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Inspirational if you are a sadist. The economist Nordhaus once found a pioneer inventor (not a troll) gets less than 5% of the value of their invention to society. Isn't it easier to tell your kids "go make your parents proud and become a doctor" rather than somebody who will sacrifice their career to impress strangers in the TH-cam comments section? Then again there's a school of thought that says "inventors invent, that's what they do" which argues there's no need to make life easier for inventors since they are driven by internal desires unrelated to profit. That's a circular argument IMO but it's hard to prove wrong.
@@raylopez99 that’s like when Data meets Soong, his creator, in Star Trek TNG and asks why he made him. Soong answers “Why does a boxer box? Why does a painter paint?”
How hard it was? He still managed to go to school in late 1800s despite all the "hardship". He also dedicated heavily to the Japan war efforts, he should have the same treatment as those Nazi sympathizera
Japan resident here. From my apartment, I can see the towers of Sharp's Tenri headquarters way out in the mountains, so today I biked out there to finally check it out. There were so many abandoned company dormitories in a state of ruin it was unbelievable. The remaining inhabited buildings didn't look particularly great either. Started googling and found this video, thanks for the history!
I’m working in Sharp Malaysia from 1984 from Roxy Malaysia to Sharp-Roxy Malaysia then change to Sharp Electronics Malaysia for past 38 years. In those glory years Sharp was famous with titanium video head VHS recording player later with first LCD TV in the world. A lot of happiness, enjoyment and friendship that allow me to stay until retired. Now looking back with those memories that have treasured it make my life so wonderful and meaningful journey.
great story. about 2 years ago I was still working as a pharmacist at an indipendant pharmacy in rural WA state. our very first perscription was framed on the wall dated circa 1978. next to the pharmacists station for checking perscriptions was a Sharp EL-506 i believe, LCD display, all metal construction (solar powered or just never ran down the batteries?), having endured near daily use since around the time we opened, purchased new for what i was told was "a lot of money". I still relied on it several times a day, mostly for checking pedieatric weight based doses of amoxicillin suspensions. Never let me down. I am not sure how but the buttons must have been made with the numbers and letters of each key formed solid throughout each button, since each one was worn down several millimeteres from the friction of pressing over the decades. I wonder how much better the world would be if we still made things like that. thanks for uploading
Maybe the process they used was dye sublimation? Same process used on IBM keyboards. The plastic itself is dyed during the production process, so the text is legible even if you wear down the key excessively.
My family has been using Sharp Carousel microwaves since the 80s, and they were phenomenally reliable and effective. Never had a microwaves with a better programmed popcorn function. Unfortunately they never really gained much market share or brand loyalty for LCD TVs in the US.
Same. Mine had a Sharp microwave for nearly 30 years. It only got replaced when after years of abuse the main plastic knob fell off, but you can still turn it with a plier and the thing would still run perfectly. 😂
That's because their LCDs had lots of flaws. I bought a Sharp TV that had some vertical lines in it that people on the internet were talking about. Once you knew about it and noticed them, they were super distracting. I took that TV back and exchanged it for another one, and it was the exact same issue, so I returned the TV and went with something else. People online used to call it the "panel lottery" in that if you won the lottery, you'd get a good one, but most of them had flaws. Like the OP said though, their old microwaves were solid. I think my parents still use the Sharp Carousel microwave from the early 90's - the thing is a tank and just won't die (which these days is bad for business, and everything is made to intentionally fail so you'll buy another one in a year or 2)
Last year my Sharp microwave oven finally died after 21 years of service. The only issue I had with it was the carousel motor died but was easily replaced with a unit from Ebay. Still remember their tag line "From Sharp minds, come sharp products."
The second hand National (Panasonic) microwave I inherited from a relative when I was a student is still happily working and it's now about 40 years old.
@@nchw68 I use the 40 year old National microwave about 5 days a week and I'm fairly confident the previous owner did too. The only defects I've encountered are that the bright white enamel and plastic parts have dulled into a cream colour and the interior light globe failed last year and I can't be bothered replacing it.
I will always remember the Sharp x68000 in 1987, In a time when all computers were covered in beige plastic, Sharp made something that looked truly futuristic.
My first laptop was a Sharp 386. LCD mono screen with 4 MB of RAM and a 3.5 floppy. In 1990, this was massive. Also had 2400 baud modem on board. I had so much fun with that. A serious upgrade from my Commodore 64. Not sure if this device ever hit the market. My mother and stepfather were high execs in Sharp so we got everything they made! God, he loved that fucking Wizard, too! He had a special slot built into his car to hold it just above the climate controls.
As an American born in the early 1970s, Sharp is one of those brands that is remembered fondly. separately, it's amazing how often you see companies investing enormous amounts of money into products that they almost have to know are going to become commodities soon. And they repeatedly made the same mistake.
Not a mistake. If everyone would withhold investing in something, because it will become a commodity, it would never be a commodity because there would be no product and no manufacturing capacity. It's a chicken and the egg issue, where you need to invest right amount in right time and be ready to be on the technological bleeding edge (by continuous investment) so you can survive the commodification of the product and e the one who leads and sells their technology and manufacturing to other companies instead of trying to be as everyone else.
@@mrinmoybanik5598 Exactly. A company sees a product that's obviously "the future". They want to invest in "the future". It's a perfectly rational choice. Other companies also see the same future and make the same call. They know everybody else does. They know that the winner will take (almost) all; there will be room for maybe two strong runners-up and the rest of the companies will be fighting for scraps (margin and profit share wise) i.e. "commodity". With every company and every "future" they're FORCED to bet the house on being at least one of the runners-up. Because if you miss the buss on where everything is going, you'll be nothing but a mom-and-pop shop making nice pencils. Is that the outcome that investors want?? That they'd brought in the executive team to bring about?
@kevinbarry71 Sharp is one of those brands that is remembered ? It is a tragedy that you did not remember to pay attention to the CORPORATE NAME staring you in the face - and how it is written. It is clearly written at 03:50 - You having been programmed to be a ZOMBIE - have eyes but cannot see - ears and cannot hear. Your eyes see one thing and your ZOMBIE brain sees something entirely different - Learn to pay attention to detail - It is SHARP and not Sharp Make sure your mind is Sharp when you L00K at things
I bought a sharp microwave/convection oven in 1999 that I still use every day now. I'm so impressed with this thing that still works perfectly after all these years that I'd like to go over the Japan and shake the hands of the (probably now retired) engineers who designed it. The margins in kitchen appliances are probably still worse than display panels, but at least you don't have to constantly invest billions to keep up with LG and Samsung.
I had a Sharp microwave/ convectron oven too that lasted for more than 15 years. My family enjoyed using it as we could bake conventionally and cook microwaveally. Too bad I can't have it repaired as spare parts became unavailable. Their other products lasted longer or durable during the 80s up to the early 2000s. The last product that I still have with them is a fridge where I can open the door either left or on the right side. We still use it and have been going strong for more than 10 years.
As of today I use a side by side door fridge from Sharp with 10 year warranty, is a lot of cheaper than samsung and lg which have all the feature consider as a top end home appliance. Quite weird since a few years ago I'll never considered sharp for home appliances, a tv perhaps but for home appliances there is always panasonic-national or hitachi.
I'm still using my carousel convection from the 90's. The interior light went out and I'm afraid to replace it for fear of jinxing this thing's otherwise perfect performance for so many years.
@@st3v4nt Hitachi sold off their appliance/electronics divisions some time ago, after which the quality went down-hill. That killed sales & the inevitable happened. Their tool/machinery division still makes good quality products!
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I lived and worked in Japan from 2010-2015 and visited Sharp sometimes for customer interaction. One of the most depressing and bloated organizations I had to interact with. And for Japan, that’s saying something.
@@wernerhermann9120 Not sure what you're trying to say here. That It is impossible for Japanese companies to have commonalities with other Japanese companies? If that is the case then I would have to disagree with you.
