WEBVTT - The Sony Story: Part One 0:00:04.200 --> 0:00:07.240 Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how 0:00:07.280 --> 0:00:14.440 stuff Works dot Com. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. 0:00:14.520 --> 0:00:19.799 I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland, and today we begin a journey. Friends. 0:00:20.120 --> 0:00:23.919 We're going on a nice long hike through the history 0:00:24.120 --> 0:00:28.560 of a massive tech company. We're gonna talk about Sony 0:00:28.640 --> 0:00:31.600 and this is part one of a horror part series. 0:00:32.240 --> 0:00:34.840 I say horror because I don't know how many parts 0:00:34.880 --> 0:00:37.000 it's going to end up being. By the end, I've 0:00:37.000 --> 0:00:38.879 already got enough notes where I know it's gonna be 0:00:39.520 --> 0:00:43.440 at least three. Uh. I'm trying desperately to keep it 0:00:43.600 --> 0:00:45.800 fairly tight because I know you guys don't want to 0:00:45.840 --> 0:00:49.440 have this turn into the Sony Stuff Show, but I 0:00:49.479 --> 0:00:51.440 want to be able to cover a lot of the 0:00:51.520 --> 0:00:54.520 important moments in the history of this company. It is 0:00:55.120 --> 0:00:59.440 a very interesting story, largely because of several factors. One 0:00:59.520 --> 0:01:03.400 is that it's a Japanese company that came into being 0:01:04.080 --> 0:01:07.720 after World War Two, so that was a very obviously 0:01:07.720 --> 0:01:12.160 a very tumultuous time in Japan. And too, it ended 0:01:12.280 --> 0:01:15.720 up being a huge influence in technology in multiple ways. 0:01:16.319 --> 0:01:19.560 Three They introduced not just brand new types of technology 0:01:19.600 --> 0:01:22.479 to the rest of the consumer world, but they also 0:01:22.680 --> 0:01:26.200 ended up incorporating other people's ideas into their technology in 0:01:26.240 --> 0:01:29.360 ways that was innovative, and of course for they, they 0:01:29.480 --> 0:01:34.080 are a company that is enormous and has an umbrella 0:01:34.120 --> 0:01:37.039 across multiple industries at this point, not just electronics but 0:01:37.760 --> 0:01:41.560 entertainment as well. So we're gonna look at that. And Uh, 0:01:41.640 --> 0:01:44.160 I won't go into full detail on all the different 0:01:44.200 --> 0:01:47.360 subsidiaries of Sony because to do that would make this 0:01:47.480 --> 0:01:52.120 turn into truly epic series. But I'm gonna focus primarily 0:01:52.160 --> 0:01:54.960 on the main company, and I will mention when the 0:01:54.960 --> 0:01:59.000 company ended up making acquisitions or uh spinning off companies 0:01:59.000 --> 0:02:03.000 that ended up being big players. But those entities will 0:02:03.040 --> 0:02:05.960 get a full treatment in a future episode somewhere down 0:02:06.040 --> 0:02:12.920 the line. So let's get started, shall we. So when 0:02:12.960 --> 0:02:15.920 did it all begin? Okay, so that depends upon what 0:02:16.040 --> 0:02:18.160 branch of Sony you're looking at, because some of the 0:02:18.160 --> 0:02:22.840 subsidiaries actually pre date the company itself, because the company 0:02:22.840 --> 0:02:26.560 would end up making acquisitions of other companies and those 0:02:26.600 --> 0:02:30.360 other companies were older than Sony was. But let's concentrate 0:02:30.400 --> 0:02:34.640 on just the core company of Sony. Uh. One thing 0:02:34.680 --> 0:02:40.440 I can say right now, Sony was instrumental in getting 0:02:40.440 --> 0:02:43.480 consumer electronics to where it is now, there's no doubt 0:02:43.520 --> 0:02:47.040 about it on and it all really starts if you 0:02:47.080 --> 0:02:52.480 go back to April eleven. Now, that's when a man 0:02:52.600 --> 0:02:57.520 named Masaru Ibuka was born in Nico City, Japan. As 0:02:57.520 --> 0:03:01.079 a young man, he became interested in engineering and invention, 0:03:01.280 --> 0:03:06.440 and he even earned the nickname Genius inventor at Waseda University, 0:03:06.880 --> 0:03:09.000 where he was part of the School of Science and Engineering. 