Smithsonian Magazine, December 1, 2012
Nakamatsu--Dr. NakaMats, if you prefer, or, as he prefers, Sir Dr. NakaMats--is an inveterate and inexorable inventor whose biggest claim to fame is the floppy disk. "I became father of the apparatus in 1950," says Dr. NakaMats, who conceived it at the University of Tokyo while listening to Beethoven's Symphony No. 5. "There was no mother."
Though Dr. NakaMats received a Japanese patent in 1952, this virgin birth is disputed by IBM, which insists its own team of engineers developed the device in 1969. Still, to avoid conflicts, Big Blue struck a series of licensing agreements with him in 1979. "My method of digitizing analog technology was the start of Silicon Valley and the information revolution," Dr. NakaMats says. His voice is low, slow and patronizing, solicitously deliberate. "I am a cross between Steve Jobs and Leonardo da Vinci."
(Full Story)
I know there was a thread (by Taro?) about this guy from years back but I couldn't find it.
Anyway, he's as nuckin' futs as always but somehow the Smithsonian Mag figured he was worth writing 4 pages on...