My FIL loved Sharp. This was back in the 1990s. I'm pretty sure he single-handedly supported the little corner Sharp dealer in our neighbourhood in Tsuruga. It was a family relationship that continued after he died. In the 90s he had a giant Sharp CRT, with state-of-the-art video decks. But there were also Sharp CD players and HiFi equipment, Sharp air conditioners in every room, and so on. After he died, my MIL bought one of the first big-screen TVs, a giant Sharp LCD. She gifted us a Sharp camcorder (this was 20 years ago). But kind of expensive compared to other brands!
Yes, we used to have many of those small, electronics franchises called 加盟店（Kameiten) throughout Japan. Every brand had one, Panasonic, Sanyo, Hitachi, Toshiba, Mitsubishi and Sharp. Sharp was called Sharp Friend Shop. They were run by mom and pop shop owners and you were kinda obliged to buy from your local shop. The one in my village is an old Panasonic one that still has for sale a 1980s boom box. A lot of these closed off especially those of brands that have disappeared taken over by thoss huge electronics stores in Japan. It's sad that thosd little shops are gone. Your Father in law probably was supporting a local neighbour and hence why he became a Sharp fan. My grandpa made a point of buying Matsushita and later Panasonic, buying from the local shop brand run by a fellow.villager. The store is still running in the village but my guess is it is barely profitable these days.
I LOVE these deep dives into familiar names. You put in so much of your soul into these videos, we are better off for it! You help me appreciate just how ingenious humans can be.
The pencil was called the "Ever Sharp" by the way. We had a few. My step father, who retired from Sharp in the early 90's, was an executive in the SharpVision division. They made 120 inch LCD projectors that were BITCHIN. We had all of the models. Yes, all my friends wanted to come over for a movie theatre experience in a house. It was awesome. Imagine the endless hours of fun when I hooked up my Commodore 64 to that massive piece of video sweetness! My mother, RIP, ran the Optonica division. This was an extremely high end audio part of Sharp. We had DAT when it was illegal in the US. Again, super sweet to have all that kick ass gear. I am really surprised you did not mention these parts of the company. It was high time consumer electronics in the 80's and Sharp was no slacker in this market. Another thing to mention about Sharp was the corporate environment. They were racist as hell as my mother, a white woman, held the highest position they allowed a non-Japanese to hold. They were both based in Mahwah, NJ. Good times. Thanks for the trip.
What a trip down memory la e, thanks. I worked for Funai in NJ too. All major decisions always were at HQ in Tokyo. A simple redesign to a website page or a order took weeks as HQ approval pending. Japanese corporate culture is their brands downfall. Most Japanese companies are run by Old geezers with no imagination, technological outlook, market prediction and one track, narrow racist mindset. I joined Vizio. And was head of marketing there for sometime.
Sharp is well known for its build quality and durability. A CRT based TV lasted more than a decade without any issue. I can't forget the calculator I used in my college days. Solar powered Sharp calculator was cachy on those days.
I worked with Sharp at its manufacturing plant in Malaysia in 1979 for a very brief period...remember making its portable cassete recorder and mini compos...transistor radios
It's a shame, because SHARP goods were always assured quality. I owned many sharp appliances and calculators, and they were always quality. Japan's biggest issue when it comes to business has been their refusal to actively reform culture within and without the corporate entity. Without active competitive labor markets which allow for employee churn, corporations are doomed to stagnate. Corporations will rot when staff retention is too high, or too low . . . there's a goldilocks zone which should be actively sought.
tell that to my family sharp tv, we bought it in 2001 and it got lightning strike, send back to sharp and they said the tv can works but no colors. so my dad give it to me to play PS1. imagine I'm playing PS1 without color for the next 2 years
I mean ... Sharp still sells microwaves and such in Japan, and they are still great... I have one of their phones which is also great. Their televisions are pretty famous even outside of Japan, even now.
The world nowadays values cutting edge technology over reliability, quality or durability at minimum cost. This is why Japanese companies are struggling.
I still have my school photovoltaic powerwd calculator from the 1970s. It still works perfectly and never required a single battery, just a little ambient light. I wish more things that worked so well lasted that long....
Back when solar powered calculators were actually solar powered. Nowadays most of them are fake and just have a plastic panel that looks vaguely like a solar panel.
@@pingpong1727 it's not just because it's simpler, because of the decades in progress they got better and simpler to make. Making things simple is actually hard. And it seems to be from a era before 'planned obsolescence' we have today.
My brother bought a large Sharp radio/cassette player in 1980 and I still have it and it works perfectly but there's nothing worth listening to on the radio anymore. And I bought a Sharp calculator during my first week at university in 1981 and it still works today, and even the original battery lasted until 2019! I guess they were doomed to fail because they made quality products and had never heard of "planned obsolescence".
I agree about them radio stations...and have a very similar experience with my Elsi Mate calculator, made in 1982. Kept going with the original, Sharp-branded 1.5V batteries until 2020. Quite remarkable😄I still use the calculator daily, as it's more convenient than phone apps.
It would be lovely to get more videos like this about the other iconic Japanese brands that saw their downfall like Pioneer, JVC/Kenwood, AKAI -- or how giants like Panasonic (Matsushita) survived.
Panasonic might be heading the same way, in Australia which is unfortunate. Always make great appliances. Hard to get Tv's these days in Australia. They might just be sticking to Air cons.
I worked customer support for their laptop and LCD TV divisions from the late 90's to about 2010. Their laptops were extremely well-made, and sometimes had nice innovations (such as a netbook that doubled as external storage for your full-size PC, making it easy to transfer a file to be edited on the go), but never managed to be price competitive with their competition, and they exited the laptop market in the US in about 2005. Unfortunately, also around 2005 or so, we realized that their cheaper TV's were not even made by them, being re-branded HiSense products. We could tell from the menu systems - a big departure from what we were expecting. Things were looking pretty bad when I left. So sad to see a company that you used to be proud to represent, even with its flaws, fall so far.
One of my favorite Sharp Products was the "Wizard". (16:18).. It was like a micro-notebook. They really should have kept working on this product. Great stuff. It might have done a lot better if there was easy wireless internet like there is now.
Sharp air purifiers (plasmacluster) are the stuff of legends. I’ve even imported one from Japan because they work so well. I’m shocked they allowed a foreign takeover. I always thought the products they made were absolutely top shelf. I’ll continue to use my Sharp air purifiers until the day I die, they are the best I’ve ever used. Great video, I really enjoy your overviews, especially on Japanese Companies.
sharp has been bleeding money since 2009. back in 2012, they announced they want to sell their company but nobody bought them. not until 2015 when Foxconn bought them
I also have Sharp air purifier. Over 100 million sold, because no one makes better. Only machine which humidifier works perfectly. Also, even the cost is high, their filters lasts 10 years. All other manufacturers have filters to be replaced at least once a year. So, Sharp air purifier is actually many times cheaper.
Yo! You can actually import Japanese Air Purifier to America? I think it is time for me to get a Daikin Air Purifier from Japan to here too because I hate Bissell and other Americans made Air Purifier they don't work as well as Toshiba I have currently
This is such a sad story. Sharp was a great company. I have fond memories of my Sharp wordprocessor (bought in 1987, the size of a small television and able to wordprocess and print English or Japanese - way ahead of the time) and my Sharp radio casette. Possible the greatest tribute to the company is that シャープ 'Sharp' is the normal Japanese word for propelling pencil.
I have a Panasonic radio I picked up in an antique shop. It was made in Japan in 1970 or 71, and it's a solid piece of tech. Now all these Japanese brands, like many US brands, are made outside of the brand's home country and the QC is a bit spotty at times.