0:03:09.200 --> 0:03:12.560 He graduated in nineteen thirty three and he got a 0:03:12.639 --> 0:03:17.639 job at the photochemical Laboratory which processed movie film. So 0:03:18.240 --> 0:03:21.960 that's where he went after he uh, he graduated. Then 0:03:21.960 --> 0:03:24.200 you've got another very important player who was born on 0:03:24.320 --> 0:03:29.520 January twenty se that's Akio Morita, and he was born 0:03:29.560 --> 0:03:33.080 in Nagoya, Japan. His family expected him to carry on 0:03:33.120 --> 0:03:37.880 the family business, and that family business for many many 0:03:37.920 --> 0:03:43.200 generations was the brewing of sake and soy sauce. But 0:03:43.440 --> 0:03:47.240 he wasn't so interested in sake and soysas so he 0:03:47.320 --> 0:03:50.640 wanted to look into science and engineering and he would 0:03:50.680 --> 0:03:53.760 go on to attend Osaka Imperial University and he got 0:03:53.800 --> 0:03:58.360 a degree in physics. But then we have a very 0:03:58.360 --> 0:04:02.440 important event that happened that changed everything, and that of course, 0:04:02.560 --> 0:04:07.040 is World War Two. Now, during the war, Marita would 0:04:07.080 --> 0:04:10.160 end up joining the Japanese Navy and eventually achieved the 0:04:10.200 --> 0:04:15.240 rank of lieutenant. He met Ibuka, who was working as 0:04:15.240 --> 0:04:18.320 an electrical engineer. And now remember Abuca is the older 0:04:18.360 --> 0:04:20.920 of the two, and so Ibuka was working as an 0:04:20.960 --> 0:04:24.080 electrical engineer. Marita was a lieutenant in the navy, and 0:04:24.120 --> 0:04:27.880 together they began to work on developing some wartime technologies, 0:04:28.240 --> 0:04:33.320 including heat seeking, missile tech and night vision scopes. When 0:04:33.360 --> 0:04:36.080 the war ended in nineteen forty five, they would end 0:04:36.160 --> 0:04:38.360 up going their separate ways and for a while they 0:04:38.400 --> 0:04:43.480 lost touch. Now nine post war Japan was a very 0:04:43.520 --> 0:04:48.159 different place from pre war Japan. The country was trying 0:04:48.200 --> 0:04:52.680 to rebuild. It was really in shambles. At that point, 0:04:53.360 --> 0:04:56.880 Ibuka opened up a radio repair shop in a building 0:04:57.040 --> 0:05:01.880 that was not entirely ructurally sound. It was somewhat bombed out. 0:05:02.360 --> 0:05:07.240 It was called the shiro Kira Department Store in Nihonbashi, Tokyo. 0:05:07.880 --> 0:05:13.120 So remember that radios in this era used vacuum tubes. 0:05:13.360 --> 0:05:17.320 They didn't use transistors, so radio sets were enormous. They 0:05:17.360 --> 0:05:20.920 were big, clunky things. Uh, your typical home radio was 0:05:20.960 --> 0:05:23.160 a piece of furniture. It wasn't something that you would 0:05:23.160 --> 0:05:26.640 move around. You would set it up, you know, in 0:05:26.720 --> 0:05:28.320 some part of the home, and that's pretty much where 0:05:28.320 --> 0:05:30.000 it lived. Because it was it tended to be big 0:05:30.040 --> 0:05:32.400 and heavy, and because it has vacuum tubes in it 0:05:32.839 --> 0:05:35.040 somewhat delicate as well, you obviously didn't want to knock 0:05:35.040 --> 0:05:39.359 it over or anything. Now, I Buca's workshop was on 0:05:39.400 --> 0:05:42.920 the third floor of this department store building, and it 0:05:42.960 --> 0:05:45.240 was in a narrow room that also had a telephone 0:05:45.279 --> 0:05:49.640 switchboard inside it. He had a small staff working for him, 0:05:49.800 --> 0:05:53.520 and he was paying them mostly out of his own savings. Uh. 0:05:53.520 --> 0:05:56.800 And apparently the story goes that the staff was known 0:05:56.880 --> 0:05:59.440 to work very long hours, stretching well into the night, 0:06:00.000 --> 0:06:02.560 and that they would sometimes get locked into the department 0:06:02.640 --> 0:06:05.400 store because everyone else would be leaving and they would 0:06:05.400 --> 0:06:08.640 lock up and the folks over in a Buca's shop 0:06:08.680 --> 0:06:12.120 would be stuck. Uh. It would force employees to have 0:06:12.160 --> 0:06:15.160 to try and leave through fire exits, and according to 0:06:15.240 --> 0:06:18.239 one history I read, several employees never narrowly avoided getting 0:06:18.279 --> 0:06:22.360 arrested by police because the police were convinced these were 0:06:22.400 --> 0:06:25.120 actually thieves who had broken into the department store to 0:06:25.160 --> 0:06:30.200 steal stuff. So that's what's going on in a Bucca's world. 