ColdFusion - How Did Sony Start? (The Origins of Sony)

Starting point is 00:00:00 You are watching Cold Fusion TV. Hi, welcome to another Cold Fusion video. Sony, one of the greatest companies of the 20th century, inventing the portable radio, Walkman, Compact Disc, the PlayStation, which brought in the true error of 3D gaming, and much, much more. And this isn't to mention that there are a powerhouse in the film and music industry today. But how did they get started?

Starting point is 00:00:34 I think the early history of Sony is just so interesting that it's worth its own own video. So we're going to have a look at it today. In September of 1945, a small workshop popped up in a war-damaged department store in Tokyo. It was primitive and there weren't even any windows in the shop. The place was run by a man named Masaru Ibuca, who had a handful of staff. One month later, Ibuca and his group established the Tokyo Telecommunications Research Institute. At first, they had no idea what they were doing and even what to do. Most of their salaries were paid from Ibuca's savings, which were rapidly dwindling. But even at this time, there was opportunity waiting.

Starting point is 00:01:19 During the war, the Japanese military police modified the home radios of Japanese citizens. This was to prevent them from tuning into enemy propaganda. Due to high levels of interest in global news after the war, Ibukas workshop saw an opportunity and made its debut making small mods that allowed the radios to receive all types of waves. Now the Japanese population could listen to. anything they wanted. The radio modifications were so popular that EBooka's small Tokyo workshop made it into a column in a local Japanese magazine. This magazine article would

Starting point is 00:01:52 pique the interest of a man named Akio Morita. As fate would have it, just a couple of years earlier, Marita had actually met Ibuca while commissioned as a sub-lieutenant in the Imperial Japanese Navy. The pair would get back in contact with each other and would work together at the Tokyo workshop which would eventually become Sony. In payment for repairing radios, the workshop would often receive rice as well as the regular fee. Before long, they had too much. What were they going to do with all of this rice sitting around? What they decided to do was manufacture an electric rice cooker, of course.

Starting point is 00:02:28 The rice cooker was technically Sony's first product. It was a primitive device made by connecting aluminum electrodes to the bottom of a wooden tub. The result was less than satisfactory. It always produced overcooked or undercooked rice. Sony's very first product was deemed a failure. On May 7, 1946, the Small Tokyo Workshop officially launched as Totsuku Company. With 530 US dollars in capital, no machinery and little scientific equipment, the engineers would often depend on their creativity and innovation to make up for the lack of their equipment.

Starting point is 00:03:06 The very first project as an official company was an electrically heated cushion. All it did was draw complaints of burning blankets and mattresses. It was another failure. These guys needed a hit product or this company would soon go under. The Tutsuku Workshop decided that it was time to get serious. The next project would be a magnetic recorder. They immediately encountered difficulties as it was a rarity even in the US. The only information that they had was that it involved a plastic tape coated with a magnetic material.

Starting point is 00:03:39 Amazingly, after borrowing a frying pan from the kitchen, roasting some powdered chemicals, and using their creativity, this small team managed to create a ferric oxide powder that was fine enough to create discernible audio when used on magnetic tape. In early 1950, two prototype recorders called the G-type and A-type were released. The G-type was made for industrial use and had a recording time of one hour, and the A-type was designed for home use and had a recording time of 30 minutes. The tape recorders were a hit in Japan, influencing society from home use all the way to being effective teaching aids in schools.

Starting point is 00:04:15 Ibuca saw that the same could not be said for US tape recorders, as they were only being used by news reporters and to transcribe speeches. The pair looked to broaden their horizons. Masaru Ibuca made the decision to take a scouting tour of the biggest market of them all, the USA. For context, America was the economic powerhouse of the world from 1946 up until the the early 60s. The restrained consumer demand from the war was released like a floodgate. This built-up consumer demand combined with sound economic policies created unprecedented strong

Starting point is 00:04:49 economic growth as well as a huge middle class. All of this meant that there are a lot of consumers in America. Cracking the American market would be the holy grail. The thing was, Americans were building cars, electronics, early computers, house appliances and everything else. They seemed to have it all. What more could they possibly want? The Tsutsuku company needed to create a completely new and revolutionary product. To achieve this, you usually need a revolutionary technology to enable it. Luckily, that revolutionary technology would soon arrive. The transistor, a new name, a new device that can do many of the jobs done by the vacuum tube, and many the tube can't do. For context, the transistor was invented in 1948 by Bell Laboratories. Western,

Starting point is 00:05:37 Electric, the parent company of Bell Laboratories, held the patent rights for manufacturing the transistor and had just made them available to anyone who would pay royalties. This was a huge deal. Transistors, so what, you might be asking? Well, without them, our modern world would not exist in any form whatsoever. Transistors replaced bulky vacuum tubes at a tiny fraction of the size. That's why radios and TVs of the 50s were so huge. Transistors were the step between the old analog world and the world of today with integrated circuits and silicon chips. Let's see how the transistor and tube measure up. While a tube like this generally demands a watt or more of electricity, a millionth of a watt is enough for the transistor.