The founder of Sharp is trully a humble and powerful warrior and very inspirational. Excellent video, very well researched. At one point Sharp Corporation was many excellent electronics and I owned a few but was shocked at the items that did not seem to make it out of Japan and Asian regions back then and then of course after the 90s is where we step into the very dangerous economic problems, extreme rising cost of technology which sucks because these were worldwide events and Sharp Corportation was nearly as strong as the old Sony electronics Corp and the titans of Matsushita Heavy (Panasonic) and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Electronics... I feel sad agreeing to the way the Japanese call the 1990s the lost decade because of the events that happened there that eventually put heavy pressure when the 2000s came and there was this push to sell these, then new mass produced LCD tvs to replace the robust but heavy weight technology of CRT Trinitron TV techs... which so far the FALD HDTVs and OLEDs have still not caught up to the image quality of a CRT Trinitron and it is a shame that so far, despite GLASS technology having evolved and gone through a revolutionary process shift that it does not seem possible for a next gen CRT Trinitron technology to appear... anyways thank you... loved this video.
My first Sharp purchase was an Optima cassette deck, with "search". It worked forward and backward to search for blank spaces in between recorded tracks. In 1979, it was revolutionary. 10 years later, I bought a Sharp fax machine for $1100 dollars. Like $3000 dollars in today's money. (maybe more). Sharp had always been the top tier of electronic innovation in technology in my mind. Now, the Japanese brands have taken a back seat, in terms of sales, to second tier products like RCA, Hisense and Vizio. I still cherish my Yamaha receiver, Technics turntable and Polk speakers. 40 year old hi-fi that still stands up to today's digital electronics.
In the early 80s, almost every electronics company in Japan manufactured personal computers based on MSX.. Sharp, Toshiba, National Panasonic, Sony, Hitachi.. Cool design and incredible functions.. Ultimately, I went for the Sony's HitBit.. Wow, my heart pumps remembering those old days..
Sharp, as of about 2002 or so, produced two of the coolest laptop PCs I have ever seen. It really was sad to see them fail, they were spectacularly good at designing clever things.
Sharp X68000 and also NEC PC-98 are also a nice PC they made too bad Microsoft takes over the world. Oh well at least Fujitsu Computer is still here with US and I currently use a new Lifebook U7312 which is very well design unlike what Lenovo did to a Thinkpad currently
I've just retired a 2007 Sharp 46" LC-46G7M LED TV with in built soundbar which has been fantastic. Bought it in Dubai, the screen eventually got hairline cracks on it from heat after being used in Dubai, Canada and the Philippines. We've got another Sharp 60" LC60UA Android 4K TV we bought in late 2018 and it's been stellar. We bought the Sharp to replace a Sony 50" LCD we bought in 2015 which failed after three years of use and wasn't repairable. Sharp has always made quality and reliable electronics and I'd happily by any of their products again. Even with Foxconn running things, I think they'll do well. Foxconn manufacturers Apple's products so I'm sure they've learned a thing or two.
I have fond memories of sharp products. I had one of their early "lunchbox" LCD monochrome computers in the mid 80s. I also had a few of their calculators.
I have an old Sharp ELSI-Mate EL-326A on my desk, actually. My dad gave it to me in the early 90s to "check your math homework" with. Pretty sure it was "borrowed" from Bell South, where he was working at the time. It still works exactly as it did when it came off the factory line almost 40 years ago!
We used a Sharp television for like two decades! Not the LCD one but the old ones with big asses back. Their electric fans also lasted for more than a decade.
It'd be cool to see a "Fall of RCA Corporation" as it was RCA's agreement with Taiwan to exchange semiconductor technology that led to TSMC (a fact I learned in one of your videos). RCA was influential in color TV, radio, phonographs/vinyl and the creation of NBC. It was originally a subsidiary of GE... a "Fall of GE" would be cool too! ;)
RCA did NOT have semiconductor technology to share. Whoever told you were wrong. SemaTech helped start TSMC as a cheaper production plant outside the US to compete against Japanese semiconductor industry. Then Japan helped TSMC to compete against Korean semiconductor industry. Japanese semiconductor equipments and materials still maintain TSMC superior foundry operation.
I had a 60” sharp aquos that I got from my job at a recycling center over a decade ago, it was a great tv and I’d probably still have it if I hadn’t decided to upgrade to 4k year before last.
When I was a boy, my first TV was a 20" Sharp TV with a wooden cabinet and sliding door. My first calculator was a Sharp with an LCD dot-matrix display. My current Air Conditioner is a Sharp. Long live Sharp!
We had a 19' B&W Sharp TV, back in the 70s. It had a wood grained plastic case. So durable and compact that it traveled in the trunck of my dad's Buick Electra between the cottage and home in the city.
As a kid, I had 2 cassette walkmans: 1 sharp and 1 sayo. I loved the sharp one for its quality, but I only used the sanyo one because it had more features, like equaliser, radio, auto-reverse, etc. After watching this video, I can attest that sharp was too stubborn to innovate and be competitive
The first TV my family bought was a Sharp. Even after 25 years we're still using it to this day (had to replace the board once because of lightning damage, but no maintenance was required otherwise).
What a well researched and compiled story. Many lessons to be learned. Not least that tech changes quickly and the speed of change has accelerated every year.
Nice summary of Sharp history. When Sharp invested in Sakai's 10 gen factory (the first in the world in an attempt to get ahead of competitors) and assumed billions of USD in debt to produce panels too large, too early for the market, that marked the end of the company. The debt crippled the company.
I have a store display 40 inch Sharp backlit LCD TV that I bought back in 2010 for $900 Canadian. It still works perfectly to this day. I also have the 19 inch TV shown at 17:57 that I bought for only $200 Canadian in 2011. It also still works and is now for sale on Kijiji.
I was a vendor for George P Johnson co. They did all the Japanese and Mazda auto show displays like you would see at the LA Auto Show. In the 90's they had the first color LCD TV's to wow the public with. I think they were Panasonic's and about 48" with a cost of over $10K each. Maybe Sharp panels were used?
Sharp Aquos *is* the very first flat screen TV I've ever bought (for my mother, rather than me, because I'm not a TV person), almost exactly 13 years ago. I say, "is," and not, "was," because I still have it. It hasn't been used for some time, but the last time I tried, it still worked. LC40LE700UN. I should probably donate it or something. I bought a Sharp microwave not too long ago, again for my mother. I'm not a microwave person (I don't use one, nor own one).
A worthy story, thank you. I still have my Sharp EL-5100S sci calculator that I bought in gradual school (where one gradually learns that one does not want to go to school anymore [World According to Garp]) because of great price, feature set, and did not use the logic that HP calculators used.
My second mobile phone was a Sharp GX30 dual LCD clamshell. Looked great and was amazing when I got it. Also if you look at the LCD refresh rates back in the day (240hz as was my first LG) imagine if that had been pushed into computer monitors then considering the refresh rates are only just coming back up to that speed.
I think I saw something neat about Sharp's design philosophy about how if a product was viewed as important enough they would get groups from all over the company to set aside time to give maximum effort to making the new product as good as possible and dealing with inevitable hurdles that would pop up.
My parents were big fans of Sharp electronics when I was a kid. Our family TV and VCR were both Sharp models & I believe we had a Sharp Radio/Cassette player as well, so I have a fair bit of nostalgia for the brand. It's a shame to have seen how far they've fallen since even the late 90s when I was a kid, and I don't think they were in their best shape at that time either. I enjoyed learning a bit more about their history from this video though. Keep up the great work.
Mention of Hayakawa's three-and-a-half yen radio reminds me of a landlady I had in Japan. She had a large rock, about the size of a Vokswagen minibus, in her garden, and she had recently, in 1975, had it moved from one side of her front door to the other. For this she had had to pay a labour gang ten thousand yen which you can think of as a C-note of a good dinner for four. OK, I checked: 2,307.27 New Taiwanese Yuan to you, Jon.) "Ten thousand yen!" she would cry at me, "Ichi-man yen...! So piteous: Before World War Two she had bought the rock in the mountains of the north and had it shipped down to Tokyo and brought out to our suburb. All for five yen! A two-thousand-fold change in prices -- (and though she didn't include the calculation, probably a 200,000-fold change in the distance.)