0:06:30.279 --> 0:06:33.839 There was a big demand for radio's, particularly shortwave radios. 0:06:34.440 --> 0:06:39.039 During the war, the Japanese government had banned short wave radios, 0:06:39.760 --> 0:06:44.320 mostly in an effort to prevent Japanese citizens from hearing 0:06:44.360 --> 0:06:49.760 Allied propaganda. So the shortwave radio business was now starting 0:06:49.800 --> 0:06:52.080 to pick up again because the war is over and 0:06:52.120 --> 0:06:55.320 now that band had been lifted, So there was a demand. 0:06:55.320 --> 0:06:59.920 There was, you know, business there. I Meanwhile, Akio Morita 0:07:00.080 --> 0:07:03.200 uh was planning on taking a teaching position at the 0:07:03.240 --> 0:07:06.840 Tokyo Institute of Technology, but then he read an article 0:07:07.360 --> 0:07:11.120 about Ubuka's radio repair shop, and he decided to contact 0:07:11.360 --> 0:07:14.840 his old wartime buddy and see if he could possibly 0:07:15.560 --> 0:07:20.000 end up working with Ibuka. In nineteen forty six, on 0:07:20.160 --> 0:07:23.480 May seven, Ibuka and Marita would form a partnership and 0:07:23.520 --> 0:07:29.040 create the Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Corporation, also known as Tatsuko. 0:07:30.160 --> 0:07:35.040 They name uh taman Meda, Ibuka's father in law, as 0:07:35.080 --> 0:07:37.400 the president of the company, and they had a startup 0:07:37.440 --> 0:07:42.200 capital of one d ninety thousand yen. Typically at this point, 0:07:42.240 --> 0:07:45.040 I would tell you how much that costs in US 0:07:45.120 --> 0:07:48.119 dollars today. But it turns out this is really really 0:07:48.160 --> 0:07:52.400 super tricky to do because you have to factor in 0:07:52.520 --> 0:07:57.880 conversion rates between different currencies and inflation rates, and it's 0:07:57.880 --> 0:08:01.360 not like inflation is the same in Japan as it 0:08:01.400 --> 0:08:04.160 is in the United States. So they ended up getting 0:08:04.160 --> 0:08:06.840 too complicated for me to do, sadly, but I did 0:08:06.840 --> 0:08:10.400 read at least one source that said that the amount 0:08:10.480 --> 0:08:13.680 that two borrowed was around five U S dollars to 0:08:13.760 --> 0:08:19.280 launch the company back in ninet. Their goal was to develop, manufacture, 0:08:19.320 --> 0:08:21.880 and sell products that were of a higher quality than 0:08:21.920 --> 0:08:24.880 what was coming out of Japan's manufacturing centers at the time. 0:08:25.720 --> 0:08:28.240 So post War Japan, there were other companies that are 0:08:28.240 --> 0:08:31.840 making electronics, but they were largely known as creating things 0:08:31.840 --> 0:08:35.280 that were knockoffs of products that were coming from other 0:08:35.360 --> 0:08:38.239 countries as well and then being sold for less money, 0:08:38.320 --> 0:08:41.600 so essentially the cheap versions of stuff that you would 0:08:41.640 --> 0:08:44.400 find elsewhere, and they didn't want to do that. They 0:08:44.440 --> 0:08:49.160 wanted to create high quality products, like first run type stuff, 0:08:49.200 --> 0:08:53.360 not knockoffs. But that's pretty tough to do. It's not 0:08:53.480 --> 0:08:57.800 something that you just jump into. Um Ibuca actually drew 0:08:57.880 --> 0:09:00.280 up a prospectus to guide the company kind of like 0:09:00.360 --> 0:09:03.960 their their mission statement and their guiding principles, and it 0:09:04.040 --> 0:09:07.920 included passages like this one. We must avoid problems which 0:09:07.920 --> 0:09:12.040 befall large corporations while we create and introduce technologies which 0:09:12.120 --> 0:09:16.079 large corporations cannot match. The reconstruction of Japan depends upon 0:09:16.240 --> 0:09:19.440 the development of dynamic technologies. So this is you know, 0:09:19.640 --> 0:09:21.520 I mean it sounds a little grandiose, but this was 0:09:21.640 --> 0:09:25.480 really an effort to to take Japan out of the 0:09:25.520 --> 0:09:29.040 ashes of World War two and have it take its 0:09:29.080 --> 