Starting point is 00:06:26 So now that you know the importance of the transistor, let's continue. One day a friend in the US came to see Ibuquer and informed him that Western Electric was going to release their transistor patent to interested companies. Are you interested? The friend asked him. Western Electric's transistor was in need of much improvement. It had a very low power output, making it only good for things like hearing aids. But Ibuca knew that his workshop team loved new challenges. On the other hand, it would cost the company $25,000, money which they just didn't have and would have to borrow.

Starting point is 00:07:01 Ibuca took the gamble. He said yes. Tutsuku had already developed the tape and tape recorder, all by itself with no technical support or advice from any company. Western Electric was impressed by this and decided that their transistor patent would be put to good use with a Japanese company. So what was this revolutionary product going to be? It had to be for everyone.

Starting point is 00:07:24 It would be the portable and personal transistor radio. The odds were stacked against them and most people thought that it was impossible for such a small company like Tutsuuk to make a transistor radio, a device which even the American companies could not produce. a transistor development task force was formed. Immediately the most capable staff, including physicists, chemical experts, as well as mechanical and electrical engineers, were brought together. They bit the entire company's future on the fact that a yet unproven transistor technology

Starting point is 00:07:55 would change the world. After a year of tinkering, the team discovered that they could boost the transistor's low power output by injecting microscopic amounts of phosphorus, allowing more free electrons to flow. After this major breakthrough, it wasn't long before the first transistor radio was a reality. It was called the TR-55. Around the same time as the Japanese prototype, the Americans would beat them to the punch with the Regency TR-1. Released in 1954, it was the first truly portable radio and the first ever transistor radio. The only problem was that the Americans were using the old, weaker transistor technology.

Starting point is 00:08:36 This meant that the radio had an extremely low volume and it sold poorly as a consequence. One year later in 1955, the two Totsuku co-founders would travel to America to show off their latest transistor radio, the TR-55. Interest for the new technology was immediately strong. There was still one problem though. Americans had trouble saying Totsuku, so the name was changed to Sony, which was a blend of two words. One was the Latin word, Sonus, meaning sound, and the other was Sony, a common slang term used in 1950s America, to address a boy. After the name change, Sony were almost ready to take the world by storm.

Starting point is 00:09:14 Unfortunately, they were only offered distribution if their product could be sold under American brand names. Because of this, the Sony TR-55 was only sold in Japan, but they'll be back. For the American market, they went all out with the Sony TR-63. Released in 1957, it was technically far more advanced than any. that had come before it. With this being the world smallest radio, it had to have a sales pitch to match, and here it was. A radio that could fit in your pocket.

Starting point is 00:09:43 There was only one problem though, it didn't fit in the average size pocket. The solution was a little bit sneaky. Sony made people from their sales team where bigger pockets that were customly made to fit the radios, but at least they could fit now. From then on, orders for the new device came flooding in. The Americans loved the Sony TR-63 and it was wildly popular with teenagers. Some music historians state that the 1957 Sony TR-63 was instrumental in the rise of rock and roll music because it allowed kids to independently listen to their music, finally freed

Starting point is 00:10:18 from the tyranny of their parents. Sony was truly in business. With the success of their radio, Sony had officially launched a new era of technology, consumer microelectronics. With radio sales taking off, the company was able to expand globally by 1960. Even though going from a small fledgling workshop to a global company in such a short amount of time was incredible, nobody could have known that this was just the very beginning. And that's where we'll leave it today.

Starting point is 00:10:53 I hope you enjoyed that video on the very early origins of Sony. If you're new here, feel free to subscribe. And if you want to see my video on the origins of the original PlayStation, I'll leave a link below. Anyway, this has been DeGogo. You've been watching Cole Fusion. Thanks for watching and I'll see you guys again for the next video. Cheers, have a good one. Fusion, it's new thinking.

ColdFusion - How Did Sony Start? (The Origins of Sony)

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