Best to remember that Sharp isn't dead yet. It might be owned by Foxconn, but the brand is still alive. They still make great products, but just have to market their products better. My A/C, fridge, washing machine, microwave and television are all from Sharp and all fairly new products. In contrast, other brands have completely disappeared, like Akai, And where are JVC, Kenwood, and Pioneer nowadays? They are still there, but maybe just in car audio? What I see is Sony, some Toshiba, Panasonic, Sharp and the occasional Hitachi products. I do like to give credit to Sony to successfully market their business, and I wish more Japanese companies did the same. Also remember that European and US brands have witnessed the similar fates.
Over the last decade I've purchased some very good used Sharp products; Two personal MiniDisc recorders, then a MD/CD/PLL-Tuner book-shelf stereo, & last year, an even larger more powerful Sharp system which has the following features; MD/3xCD/PPL-Tuner/Twin-Cassettes! Also used to own one of those micro-wave/convection ovens, with which I did just about all my cooking!
Sharp was a weird animal. It had well engineered products lcds, TVs, even laptops you just could never get ahold of any quantity of them. Sharp has always had strange delivery issues and reasons why they couldn't deliver. Mismanagement at the top.
I work on Sharp copiers at a Sharp dealership and these in generally are pretty good machines but some new models are another make branded as Sharp. Very differant then Sharp originals.
Wow. Back in the 1970s and 80s, SHARP, a Japanese supercorporation, was a familiar household name in the United States. Its products were good, useful, nice-looking, quality, priced reasonably, which is why Sharp was so successful at the time. In the 90s saw the decline and disappearance of Sharp.
Sharp became irreverent and forgotten starting in the year 2000 after getting out of CRT television production, and only sold the expensive Aquos LCD TVs that most middle-class families could not afford.
@@waltchan I don't get why so many companies only wanted to ship CRT TVs without digital tuners until the end of analog OTA. HD CRT computer monitors had already been well established and making them into HD TVs wouldn't have been that hard. They could have gotten some more years out of the technology.
Thanks for this interesting episode, it's sad to see Sharp's demise, they produced some high quality products. I still have a Sharp refrigerator, microwave, tv, and calculator all working well. The refrigerator is especially interesting as its door swings open from both sides, I've never seen another design like it. I expect there's still a lot of goodwill in the market for the Sharp brand name amongst older consumers.Y
TV in my childhood home was Sharp. It was alright. That's basically my experience with this company. (10:55) 6:30 Radio production. 14:00 Liquid crystal displays brought to market. 19:00 Going local. 23:40 The Great Recession and decline. 27:47 Foxconn acqusition.
Great video. I was a sales representative for Sharp in the late 90s when they were a leader in LCD panels and they were making the big investment in new manufacturing locations. I voted selling their products. It is sad to see their decline. Everything in the electronics world has been commoditized.
I still have a 26 inch Sharp Aquos HDTV in my bedroom. It never missed a beat. Know why? On the back there is a sticker that says "Made In Japan". Working flawlessly for 14 years
I used to sell Sharp photocopiers in the 80's and they were truly innovative then, but just couldn't maintain it against the competition (like Canon) in the longer term.
I have a very fond memory with Sharp electronic products. My family bought a sharp refrigerator back in 97, it lasted until 2015. We bought a second-hand 14 inch sharp TV back in 94, it lasted until 2002 (we actually gave it to other family as a "gift"). Their produce high quality products it sad to hear they are in difficulty right now.
My very first PC was a Sharp PC 4502 laptop with a liquid crystal display. I also purchased a user-instalable 1200bps modem. The entire purchase in 1988 was about $2000. Because of the substantial investment and, more importantly, the internal modem, I stuck with this computer hobby for the year it took to master MS DOS 3.1. Untill then, it was the accessibility of online services like Compuserve that allowed me to actually DO SOMETHING with this expensive toy. About 1.5yrs later, I would purchase another Japanese made computer, the NEC Ultralite with a TWO megabyte battery backed "silicon hard disk" for $2500. I purchased the external floppy drive a few weeks later for a "mere" $350. It was the closest thing to an "instant boot" computer I would ever own. Anyway, this is a shout-out to the Japanese computer manufacturers who jump-started my 25yr career in technology.
By 2009, sharp is losing market share and I trade my hard-drive-based iPod for the last TV I will ever own. I ended up giving that TV to our movers as a tip for their services since I hardly ever used it. Yes, it was a Sharp LCD. I do have a TV in my living room I haven't used for years. Last time I used it to play Zelda on my switch for a few hours. I got that TV for $40 from a flea market. So technically it's my real last TV, but I have used it for less than 10 hours in 5 years.
I bought a bunch of SHARP LCD computer monitors around 2005. Around 2007, three broke from manufacturing defects while still under warranty. SHARP refused to honor the warranty. Amazing how bad customer service can spoil a brand, this is what I remember about the company 16 years later. Their demise is feel good news for me.
I'm disappointed at Sharp's downfall, back in 1993 when I first learned of the ViewCam I immediately recognized it as a revolutionary innovation and just had to get one of my own. The first video camera that could be used while wearing eyeglasses. Many other manufacturers added swing-out LCDs but retained eyepiece viewfinders. No other company I am aware of made camcorders in the same style as Sharp.
I had a few Sharp android phones, they were the best phone I ever got my hands on, every components and build quality is top notch. Then in last few years, their phone disappear from market, I am still waiting for their upcoming release, their products are very tough. I had to changed them because of android versions, if it isn't, I might be still using them.
Missed my old Sharp Aquos Crystal phone with super sharp display for the time. I think Sharp still makes and release new Android phones, but sells them only in selected markets. With Foxconn being the new owner/boss, it's questionable whether their current phones are as good as 10 years ago.
I felt the same way about the newer Sony Xperia offerings, specifically for their cameras. The stuff you can do is light years beyond any other smart phone camera. Build quality is great too. But it’s almost impossible to buy one outside Japan and even counting domestic sales they’re an unmitigated failure. Yet somehow Sony keeps releasing a new one every year. It’s baffling.
Watched this on my SHARP LC-60LE600U from 2012, which is still my favorite 1080P LCD/LED TV. I believe it was the lowest powered 60in you could buy at the time @ 178W. Matte screen, easy to see in a bright room, no smart anything that stops getting updates and stops working after a couple years. No power supply issues like my older Samsungs that died long ago. It just keeps working so I keep it in the den.
I only recently found out Foxconn bought shares in Sharp Corporation. I did not expect this because i did not see any drastic change that indicates Foxconn now owned majority shares in Sharp. Its factory in my country Malaysia still operating. I did saw some products not available anymore and only Sharp products home appliances available .
I worked in a Sharp warehouse as a temp in the 90s. There was a mini-stereo model that had a CD player issue. Sharp built a line in the warehouse, stations disassembled the unit until it got to the Sharp tech at the end who did the fix. Maybe that's SOP, I don't know, but it was impressive to me the way they organized the project and that Sharp was truly interested in fixing these units. Also the guy in charge gave me a bonus at the end of the project. So Sharp is fine by me :)
Amazing history! Thanks to you I discovered few new functions in my Casio calculator and I give it some cleaning 👍 We underestimate these devices nowadays.
My thanks to Private Internet Access for their support of the channel. Sign up using my personalized link here and get 83% off + 4 months free: piavpn.com/Asianometry
I think you meant adoptive mother or foster mother, not "step mother" which specifically means someone who married a child's biological dad.
My 4k TV is a Sharp.
Makes me think of fujitsu fi-5750 scanners. High quality stuff.
Have you ever considered doing a video on the intel AMT/ME backdoor and its security implications. You talked about security and this came to mind.
I remember when your channel had only around 2k subscribers. Impressive the way your channel grew. I also subscribed to your newsletter.
The founder story was inspirational. He faced so many disasters and just kept perservering.