0:09:33.240 place as a leading economic power in the in the 0:09:33.280 --> 0:09:39.079 world and to make a real contribution to innovation in technology. Uh, 0:09:39.160 --> 0:09:42.640 there's a big, big order, you know, especially coming from 0:09:42.640 --> 0:09:45.920 a place where a lot of people were writing off 0:09:46.000 --> 0:09:48.960 Japan as being it will always just be like a 0:09:49.000 --> 0:09:52.280 place that that cheap stuff comes out of. Now, Abuca's 0:09:52.400 --> 0:09:55.760 job was to develop products. Essentially, he was the engineer, 0:09:56.280 --> 0:09:59.680 and Akio Morita's job was to handle personnel, financing and 0:09:59.720 --> 0:10:04.280 mark itting. They launched their first product. Actually technically this 0:10:04.320 --> 0:10:07.480 came out before Marita even joined on. There was a 0:10:07.480 --> 0:10:12.880 product that that Ibuco was working on, an electric rice cooker. Uh. 0:10:12.920 --> 0:10:15.839 This was a pretty funny thing. I mean, it was 0:10:15.960 --> 0:10:18.040 essentially a wooden tub. If you look at a picture, 0:10:18.040 --> 0:10:19.280 it looks kind of like a wooden tub or a 0:10:19.280 --> 0:10:24.920 wooden bucket with some metal uh plates on the inside 0:10:24.920 --> 0:10:27.600 of it. Not completely coding it, just like think of 0:10:27.679 --> 0:10:32.920 bands of aluminum that are bolted down and wired uh 0:10:33.040 --> 0:10:37.680 to this wooden tub. The aluminum were actually electrodes. They 0:10:37.720 --> 0:10:40.840 were screwed into the bottom of the tub, not really bolted. 0:10:41.280 --> 0:10:44.760 And Japan actually had a surplus of electricity at this 0:10:44.840 --> 0:10:48.480 point because during World War two the country had built 0:10:48.520 --> 0:10:52.160 more power plants in an effort to power the war. 0:10:52.679 --> 0:10:55.360 Uh effort and effort to power the war effort. I 0:10:55.400 --> 0:10:59.600 apologize for the redundancy, but they bought they built a 0:10:59.600 --> 0:11:01.880 lot more our plants in order to create more capacity. 0:11:01.920 --> 0:11:06.280 But then after the war, the country was essentially disarmed 0:11:06.960 --> 0:11:11.480 and they didn't really have the demand that these power 0:11:11.480 --> 0:11:14.480 plants could meet, Like they had more more supply than 0:11:14.520 --> 0:11:19.520 they had to band. So Abukas thought was, how about 0:11:19.559 --> 0:11:22.760 we create more stuff that uses power. Because we've got 0:11:22.800 --> 0:11:26.120 the power, that's not a problem. We've got the capacity. 0:11:26.720 --> 0:11:29.520 Why not create stuff that allows people to take advantage 0:11:29.559 --> 0:11:32.880 of that. And so they started really looking at doing 0:11:32.920 --> 0:11:35.720 these electrical appliances like this rice cooker. But there was 0:11:35.840 --> 0:11:39.880 a tight, teeny tiny problem, and that was that the 0:11:39.960 --> 0:11:42.560 rice cooker did not work very well at all. For 0:11:42.640 --> 0:11:45.720 one thing, not all rice is the same, you can't 0:11:45.920 --> 0:11:48.079 you know, just one type of rice does not necessarily 0:11:48.080 --> 0:11:50.360 cook at the same rate as a different type of rice. 0:11:51.200 --> 0:11:53.680 So the results depended on the amount of water that 0:11:53.760 --> 0:11:55.960 you had, the type of rice you put in the tub, 0:11:56.000 --> 0:11:58.720 and odds were really really good that what you would 0:11:58.760 --> 0:12:01.679 get at the end of it would come out undercooked 0:12:02.000 --> 0:12:06.320 or overcooked. So the product was ultimately a failure, but 0:12:06.640 --> 0:12:10.080 it taught them a lot while they were developing it. Now, 0:12:10.080 --> 0:12:12.880 one thing that wasn't a failure was that Marita and 0:12:12.920 --> 0:12:17.120 Abuca were able to bring on shows a Buro Tachikawa 0:12:17.200 --> 0:12:19.800 to handle the general affairs of the company. Also, I 0:12:19.800 --> 0:12:21.840 should just go ahead and say I'm doing my best 0:12:21.880 --> 0:12:24.720 to pronounce these names correctly, but I do apologize because 0:12:24.760 --> 0:12:26.920 I know I'm going to butcher some of them, but 0:12:27.000 --> 0:12:29.640 I will again, it is not