed Ibuka. He took it in his hands and listened through the headphones the loud sound .Impressed by the device he repeatedly said," this is good, this is good". The Osones tried to finish the product before Ibuka's trip .Since they used a special battery ,it run out during Ibuka's trip.In any case Ibuka seemed to like the product. [At this point the original article continues with the story of how the decision to build the Walkman was made , very interesting but out of the purpose of this topic.Ed.] After the decision was made a team of six formed the mechanical section in which Takashino was included. Takashino recalls : "We had no time at all.We could not even build a new mould ,so we thought of doing our best with the mould of Pressman. We had the feeling that this stereo cassette player was something new ,something that never existed before .We could feel now how the first model could change the world.That was why we believed we could not fail.If something unexpected occurred ,the entire concept would be demolished ." 500.000 Pressman had already being sold at that time so they were confident in utilizing the Pressman's mould .Even if the first model looked similar to the Pressman they could improve in the following models.But the first model was bound with the mission of presenting the new concept to the world .That was the feeling that was shared among the development team. Takashino continues : "Technically ,it was quite feasible .But we were not confident if the playback only machine would be welcomed by the market.The owners of electrical stores all agreed that it would not sell.But we finally focused on making that it will have only the playback function.The most difficult thing with the first model was making the decision not to include other functions." It was true that there was no previous example of a tape recorder lacking the recording function that sold well in the past .And an engineer is bound ,instinctively, to create better models with versatile functions.But they did not.
Andreas Pavel It was February 1972, he was in Switzerland with his girlfriend, and the cassette they heard playing on their headphones was "Push Push," a collaboration between the jazz flutist Herbie Mann and the blues-rock guitarist Duane Allman. Andreas Pavel was born in Germany in 1945, in an interview, at New York Times in 2005 still remembered when first tested his invention : "I was in the woods in St. Moritz, in the mountains," he recalled. "The snow was falling down. I pressed the button, and suddenly we were floating. It was an incredible feeling, to realize that I now had the means to multiply the aesthetic potential of any situation." He initially called his invention the stereobelt ,which he saw more as a means to "add a soundtrack to real life" than an item to be mass marketed. "Oh, it was purely aesthetic," he said when asked his motivation in creating a portable personal stereo player. "It took years to discover that I had made a discovery and that I could file a patent." Patent title:High Fidelity Stereophonic Reproduction System Filled : May 19 1981 - - - - - "I filed my first patent a complete innocent, thinking it would be a simple matter, 12 months or so, to establish my ownership and begin production," he said at the house where he first conceived of the device. "I never imagined that it would end up consuming so much time and taking me away from my real interests in life." Over the next few years, he took his invention to one audio company after another -- Grundig, Philips, Yamaha and ITT among them -- to see if there was interest in manufacturing his device. But everywhere he went, he said, he met with rejection or ridicule. "They all said they didn't think people would be so crazy as to run around with headphones, that this is just a gadget, a useless gadget of a crazy nut," he said. In New York, where he moved in 1974, and then in Milan, where he relocated in 1976, "people would look at me sometimes on a bus, and you could see they were asking themselves, why is this crazy man running around with headphones?" Ignoring the doors slammed in his face, Mr. Pavel filed a patent in March 1977 in Milan. Over the next year and a half, he took the same step in the United States, Germany, England and Japan. Sony started selling the Walkman in 1979, and in 1980 began negotiating with Mr. Pavel, who was seeking a royalty fee. More details in his interview at New York Times :http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/17/w...ter-made-earphones-a-way-of-life.html?mcubz=0 Andreas Pavel was certainly a visionary man and officially the first Walkman Designer.
Tetsuji Nakazawa - Toshio Asai We met Toshio Asai as the "electrician", a member of the Osone Troop ,who had a key role in the creation of the first walkman. This patent appears to be about a distinctive feature of that first walkman the Hot-Line. The patent provisions also a recording machine. Patent title: RECORDING/REPRODUCING APPARATUS WITH SELECTIVE ATTENUATION OF REPRODUCED SIGNALS TO FACILITATE COMPREHENSION OF EXTERNAL SPEECH SIGNALS Inventors: Tetsuji Nakazawa - Toshio Asai Assignee: Sony Corporation Patent filled: February 16 1982 BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION This invention relates to recording and/or reproducing apparatus and, more particularly, to such apparatus which is portable and relatively small and, preferably, is used with headphones for audibly reproducing signals that are recovered from a record medium. Specifically,the present invention is directed to an arrangement for use with such apparatus whereby the signals that are recovered from the record medium are selectively attenuated so that external signals, such as may be produced by a microphone, are superimposed onto the attenuated signals, are reproduced by the head-phones, and are easily comprehended by the listener.In signal reproducing apparatus, such as portable magnetic tape playback devices, or central magnetic tape playback devices, head-phones may be provided to enable one or more listeners to listen to a reproduced audio program. While listening to this program, if a listener wishes to converse with another individual, he may not readily comprehend what is being said. If the listener does not remove his head-phones, the reproduced audio program interferes with his comprehension, and there is a tendency for the listener to raise his voice when attempting to converse with the other individual. This problem is further pronounced if two listeners,both listening to reproduced audio programs via headphones, attempt to converse with each other. Also, if the listener is listening to musical selections and wishes to sing along therewith, he often will shout in order to produce loud enough speech signals that he can perceive. It is believed that the aforenoted problems can be overcome if the listener is provided with a control arrangement whereby the reproduced audio program is selectively attenuated.
Hisao Ito Boombox, walkman, neither, both ? Whatever you call it a beautiful little machine from Sanyo and Hisao Ito. Inventor: Hisao Ito Assignee: Sanyo Electric Co Ltd. Filed: Dec. 31 1981 Date of Patent : Apr. 9 1985 Title: SYSTEM FOR SECURING COMBINATION RADIO AND TAPE RECORDER BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [part.] The present invention generally relates to a combination appliance in which a main appliance is combined with an auxiliary appliance, with the main and auxiliary appliances being arranged to be usable independently of each other and more particularly, to a coupling/uncoupling device for use in the combination appliance. conventionally, in combination audio appliances, for example, it has been so arranged that a radio set as the main appliance is combined with a tape recorder as the auxiliary appliance in the case of a radio set equipped with a tape recorder or a tape recorder as the main appliance is combined with a radio set as the auxiliary appliance in the case of a tape recorder equipped with a radio set so as to combine the portable auxiliary appliance with the main appliance so that the combination audio appliance may provide high-powered sound with improved quality through utilization of functions of the auxiliary appliance or enable simultaneous use of the main and auxiliary appliances through provision of other functions.