Inspirational if you are a sadist. The economist Nordhaus once found a pioneer inventor (not a troll) gets less than 5% of the value of their invention to society. Isn't it easier to tell your kids "go make your parents proud and become a doctor" rather than somebody who will sacrifice their career to impress strangers in the TH-cam comments section? Then again there's a school of thought that says "inventors invent, that's what they do" which argues there's no need to make life easier for inventors since they are driven by internal desires unrelated to profit. That's a circular argument IMO but it's hard to prove wrong.
@@raylopez99 that’s like when Data meets Soong, his creator, in Star Trek TNG and asks why he made him. Soong answers “Why does a boxer box? Why does a painter paint?”
@@seanwieland9763 Why does a banker bank? For the $$$.
How hard it was? He still managed to go to school in late 1800s despite all the "hardship". He also dedicated heavily to the Japan war efforts, he should have the same treatment as those Nazi sympathizera
@@champan250 you mean he should be given a job at the Bank of International Settlements?
Japan resident here. From my apartment, I can see the towers of Sharp's Tenri headquarters way out in the mountains, so today I biked out there to finally check it out. There were so many abandoned company dormitories in a state of ruin it was unbelievable. The remaining inhabited buildings didn't look particularly great either. Started googling and found this video, thanks for the history!
pity :(
I’m working in Sharp Malaysia from 1984 from Roxy Malaysia to Sharp-Roxy Malaysia then change to Sharp Electronics Malaysia for past 38 years. In those glory years Sharp was famous with titanium video head VHS recording player later with first LCD TV in the world. A lot of happiness, enjoyment and friendship that allow me to stay until retired. Now looking back with those memories that have treasured it make my life so wonderful and meaningful journey.
My dad bought a Sharp Music system in 1978. Still works.
@@prabuddhaghosh7022 Wow! Is a vintage set. My ex-colleague has a Sharp turntable the deck made from the marbles in the 80’. Hope he still keeping it!
You are working still or you were working and stopped working already?
@@rc....I’m retired one year plus four months ago and now enjoying simple life😊
great story. about 2 years ago I was still working as a pharmacist at an indipendant pharmacy in rural WA state. our very first perscription was framed on the wall dated circa 1978. next to the pharmacists station for checking perscriptions was a Sharp EL-506 i believe, LCD display, all metal construction (solar powered or just never ran down the batteries?), having endured near daily use since around the time we opened, purchased new for what i was told was "a lot of money". I still relied on it several times a day, mostly for checking pedieatric weight based doses of amoxicillin suspensions. Never let me down. I am not sure how but the buttons must have been made with the numbers and letters of each key formed solid throughout each button, since each one was worn down several millimeteres from the friction of pressing over the decades. I wonder how much better the world would be if we still made things like that.
thanks for uploading
Maybe the process they used was dye sublimation? Same process used on IBM keyboards. The plastic itself is dyed during the production process, so the text is legible even if you wear down the key excessively.
Lies again? UFC WWE88 Sharp Shooter
@@NazriB wat
I am amazed that a pharmacist is unable to spell prescriptions.
@@KarldorisLambley ud be suprized. lol
My family has been using Sharp Carousel microwaves since the 80s, and they were phenomenally reliable and effective. Never had a microwaves with a better programmed popcorn function. Unfortunately they never really gained much market share or brand loyalty for LCD TVs in the US.
Same. Mine had a Sharp microwave for nearly 30 years. It only got replaced when after years of abuse the main plastic knob fell off, but you can still turn it with a plier and the thing would still run perfectly. 😂
Maybe the should've switched to tv dinners... buh dum tshh
That's because their LCDs had lots of flaws. I bought a Sharp TV that had some vertical lines in it that people on the internet were talking about. Once you knew about it and noticed them, they were super distracting. I took that TV back and exchanged it for another one, and it was the exact same issue, so I returned the TV and went with something else. People online used to call it the "panel lottery" in that if you won the lottery, you'd get a good one, but most of them had flaws. Like the OP said though, their old microwaves were solid. I think my parents still use the Sharp Carousel microwave from the early 90's - the thing is a tank and just won't die (which these days is bad for business, and everything is made to intentionally fail so you'll buy another one in a year or 2)
Yeah mine is older than me 30yo and still going and its been moved a lot and has been used a lot everyday
Sharp Microwave is a tough reliable beast.
Last year my Sharp microwave oven finally died after 21 years of service. The only issue I had with it was the carousel motor died but was easily replaced with a unit from Ebay. Still remember their tag line "From Sharp minds, come sharp products."
My 20 year microwave is going strong but the interior looks cruddy.
The second hand National (Panasonic) microwave I inherited from a relative when I was a student is still happily working and it's now about 40 years old.
@@Dave_Sisson That's pretty impressive. I wonder if it got used daily before you got it. I used mine almost daily throughout it's lifetime.
@@nchw68 I use the 40 year old National microwave about 5 days a week and I'm fairly confident the previous owner did too. The only defects I've encountered are that the bright white enamel and plastic parts have dulled into a cream colour and the interior light globe failed last year and I can't be bothered replacing it.
@@Dave_Sisson That thing was well built.
I will always remember the Sharp x68000 in 1987, In a time when all computers were covered in beige plastic, Sharp made something that looked truly futuristic.
My first laptop was a Sharp 386. LCD mono screen with 4 MB of RAM and a 3.5 floppy. In 1990, this was massive. Also had 2400 baud modem on board. I had so much fun with that. A serious upgrade from my Commodore 64.
Not sure if this device ever hit the market. My mother and stepfather were high execs in Sharp so we got everything they made!
God, he loved that fucking Wizard, too!
He had a special slot built into his car to hold it just above the climate controls.
As an American born in the early 1970s, Sharp is one of those brands that is remembered fondly. separately, it's amazing how often you see companies investing enormous amounts of money into products that they almost have to know are going to become commodities soon. And they repeatedly made the same mistake.
Not a mistake. If everyone would withhold investing in something, because it will become a commodity, it would never be a commodity because there would be no product and no manufacturing capacity.
It's a chicken and the egg issue, where you need to invest right amount in right time and be ready to be on the technological bleeding edge (by continuous investment) so you can survive the commodification of the product and e the one who leads and sells their technology and manufacturing to other companies instead of trying to be as everyone else.
Ig it became a commodity due to those very investments!
@@mrinmoybanik5598 Exactly. A company sees a product that's obviously "the future". They want to invest in "the future". It's a perfectly rational choice. Other companies also see the same future and make the same call. They know everybody else does. They know that the winner will take (almost) all; there will be room for maybe two strong runners-up and the rest of the companies will be fighting for scraps (margin and profit share wise) i.e. "commodity".
With every company and every "future" they're FORCED to bet the house on being at least one of the runners-up. Because if you miss the buss on where everything is going, you'll be nothing but a mom-and-pop shop making nice pencils. Is that the outcome that investors want?? That they'd brought in the executive team to bring about?
@kevinbarry71
Sharp is one of those brands that is remembered ?
It is a tragedy that you did not remember to pay attention to the CORPORATE
NAME staring you in the face - and how it is written.
It is clearly written at 03:50 -
You having been programmed to be a ZOMBIE - have eyes but cannot see -
ears and cannot hear.
Your eyes see one thing and your ZOMBIE brain sees something entirely different
- Learn to pay attention to detail -
It is SHARP and not Sharp
Make sure your mind is Sharp when you L00K at things
Remember all that “Japan is taking over” anxiety in the 1980s? And movies like Black Rain? The world sure looks different today.
I bought a sharp microwave/convection oven in 1999 that I still use every day now. I'm so impressed with this thing that still works perfectly after all these years that I'd like to go over the Japan and shake the hands of the (probably now retired) engineers who designed it. The margins in kitchen appliances are probably still worse than display panels, but at least you don't have to constantly invest billions to keep up with LG and Samsung.
