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In producing motion pictures, sound was conventionally recorded one side of the film by optical means. The Tokyo Recording Company was established to produce and advertise cinema-use recording equipment that could record sound magnetically with the use of the Totsuko tape recorder and to market home-use tape recorders throughout Japan. Kyuzaemon Morita (Akio Morita's father), Koichi Kasahara and Masao Kurahashi were appointed president, senior managing director, and managing director, respectively. Takeo Tsuchihashi was named recording manager.
Tsuchihashi was well known as the inventor of the "Tsuchihashi Talkie System," with which Shochiku (one of the oldest Jananese film studio) produced "Madam to Nyobo" (Proprietress and Wife), the first full-fledged talkie film in Japan. But the cinema world where he shined had declined as world war 2 intensified. Thus, Tsuchihashi, who had quit Shochiku, had been out of a job after the war.
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One day Tsuchihashi ran into Kasahara on the street. When Kasahara worked for Nanao Musen during the war, Tsuchihashi often visited the radio company to buy cinema-use electrical equipment. "If you are not working, do come and join us at Totsuko," Kasahara told Tsuchihashi, who was professionally known as a recording expert.
While today even small children can use tape recorders without any trouble, tape recording required special techniques and know-how at the time. Just loading a reel to reel tape recorder would give a layman a lot of trouble. During recordings, the tape could get entangled, the machine itself might stop due to a bad connection, or various other problems could arise. To handle these technical headaches, Totsuko badly needed a recording expert like Tsuchihashi.
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Meanwhile, Morita and Kurahashi began to seriously examine their sales methods. They had learned by then that no matter how many new products Ibuka developed or despite any technical merits these new products may offer, customers would not buy them unless they knew how to use them. So they started to study how tape recorders could actually be used in order to generate demand. By accident, they came across an American tape recorder pamphlet entitled "999 Uses of the Tape Recorder." This pamphlet conveniently listed possible uses in alphabetical order. Needless to say, not all of the 999 uses were applicable in Japan, but Morita and Kurahashi continued their research and became convinced that the tape recorder could be used in a wide range of social activities.
At the same time, they stepped up engineering efforts to improve the machine itself. The G-type tape recorder was too heavy, bulky, and expensive to be sold as a consumer product. So they put all of their heads together and discussed possible ways to improve their tape recorder for home and school-use.
"The G-type tape recorder is too bulky. If we make a more portable tape recorder, it cannot fail to sell," stressed Ibuka. Inspired by this, Nobutosi Kihara went home and laid awake all night, thinking of ways to streamline and improve the product. The next day he drew up a plan as soon as he got to the office. Based on this plan, Kihara and the engineering staff began work on two prototypes. Together with their half finished prototypes, they locked themselves up in a hotel room at a hot springs resort in Shizuoka Prefecture, because Ibuka had to I'd them, "Don't come back until you finish it." He realized that if they worked in the office, they would be subject to too many distractions like phone calls and visitors. Ibuka wanted them to concentrate totally on their work. The outcome of this "Lockup Incident" was the H-type tape recorder for home-use.
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 | | The H-type tape recorder |
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