through lack of care. 0:12:29.800 --> 0:12:33.079 It is only because I am not very good at 0:12:33.120 --> 0:12:40.040 pronouncing Japanese names. So what were Tachikawa's duties. Well, for one, 0:12:40.240 --> 0:12:44.520 he purchased rice on the black market, so they were 0:12:45.000 --> 0:12:50.840 selling a product, this this electric rice cooker that depended 0:12:50.920 --> 0:12:55.760 upon um having access to rice. But the issue was 0:12:55.800 --> 0:12:58.400 that food rationing was in place for several years after 0:12:58.400 --> 0:13:03.240 World War two in Japan, so Tachikawa would actually buy 0:13:03.360 --> 0:13:06.800 rice on the black market in order to market it 0:13:06.880 --> 0:13:10.320 along with the rice cooker. Japan's economy was still in 0:13:10.400 --> 0:13:14.120 turmoil at after World War two, actually for several years 0:13:14.120 --> 0:13:16.199 after World War two, and so the company was focusing 0:13:16.240 --> 0:13:19.400 on marketing products to an overseas market, not just the 0:13:19.480 --> 0:13:23.079 domestic market. They saw the need to cater to both. 0:13:23.400 --> 0:13:26.520 They knew that they were going to sell products in Japan, 0:13:27.000 --> 0:13:29.040 but they also knew that that was not going to 0:13:29.120 --> 0:13:32.720 be enough to elevate this new company, especially since there 0:13:32.720 --> 0:13:36.480 were a lot of established companies like Toshiba was already 0:13:36.480 --> 0:13:38.880 a company at this point and was a company before 0:13:39.240 --> 0:13:43.079 World War two. So Sony, because it started so late, 0:13:43.320 --> 0:13:45.520 or Totsuko, i should say, at this point, because they 0:13:45.520 --> 0:13:49.240 had not adopted the name Sony, they knew they were 0:13:49.240 --> 0:13:52.600 going to have to market their stuff to to an 0:13:52.640 --> 0:13:56.920 audience beyond just Japan if they wanted to have success, 0:13:56.960 --> 0:14:01.160 so they started looking at having an overseas UH presence, 0:14:01.240 --> 0:14:04.120 at least a market, not a physical presence. At this point, 0:14:05.160 --> 0:14:08.319 other Japanese companies were already doing this, but they were 0:14:08.320 --> 0:14:11.280 again largely selling those cheaper products, and Marita and Abuca 0:14:11.320 --> 0:14:14.480 wanted to go beyond that. But that wasn't easy because 0:14:14.640 --> 0:14:18.199 the company, Tatsuko didn't have any real machinery to speak 0:14:18.240 --> 0:14:21.920 of and not enough capital to purchase equipment, so instead, 0:14:22.360 --> 0:14:26.560 the employees ended up salvaging stuff from rubble leftover from 0:14:26.560 --> 0:14:28.920 the war, and they would use it in place of 0:14:28.960 --> 0:14:32.920 normal tools, like there were stories about using springs that 0:14:33.000 --> 0:14:36.280 they found as screwdrivers, so it's kind of crazy. They 0:14:36.280 --> 0:14:39.480 also used telephone cables rather than electrical wires for some 0:14:39.520 --> 0:14:43.760 of their prototypes, which created extra challenges engineering challenges, but 0:14:43.840 --> 0:14:46.560 they did that because there were down to telephone wires 0:14:46.600 --> 0:14:50.000 that they could salvage, and then since they were just 0:14:50.080 --> 0:14:53.440 creating prototypes, not indo products, they figured, well, we might 0:14:53.480 --> 0:14:57.320 as well just use this and wait until we've developed 0:14:57.360 --> 0:15:00.800 a good product before we switch over to actual electrical wiring. 0:15:01.560 --> 0:15:05.480 Another big challenge actually came from the Japanese government itself, 0:15:06.160 --> 0:15:09.520 multiple challenges actually, because at this time, the Japanese government, 0:15:09.520 --> 0:15:14.160 which they still had an emperor and impress at this time. Uh, 0:15:14.200 --> 0:15:19.000 the Japanese government took a very hands on approach to 0:15:19.720 --> 0:15:23.800 Japanese businesses and their operation. Uh. There was a Ministry 0:15:24.120 --> 0:15:27.440 of Finance and there were other ministries as well that 0:15:27.800 --> 0:15:31.800 all the businesses had to work with and obey, and 0:15:31.840 --> 0:15:34.600 it made it really complicated, especially if