I had a Sharp microwave/ convectron oven too that lasted for more than 15 years. My family enjoyed using it as we could bake conventionally and cook microwaveally. Too bad I can't have it repaired as spare parts became unavailable.
Their other products lasted longer or durable during the 80s up to the early 2000s.
The last product that I still have with them is a fridge where I can open the door either left or on the right side. We still use it and have been going strong for more than 10 years.
As of today I use a side by side door fridge from Sharp with 10 year warranty, is a lot of cheaper than samsung and lg which have all the feature consider as a top end home appliance. Quite weird since a few years ago I'll never considered sharp for home appliances, a tv perhaps but for home appliances there is always panasonic-national or hitachi.
I'm still using my carousel convection from the 90's. The interior light went out and I'm afraid to replace it for fear of jinxing this thing's otherwise perfect performance for so many years.
@@st3v4nt Hitachi sold off their appliance/electronics divisions some time ago, after which the quality went down-hill. That killed sales & the inevitable happened. Their tool/machinery division still makes good quality products!
@@stevie-ray2020 Metabo is the new name of Hitachi Tools. I bought a Circular saw online and this tool worked really well for cutting concrete.
This channel is ridiculously good. There is no comparison.
I have no clue how he does it
There are a lot of full time creators who do worse research and have less coherent videos.
@@stachowi he's a machine it's a great effort
WOW VERY DANGEROUS SIR! 😠 😠I WILL NEVER GO TO JAPAN!! 😠BUT THIS WHY IM SO LUCKY LIVE IN SUPER INDIA THE CLEANEST COUNTRY IN THE WORLD 🇮🇳🤗 , WE NEVER SCAM! WE GIVE RESPECT TO ALL WOMEN THEY CAN WALK SAFELY ALONE AT NIGHT AND WE HAVE CLEAN FOOD AND TOILET EVERYWHERE 🇮🇳🤗🚽, I KNOW MANY POOR PEOPLE JEALOUS WITH SUPER RICH INDIA 🤗🇮🇳🤗🇮🇳🤗🇮🇳🤗🇮🇳🤗🇮🇳
@@stachowi Adderall is a helluva drug.
I lived and worked in Japan from 2010-2015 and visited Sharp sometimes for customer interaction. One of the most depressing and bloated organizations I had to interact with. And for Japan, that’s saying something.
When it comes to Japan,there is of course the question of whether their website looked like it was from 1998?
@@wernerhermann9120 Not sure what you're trying to say here. That It is impossible for Japanese companies to have commonalities with other Japanese companies? If that is the case then I would have to disagree with you.
@@wernerhermann9120 Bro, stop yapping. Sharp isn't going to sleep with you.
@@agenericaccount3935 Thank you for giving a good laugh with your asinine comment that reveals your stupidity.
@@wernerhermann9120 jfc some people will start a pissing fight about literally anything.
My FIL loved Sharp. This was back in the 1990s. I'm pretty sure he single-handedly supported the little corner Sharp dealer in our neighbourhood in Tsuruga. It was a family relationship that continued after he died. In the 90s he had a giant Sharp CRT, with state-of-the-art video decks. But there were also Sharp CD players and HiFi equipment, Sharp air conditioners in every room, and so on. After he died, my MIL bought one of the first big-screen TVs, a giant Sharp LCD. She gifted us a Sharp camcorder (this was 20 years ago). But kind of expensive compared to other brands!
Yes, we used to have many of those small, electronics franchises called 加盟店（Kameiten)
throughout Japan. Every brand had one, Panasonic, Sanyo, Hitachi, Toshiba, Mitsubishi and Sharp. Sharp was called Sharp Friend Shop. They were run by mom and pop shop owners and you were kinda obliged to buy from your local shop. The one in my village is an old Panasonic one that still has for sale a 1980s boom box. A lot of these closed off especially those of brands that have disappeared taken over by thoss huge electronics stores in Japan. It's sad that thosd little shops are gone. Your Father in law probably was supporting a local neighbour and hence why he became a Sharp fan. My grandpa made a point of buying Matsushita and later Panasonic, buying from the local shop brand run by a fellow.villager. The store is still running in the village but my guess is it is barely profitable these days.
You say "back in the 1990s" like it was a long time ago...well, ok.
@@ProfBoggs bruh its 23-33 years ago its 2-3 decades ago.
I LOVE these deep dives into familiar names. You put in so much of your soul into these videos, we are better off for it! You help me appreciate just how ingenious humans can be.
The pencil was called the "Ever Sharp" by the way. We had a few.
My step father, who retired from Sharp in the early 90's, was an executive in the SharpVision division. They made 120 inch LCD projectors that were BITCHIN.
We had all of the models. Yes, all my friends wanted to come over for a movie theatre experience in a house. It was awesome. Imagine the endless hours of fun when I hooked up my Commodore 64 to that massive piece of video sweetness!
My mother, RIP, ran the Optonica division. This was an extremely high end audio part of Sharp. We had DAT when it was illegal in the US.
Again, super sweet to have all that kick ass gear.
I am really surprised you did not mention these parts of the company. It was high time consumer electronics in the 80's and Sharp was no slacker in this market.
Another thing to mention about Sharp was the corporate environment.
They were racist as hell as my mother, a white woman, held the highest position they allowed a non-Japanese to hold.
They were both based in Mahwah, NJ.
Good times. Thanks for the trip.
What a trip down memory la e, thanks. I worked for Funai in NJ too. All major decisions always were at HQ in Tokyo. A simple redesign to a website page or a order took weeks as HQ approval pending. Japanese corporate culture is their brands downfall. Most Japanese companies are run by Old geezers with no imagination, technological outlook, market prediction and one track, narrow racist mindset.
I joined Vizio. And was head of marketing there for sometime.
Sharp is well known for its build quality and durability.
A CRT based TV lasted more than a decade without any issue.
I can't forget the calculator I used in my college days. Solar powered Sharp calculator was cachy on those days.
I worked with Sharp at its manufacturing plant in Malaysia in 1979 for a very brief period...remember making its portable cassete recorder and mini compos...transistor radios
I have a 2006 46 inch Sharp and a 2012 52" Sharp TV and both of them have worked flawlessly so far. Hard to been for quality.
I love that you've carved out a niche of Asian Business History. Another banger Jon!
It's a shame, because SHARP goods were always assured quality.
I owned many sharp appliances and calculators, and they were always quality.
Japan's biggest issue when it comes to business has been their refusal to actively reform culture within and without the corporate entity.
Without active competitive labor markets which allow for employee churn, corporations are doomed to stagnate.
Corporations will rot when staff retention is too high, or too low . . . there's a goldilocks zone which should be actively sought.
Still have a sharp solar powered calculator that still functions 35 years later, admittedly not had active use, but still functions as
tell that to my family sharp tv, we bought it in 2001 and it got lightning strike, send back to sharp and they said the tv can works but no colors. so my dad give it to me to play PS1. imagine I'm playing PS1 without color for the next 2 years
@@boboboy8189 lol. Well quality assurance will never be able to account for lightning strikes and/or a cash strapped father :P
I mean ... Sharp still sells microwaves and such in Japan, and they are still great... I have one of their phones which is also great. Their televisions are pretty famous even outside of Japan, even now.
The world nowadays values cutting edge technology over reliability, quality or durability at minimum cost. This is why Japanese companies are struggling.
JVC was another iconic tech company we all miss, here in Australia
*There were so many good Sharp products - I used to like their combination microwave toaster-oven appliance.* 👍
why the bold man
@F: Maybe he likes his frozen food with a nice crisp on the edges! :D
I still have my school photovoltaic powerwd calculator from the 1970s. It still works perfectly and never required a single battery, just a little ambient light.
I wish more things that worked so well lasted that long....
Back when solar powered calculators were actually solar powered. Nowadays most of them are fake and just have a plastic panel that looks vaguely like a solar panel.
My TI from 1990s is also still working. The calculator maybe is the best electronic product ever made in build quality, etc.
