Japanese Trade-Name Directory
August 1969 Electronics World

August 1969 Electronics World   Table of Contents  Wax nostalgic about and learn from the history of early electronics. See articles from Electronics World, published May 1959 - December 1971. All copyrights hereby acknowledged.

The January 1969 issue of Electronics World magazine published an extensive list of Japanese company trade names and their addresses. Many of them went out of business or were bought by other corporations long ago, as occurs in all countries. I OCRed the company names, but didn't bother with the addresses. You will see that "Craig" is listed twice, which appears to be a typo where the first one should have been "Cardinal." "Aiwa" is also listed twice, but that might have been a legitimate duplication due to separate locations (BTW, I owned an Aiwa stereo at one time). Aiwa stereo equipment is now being serviced by Sony according to the Aiwa.com website. My first "real" cassette tape deck was made by TEAC (founded in 1953 as the Tokyo Electro Acoustic Company) and my first "real" stereo receiver was made by Sansui. Japan definitely Pioneer-ed (pun intended) some really good stereo equipment. I remember the line in "Back to the Future 3" (which, ironically, Melanie and I plan to watch tonight) where Doc Brown, back in 1858 (where he time-travelled from 1955), makes a disparaging remark about a circuit failing in the DeLorean (back from the future - 1985) failing because of it being labeled "Made in Japan." Marty responds, "Waddaya mean Doc? All the best stuff's made in Japan."

Here's the Back to the Future timeline.

Japanese Trade-Name Directory

A listing* of the most popular Japanese transistor radios and hi-fi equipment, along with the addresses of U.S. representatives offering sales and servicing.

*For a more complete list of Japanese consumer electronic products, write Electronics Div., Japan Light Machinery Information Centre, 437 Fifth Ave., New York 10016.

1  Publishers of Japanese television schematic diagrams.

Back tot the Future 3 - Made in Japan

Posted  August 18, 2017