you wanted to 0:15:34.680 --> 0:15:39.880 have products sold overseas, and made it challenging. But even 0:15:39.960 --> 0:15:43.200 more than that, the Japanese government had also decided to 0:15:43.360 --> 0:15:46.800 make a switch from one end currency to a new 0:15:47.040 --> 0:15:50.400 yen currency. But that required all businesses to start to 0:15:50.440 --> 0:15:54.320 earn new yen currency in order to stay solvent. You 0:15:54.360 --> 0:15:56.920 couldn't just collect old yen notes. They wouldn't be good 0:15:56.960 --> 0:16:00.480 for much longer. So uh, it kind of kind of 0:16:00.480 --> 0:16:04.520 put a ticking time bomb on companies. They had to 0:16:04.560 --> 0:16:07.840 make sure that they were selling enough products in that 0:16:07.880 --> 0:16:12.200 time to gather enough new currency to remain afloat. So 0:16:12.280 --> 0:16:14.720 that was something that most companies don't have to worry about, 0:16:14.800 --> 0:16:19.280 and it's a little unique to this particular situation. One 0:16:19.280 --> 0:16:21.600 of the products that did earn the company some money 0:16:22.160 --> 0:16:25.600 was an electrically heated cushion. Now, that cushion was a 0:16:25.680 --> 0:16:29.360 very simple design. It was a mesh wire grid sandwich 0:16:29.400 --> 0:16:32.080 between sheets of paper inside a leather cushion with some padding. 0:16:33.120 --> 0:16:36.720 So if you know your electronics, you know if you 0:16:36.800 --> 0:16:41.040 pass current through an electrical wire, some of that energy 0:16:41.120 --> 0:16:45.600 get is lost due to giving off of heat its resistance. Right, 0:16:46.640 --> 0:16:50.200 the greater the resistance the wire, the more that electricity 0:16:50.240 --> 0:16:52.440 is converted into heat. This is the basis for things 0:16:52.520 --> 0:16:55.560 like electrical heaters, where you have a coil that is 0:16:55.600 --> 0:16:58.200 really just a resistor that's coiled around and around and 0:16:58.240 --> 0:17:01.000 around and around. You run electric through the coil and 0:17:01.040 --> 0:17:03.040 the coil heats up as a result, and that's where 0:17:03.040 --> 0:17:06.560 you generate electric heat. Well, that was the same basic 0:17:06.600 --> 0:17:09.000 premise of the cushion, except instead of being a coil, 0:17:09.119 --> 0:17:13.159 it's a grid. But this particular product was maybe a 0:17:13.200 --> 0:17:16.080 little too simple because it didn't have a thermostat or 0:17:16.160 --> 0:17:19.479 any way of controlling the temperature whatsoever, which meant that 0:17:19.520 --> 0:17:23.320 the cushion could and did overheat. Also, the voltage from 0:17:23.720 --> 0:17:28.120 Japan's power plants wasn't steady, so at night you could 0:17:28.200 --> 0:17:32.080 end up having power surges, and sometimes the cushions would 0:17:32.119 --> 0:17:36.880 short out and scorch things like people's pants, or their beds, 0:17:37.960 --> 0:17:43.639 or their grandmother's or you know, et cetera. Now, Ibuka 0:17:43.920 --> 0:17:46.480 had said that it was not a good idea for 0:17:46.600 --> 0:17:48.879 his brand new company that he was trying to get 0:17:48.920 --> 0:17:51.400 off the ground to be associated with a substandard cushion, 0:17:51.920 --> 0:17:55.639 So he did the reasonable thing. He marketed the cushion 0:17:55.680 --> 0:17:59.120 under a fictional company name called the Ginza Heating Company. 0:17:59.720 --> 0:18:02.240 You know, instead of not putting out a defective product, 0:18:02.280 --> 0:18:05.200 just put a fake company name on the defective product 0:18:05.560 --> 0:18:10.840 and your home free. That's brilliant, but BALTI are not. 0:18:10.880 --> 0:18:13.399 The cushion actually sold well enough to keep the company 0:18:13.520 --> 0:18:19.160 kind of afloat. Meanwhile, when under their actual Totsuko name, 0:18:19.359 --> 0:18:23.920 the real company name, the company began to sell record pickups. Now, 0:18:23.960 --> 0:18:26.960 a record pickup is also known as a needle. It's 0:18:27.000 --> 0:18:29.199 what you would have on a on a turntable for 0:18:29.320 --> 0:18:32.640 vinyl albums. And I'm sure many of you are familiar 0:18:32.680 --> 0:18:34.600 with this, but just in case you aren't, If you 