@@pingpong1727 it's not just because it's simpler, because of the decades in progress they got better and simpler to make. Making things simple is actually hard. And it seems to be from a era before 'planned obsolescence' we have today.
My brother bought a large Sharp radio/cassette player in 1980 and I still have it and it works perfectly but there's nothing worth listening to on the radio anymore. And I bought a Sharp calculator during my first week at university in 1981 and it still works today, and even the original battery lasted until 2019! I guess they were doomed to fail because they made quality products and had never heard of "planned obsolescence".
I agree about them radio stations...and have a very similar experience with my Elsi Mate calculator, made in 1982. Kept going with the original, Sharp-branded 1.5V batteries until 2020. Quite remarkable😄I still use the calculator daily, as it's more convenient than phone apps.
It would be lovely to get more videos like this about the other iconic Japanese brands that saw their downfall like Pioneer, JVC/Kenwood, AKAI -- or how giants like Panasonic (Matsushita) survived.
Kenwood isn't a Japanese brand. Keyword started in Havant, Hampshire, UK. It's founder was a guy called Kenneth Wood.
@@chrisbarker2573 Really? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenwood_Corporation says otherwise
Kenwood UK and Kenwood Japan are two different companies.
Well, at least Akai is still doing okay under inMusic management, though not quite the dominant brand in music production gears as it was in the 90s.
Panasonic might be heading the same way, in Australia which is unfortunate. Always make great appliances. Hard to get Tv's these days in Australia. They might just be sticking to Air cons.
I worked customer support for their laptop and LCD TV divisions from the late 90's to about 2010. Their laptops were extremely well-made, and sometimes had nice innovations (such as a netbook that doubled as external storage for your full-size PC, making it easy to transfer a file to be edited on the go), but never managed to be price competitive with their competition, and they exited the laptop market in the US in about 2005.
Unfortunately, also around 2005 or so, we realized that their cheaper TV's were not even made by them, being re-branded HiSense products. We could tell from the menu systems - a big departure from what we were expecting. Things were looking pretty bad when I left.
So sad to see a company that you used to be proud to represent, even with its flaws, fall so far.
One of my favorite Sharp Products was the "Wizard". (16:18).. It was like a micro-notebook. They really should have kept working on this product. Great stuff. It might have done a lot better if there was easy wireless internet like there is now.
Asianometry videos are becoming my binge watch channel. Going over the China Vietnam history vids rn.
Sharp air purifiers (plasmacluster) are the stuff of legends. I’ve even imported one from Japan because they work so well. I’m shocked they allowed a foreign takeover.
I always thought the products they made were absolutely top shelf.
I’ll continue to use my Sharp air purifiers until the day I die, they are the best I’ve ever used.
Great video, I really enjoy your overviews, especially on Japanese Companies.
sharp has been bleeding money since 2009. back in 2012, they announced they want to sell their company but nobody bought them. not until 2015 when Foxconn bought them
I also have Sharp air purifier. Over 100 million sold, because no one makes better. Only machine which humidifier works perfectly. Also, even the cost is high, their filters lasts 10 years. All other manufacturers have filters to be replaced at least once a year. So, Sharp air purifier is actually many times cheaper.
Yo! You can actually import Japanese Air Purifier to America? I think it is time for me to get a Daikin Air Purifier from Japan to here too because I hate Bissell and other Americans made Air Purifier they don't work as well as Toshiba I have currently
This is such a sad story. Sharp was a great company.
I have fond memories of my Sharp wordprocessor (bought in 1987, the size of a small television and able to wordprocess and print English or Japanese - way ahead of the time) and my Sharp radio casette.
Possible the greatest tribute to the company is that シャープ 'Sharp' is the normal Japanese word for propelling pencil.
It feels more like: The 20 year fall of Japan’s entire economy 🧐
Japanese brands were so common when I was younger
yes, "everything, not just cars"
@@kev4241 the other place their branded physical goods are still common in the household is game consoles
I have a Panasonic radio I picked up in an antique shop. It was made in Japan in 1970 or 71, and it's a solid piece of tech. Now all these Japanese brands, like many US brands, are made outside of the brand's home country and the QC is a bit spotty at times.
@@RCAvhstape apparently PRC Chinese often buy Japanese electronics when on vacation there, and explicitly avoid the Made in China models.
@@szurketaltos2693 That's what I would do if I visited Japan.
The founder of Sharp is trully a humble and powerful warrior and very inspirational. Excellent video, very well researched. At one point Sharp Corporation was many excellent electronics and I owned a few but was shocked at the items that did not seem to make it out of Japan and Asian regions back then and then of course after the 90s is where we step into the very dangerous economic problems, extreme rising cost of technology which sucks because these were worldwide events and Sharp Corportation was nearly as strong as the old Sony electronics Corp and the titans of Matsushita Heavy (Panasonic) and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Electronics... I feel sad agreeing to the way the Japanese call the 1990s the lost decade because of the events that happened there that eventually put heavy pressure when the 2000s came and there was this push to sell these, then new mass produced LCD tvs to replace the robust but heavy weight technology of CRT Trinitron TV techs... which so far the FALD HDTVs and OLEDs have still not caught up to the image quality of a CRT Trinitron and it is a shame that so far, despite GLASS technology having evolved and gone through a revolutionary process shift that it does not seem possible for a next gen CRT Trinitron technology to appear... anyways thank you... loved this video.
My first Sharp purchase was an Optima cassette deck, with "search". It worked forward and backward to search for blank spaces in between recorded tracks. In 1979, it was revolutionary. 10 years later, I bought a Sharp fax machine for $1100 dollars. Like $3000 dollars in today's money. (maybe more). Sharp had always been the top tier of electronic innovation in technology in my mind. Now, the Japanese brands have taken a back seat, in terms of sales, to second tier products like RCA, Hisense and Vizio.
I still cherish my Yamaha receiver, Technics turntable and Polk speakers. 40 year old hi-fi that still stands up to today's digital electronics.
In the early 80s, almost every electronics company in Japan manufactured personal computers based on MSX..
Sharp, Toshiba, National Panasonic, Sony, Hitachi.. Cool design and incredible functions..
Ultimately, I went for the Sony's HitBit..
Wow, my heart pumps remembering those old days..
As the person who requested this particular topic, thank you for a well put together video.
Sharp, as of about 2002 or so, produced two of the coolest laptop PCs I have ever seen. It really was sad to see them fail, they were spectacularly good at designing clever things.
Sharp X68000 and also NEC PC-98 are also a nice PC they made too bad Microsoft takes over the world. Oh well at least Fujitsu Computer is still here with US and I currently use a new Lifebook U7312 which is very well design unlike what Lenovo did to a Thinkpad currently
As an owner of a Sharp LCD TV I very much enjoyed the education! Thank you! I never though I could find so detailed info on YT. Again, thank you!
I've just retired a 2007 Sharp 46" LC-46G7M LED TV with in built soundbar which has been fantastic. Bought it in Dubai, the screen eventually got hairline cracks on it from heat after being used in Dubai, Canada and the Philippines. We've got another Sharp 60" LC60UA Android 4K TV we bought in late 2018 and it's been stellar. We bought the Sharp to replace a Sony 50" LCD we bought in 2015 which failed after three years of use and wasn't repairable. Sharp has always made quality and reliable electronics and I'd happily by any of their products again. Even with Foxconn running things, I think they'll do well. Foxconn manufacturers Apple's products so I'm sure they've learned a thing or two.
I remember cool Sharp boomboxes, dual cassette players, they looked good and worked well, good times )
I have fond memories of sharp products. I had one of their early "lunchbox" LCD monochrome computers in the mid 80s. I also had a few of their calculators.
I have an old Sharp ELSI-Mate EL-326A on my desk, actually. My dad gave it to me in the early 90s to "check your math homework" with. Pretty sure it was "borrowed" from Bell South, where he was working at the time. It still works exactly as it did when it came off the factory line almost 40 years ago!
