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In 1971, Heitaro Nakajima resigned from his post as head of NHK's Technical Research Laboratories and joined Sony. Four years earlier at NHK, Nakajima had commenced work on the digitization of sound and within two years had developed the first digital audio tape recorder. He was struck with the idea of digitizing sound when trying to improve the sound quality of FM broadcasts. Nakajima thought that by using digital technology, which had only been used in computers and long-distance telephone transmission, the quality of recorded sound could be improved.
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Heitaro Nakajima |
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Spurred by the 1964 Tokyo Olympic Games, the Japanese government as well as private industries had aggressively invested in R&D activities related to broadcast technology. This drive induced growth and development of the domestic broadcast industry. For example, satellite broadcasting was developed and color transmission followed closely behind. Until then, however, these advances in video and audio recording were restricted to analog technologies.
Ohsone believed that if you think too much about a project before doing it, you could always find faults with it and too much discussion just creates delays. Ohsone, Shizuo Takashino, and other members of the development team worked through the night two or three times a week and they kept each other motivated by constantly cracking jokes or having a few beers after work.
Nakajima was one of the first to actually produce digital sound. He achieved this by sampling sound waves at defined intervals. Each sample was then converted into a binary number that could be recorded as a series of pulses on magnetic tape. This was the basic process used to digitize sound. At the time, no one could really see any future in Nakajima's large and expensive digital tape recorder, which reproduced static noise.
When Nakajima joined Sony at the invitation of Shigeo Shima, audio technologies were still primarily analog. In addition, there was considerable negative sentiment within Sony toward digital technology, partly because Sony had decided to withdraw its only digital product, the SOBAX electronic desktop calculator.
Following the 1967 launch of the first SOBAX model, the ICC-500, the development of compact, low-priced electronic calculators progressed rapidly. This was due in large part to the development of such semiconductor-based components as ICs, which made electronic circuitry more compact, and LSI (Large-Scale Integrated) circuits, which were even more compact. Sony and other manufacturers developed LSI circuits based on MOS (Metal-Oxide Semiconductors). However, these proved to be quite expensive for Sony, and the company could not keep pace with the fierce competition. Sony thus decided to halt production of the SOBAX calculator in 1973. Because of this decision, Sony's digital technology, which had grown as a result of the development of the digital calculator, was temporarily stalled.
Despite these setbacks, Nakajima, unable to forget the first time he heard digital sound, did not give up. He earnestly believed that digital technology would be valuable in the future. Ten years after he started his research, he still held the belief that  digital technology would be valuable within ten years. I'll make it so, he said. Achieving the best sound quality was his lifelong dream.
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