0:18:34.720 --> 0:18:38.920 folks out there who have never really messed with a 0:18:38.920 --> 0:18:44.040 a record player vinyl turntable type deal, what you have 0:18:44.119 --> 0:18:46.040 is you've got an arm and on the end of 0:18:46.040 --> 0:18:49.720 that arm is a needle. The needle actually fits within 0:18:49.840 --> 0:18:54.199 grooves inside the vinyl record, and it vibrates according to 0:18:54.520 --> 0:18:58.280 changes in that groove, and there's a transducer that the 0:18:58.280 --> 0:19:00.639 needle is attached to, and the transducer job is to 0:19:00.680 --> 0:19:05.840 take this kinetic energy, this vibration translated into electricity, send 0:19:05.880 --> 0:19:10.119 that signal to an amp, which increases the power of 0:19:10.200 --> 0:19:13.920 the signal, and then goes on to speakers which then 0:19:14.200 --> 0:19:17.320 can play this signal, and then we get to listen 0:19:17.359 --> 0:19:20.840 to music or talk or whatever is on the vinyl album. 0:19:20.880 --> 0:19:26.239 So UH Tatsuko began to market these record pickups and 0:19:26.280 --> 0:19:29.600 those also record players were not legal during the war, 0:19:29.800 --> 0:19:32.360 and the reason for them was nothing to do with propaganda. 0:19:33.040 --> 0:19:35.160 It had to do with the fact that the components 0:19:35.200 --> 0:19:38.560 that you would use to make record players UH could 0:19:38.600 --> 0:19:41.360 be used for other things that the military could take 0:19:41.359 --> 0:19:46.119 advantage of. UH. You know, resources were scarce, so you 0:19:46.200 --> 0:19:50.400 could not use them for frivolous purposes like creating record players. 0:19:51.800 --> 0:19:54.399 But now in the post war era, everything was changing. 0:20:02.880 --> 0:20:06.960 Towards the end of nineteen Totsuko had to move from 0:20:07.000 --> 0:20:09.720 the department store they had been in to a small 0:20:09.840 --> 0:20:13.000 factory uh. It was only temporary, however, as the factory 0:20:13.000 --> 0:20:17.520 owner decided that they needed to leave, he actually ordered 0:20:17.720 --> 0:20:22.000 Tatsuko to vacate the factory area that they he had 0:20:22.040 --> 0:20:25.160 set aside for them uh. And one of the reasons 0:20:25.200 --> 0:20:27.520 that might have played a part in this is that 0:20:27.880 --> 0:20:30.800 there was some electricity ration ing going on at the time, 0:20:31.359 --> 0:20:34.400 and it was possible that the factory owner was worried 0:20:34.480 --> 0:20:37.880 that this company, which was known for having employees who 0:20:37.880 --> 0:20:41.280 would work long into the night, might end up using 0:20:41.400 --> 0:20:46.040 up his electricity ration and he wouldn't have or he'd 0:20:46.040 --> 0:20:49.000 had to pay extra in order to conduct his own business. 0:20:49.880 --> 0:20:53.320 So they got the boot um and Ibuca and Marita 0:20:53.359 --> 0:20:55.399 were searching for a new facility, one that would be 0:20:55.480 --> 0:20:57.879 large enough to have everyone in the company working in 0:20:57.920 --> 0:21:01.439 the same location at the same time, because they were 0:21:01.520 --> 0:21:03.760 kind of spread out among three different locations at this 0:21:03.840 --> 0:21:09.680 point and it made collaborating very difficult. Uh. And then 0:21:09.760 --> 0:21:12.560 they were able to finally create that, although it didn't 0:21:12.600 --> 0:21:14.600 last for very long in the sense that the company 0:21:14.680 --> 0:21:17.879 kept growing and they would end up building news sites, 0:21:18.080 --> 0:21:21.040 so you didn't have everybody under the same roof for 0:21:21.200 --> 0:21:25.080 very long. You they grew too big for that. Meanwhile, 0:21:25.840 --> 0:21:28.800 Japan's n h K, which was there that or is 0:21:28.880 --> 0:21:33.439 the National Broadcast Station, hired on Tutsuko to convert wire 0:21:33.840 --> 0:21:38.480 military wireless equipment into receivers for broadcasting. Uh So, in 0:21:38.520 --> 0:21:40.399 other words, the idea was that, well, we've got all 0:21:40.400 --> 0:21:44.879 these military radio installations that we could convert over to 0:21:45.280 --> 0:21:49.080 broadcast installations, but we need some help. Um that work 0:21:49.119 --> 0:21:52.040 was really steady, so Tutsuko began to make a profit. 0:21:52.040 --> 0:21:54.320 They weren't just staying afloat, they were actually doing well 0:21:55.600 --> 0:22:00.920 in the company would relocate to Shinagawa, Tokyo. They took 0:22:00.960 --> 0:22:04.639 over warehouse space that had belonged to the Nipon Corburetor company, 0:22:04.680 --> 0:22:09.080 and the Sony Corporation is still at that location today, 0:22:09.200 --> 0:22:13.600 or at least they have a location there today. Uh 0:22:13.680 --> 0:22:17.480 In the period between nineteen and nineteen fifty, Abuca wanted 0:22:17.520 --> 0:22:21.000 to make a successful consumer electronics product and not just 0:22:21.359 --> 0:22:24.800 a radio, so he started by looking into the possibility 0:22:24.800 --> 0:22:28.640 of producing wire recorders. Now, a wire recorder is sort 0:22:28.680 --> 0:22:32.240 of like a tape recorder, but while tape stores information 0:22:32.320 --> 0:22:36.480 magnetically onto plastic film that has a you know, ferromagnetic 0:22:36.760 --> 0:22:40.440 material on it, like a powder essentially that's been bonded 0:22:40.520 --> 0:22:45.160 to the plastic film. Wire recorders use magnetic steel wire 0:22:45.480 --> 0:22:48.760 to store info, so you're still storing the information magnetically, 0:22:49.280 --> 0:22:51.360 but instead of it being on tape, it's on an 0:22:51.359 --> 0:22:56.720 actual physical wire. The company actually reverse engineered military wire 0:22:56.720 --> 0:22:59.840 recorders and began to experiment with them, but then it 0:23:00.040 --> 0:23:02.680 Juca and Marita got a demonstration of a tape recorder 0:23:03.359 --> 0:23:07.080 from occupation forces at the NHK headquarters, so they were 0:23:07.080 --> 0:23:09.600 able to they had not seen this in person before. 0:23:09.640 --> 0:23:11.520 But then they saw a tape recorder, which had already 0:23:11.520 --> 0:23:15.080 been invented obviously, but they had not had experience with it, 0:23:15.119 --> 0:23:16.960 and they were so impressed by the quality of the 0:23:17.000 --> 0:23:20.600 tape recorder, which seemed so much better than the wire 0:23:20.640 --> 0:23:23.800 recorders of the day, they decided their company should produce 0:23:23.840 --> 0:23:27.600 the first Japanese tape recorder, and they abandoned the idea 0:23:27.800 --> 0:23:31.840 of the wire recorder entirely. Their first experiments with tape 0:23:31.880 --> 0:23:36.359 recorders involved using rice paste to add here magnetic dust 0:23:36.480 --> 0:23:40.159 to paper strips. Now the prototype didn't work because the 0:23:40.200 --> 0:23:42.879 magnetic dust they used was actually too strong for the 0:23:42.880 --> 0:23:46.480 tape head to write to. So in other words, they 0:23:46.600 --> 0:23:52.720 created a tape that had very um electro magnetic magnetic 0:23:52.760 --> 0:23:55.520 doest well really just magnetic dost, not electro magnetic dust. 0:23:55.800 --> 0:23:57.680 But they had magnetic dust that was so strong that 0:23:57.720 --> 0:24:00.560 you couldn't you couldn't use a tape head to right 0:24:00.760 --> 0:24:03.760 new information to it. You would just get this loud 0:24:03.960 --> 0:24:08.879 noise because the magnetic properties were too strong. So they 0:24:08.880 --> 0:24:11.879 started looking around for an alternative to the dust that 0:24:11.960 --> 0:24:14.240 they had been using, and they decided that they should 0:24:14.280 --> 0:24:17.480 use ferric oxide. But there was a problem. They didn't 0:24:17.520 --> 0:24:20.960 have a supply of ferric oxide. So they did the 0:24:20.960 --> 0:24:22.960 next best thing. They bought a couple of bottles of 0:24:23.040 --> 0:24:27.560 ox oxalic ferrite and then they processed it to create 0:24:27.800 --> 0:24:31.399 ferric oxide. And by processing, I mean they poured the 0:24:31.400 --> 0:24:35.359 oxalic ferrite into a frying pan and they heated the 0:24:35.400 --> 0:24:39.080 frying pan on a stovetop until it converted into ferric 0:24:39.119 --> 0:24:41.840 oxide oxalic farright. By the way, it's kind of like 0:24:41.840 --> 0:24:46.000 a yellowish powder, So essentially they were uh cooking this 0:24:46.200 --> 0:24:49.240