We used a Sharp television for like two decades! Not the LCD one but the old ones with big asses back. Their electric fans also lasted for more than a decade.
How do you make such deep, detailed, and well researched topics, producing 30 minute videos at what feels like twice a week. It's amazing!
It'd be cool to see a "Fall of RCA Corporation" as it was RCA's agreement with Taiwan to exchange semiconductor technology that led to TSMC (a fact I learned in one of your videos). RCA was influential in color TV, radio, phonographs/vinyl and the creation of NBC. It was originally a subsidiary of GE... a "Fall of GE" would be cool too! ;)
"The rise and fall"... is TH-cam's favourite genre. There is plenty of channels about that.
GE never fell. Why is everyone trying to equate a company being different than it was in the past to the company having fallen?
RCA did NOT have semiconductor technology to share. Whoever told you were wrong.
SemaTech helped start TSMC as a cheaper production plant outside the US to compete against Japanese semiconductor industry. Then Japan helped TSMC to compete against Korean semiconductor industry. Japanese semiconductor equipments and materials still maintain TSMC superior foundry operation.
The old RCA building in Camden NJ is still standing, converted into loft apartments.
@J : If you read the comments on the stock sites, yes, GE fell. Hard. :O
Sharp products were made of such a high quality. Their calculators and cassette players lasted a lifetime.
Great video. I still have a working Elsi mate EL-5806. Have had since about 1978.
Sad. I'm in my 60's and have had dozens of Sharp products over the years. Still have a couple of Sharp calculators in the desk drawer!
I had a 60” sharp aquos that I got from my job at a recycling center over a decade ago, it was a great tv and I’d probably still have it if I hadn’t decided to upgrade to 4k year before last.
When I was a boy, my first TV was a 20" Sharp TV with a wooden cabinet and sliding door. My first calculator was a Sharp with an LCD dot-matrix display. My current Air Conditioner is a Sharp. Long live Sharp!
And now acquired by Foxconn
@@thisiskevin1000 The first time that I found the name Foxconn was inside an Apple Computer... in the 90's 🤔
Love Sharp air conditioners as well. ✔
We had a 19' B&W Sharp TV, back in the 70s. It had a wood grained plastic case.
So durable and compact that it traveled in the trunck of my dad's Buick Electra between the cottage and home in the city.
Jon, you never make a dull video! Not even sure that Asianomtery's take on paint drying would be boring!
Paint drying is an interesting material science topic, no joke.
Yeah, this video is pretty *sharp* and on point.
As a kid, I had 2 cassette walkmans: 1 sharp and 1 sayo. I loved the sharp one for its quality, but I only used the sanyo one because it had more features, like equaliser, radio, auto-reverse, etc. After watching this video, I can attest that sharp was too stubborn to innovate and be competitive
The first TV my family bought was a Sharp. Even after 25 years we're still using it to this day (had to replace the board once because of lightning damage, but no maintenance was required otherwise).
I remember when the Ford Motor Company closed in Mahwah, NJ. Sharp built a glass office building on the site.
What a well researched and compiled story.
Many lessons to be learned. Not least that tech changes quickly and the speed of change has accelerated every year.
On a different note, what is your thought on a new series on *Telecom equipment giants engaged in 5G* 📱🛰️ like Ericsson, Nokia, Qualcomm, Cisco?
Nice summary of Sharp history. When Sharp invested in Sakai's 10 gen factory (the first in the world in an attempt to get ahead of competitors) and assumed billions of USD in debt to produce panels too large, too early for the market, that marked the end of the company. The debt crippled the company.
I have a store display 40 inch Sharp backlit LCD TV that I bought back in 2010 for $900 Canadian. It still works perfectly to this day. I also have the 19 inch TV shown at 17:57 that I bought for only $200 Canadian in 2011. It also still works and is now for sale on Kijiji.
I was a vendor for George P Johnson co. They did all the Japanese and Mazda auto show displays like you would see at the LA Auto Show. In the 90's they had the first color LCD TV's to wow the public with. I think they were Panasonic's and about 48" with a cost of over $10K each. Maybe Sharp panels were used?
Sharp Aquos *is* the very first flat screen TV I've ever bought (for my mother, rather than me, because I'm not a TV person), almost exactly 13 years ago.
I say, "is," and not, "was," because I still have it. It hasn't been used for some time, but the last time I tried, it still worked. LC40LE700UN. I should probably donate it or something.
I bought a Sharp microwave not too long ago, again for my mother. I'm not a microwave person (I don't use one, nor own one).
A worthy story, thank you. I still have my Sharp EL-5100S sci calculator that I bought in gradual school (where one gradually learns that one does not want to go to school anymore [World According to Garp]) because of great price, feature set, and did not use the logic that HP calculators used.
Wow. The amount of information is impressive and presented with clarity.
Nice video.
My second mobile phone was a Sharp GX30 dual LCD clamshell. Looked great and was amazing when I got it.
Also if you look at the LCD refresh rates back in the day (240hz as was my first LG) imagine if that had been pushed into computer monitors then considering the refresh rates are only just coming back up to that speed.
I think I saw something neat about Sharp's design philosophy about how if a product was viewed as important enough they would get groups from all over the company to set aside time to give maximum effort to making the new product as good as possible and dealing with inevitable hurdles that would pop up.
My parents were big fans of Sharp electronics when I was a kid. Our family TV and VCR were both Sharp models & I believe we had a Sharp Radio/Cassette player as well, so I have a fair bit of nostalgia for the brand. It's a shame to have seen how far they've fallen since even the late 90s when I was a kid, and I don't think they were in their best shape at that time either. I enjoyed learning a bit more about their history from this video though. Keep up the great work.
Mention of Hayakawa's three-and-a-half yen radio reminds me of a landlady I had in Japan. She had a large rock, about the size of a Vokswagen minibus, in her garden, and she had recently, in 1975, had it moved from one side of her front door to the other. For this she had had to pay a labour gang ten thousand yen which you can think of as a C-note of a good dinner for four. OK, I checked: 2,307.27 New Taiwanese Yuan to you, Jon.)
"Ten thousand yen!" she would cry at me, "Ichi-man yen...!
So piteous: Before World War Two she had bought the rock in the mountains of the north and had it shipped down to Tokyo and brought out to our suburb. All for five yen!
A two-thousand-fold change in prices -- (and though she didn't include the calculation, probably a 200,000-fold change in the distance.)
Best to remember that Sharp isn't dead yet. It might be owned by Foxconn, but the brand is still alive. They still make great products, but just have to market their products better. My A/C, fridge, washing machine, microwave and television are all from Sharp and all fairly new products. In contrast, other brands have completely disappeared, like Akai, And where are JVC, Kenwood, and Pioneer nowadays? They are still there, but maybe just in car audio? What I see is Sony, some Toshiba, Panasonic, Sharp and the occasional Hitachi products. I do like to give credit to Sony to successfully market their business, and I wish more Japanese companies did the same. Also remember that European and US brands have witnessed the similar fates.
What?, I remember the TV ads "From sharp minds come Sharp products".
I have a sharp calculator from 1978. It still works, never having replaced the batteries.
You've become one of my favorite channels! Thank you.
My first laptop was the Sharp PC-4500 ,it worked great and was the almost size of a briefcase.
Over the last decade I've purchased some very good used Sharp products;
Two personal MiniDisc recorders, then a MD/CD/PLL-Tuner book-shelf stereo, & last year, an even larger more powerful Sharp system which has the following features; MD/3xCD/PPL-Tuner/Twin-Cassettes!
Also used to own one of those micro-wave/convection ovens, with which I did just about all my cooking!
My family have used refrigerators, regulators and calculators of sharp coorporation. It was indeed iconic.
Sharp was a weird animal. It had well engineered products lcds, TVs, even laptops you just could never get ahold of any quantity of them. Sharp has always had strange delivery issues and reasons why they couldn't deliver. Mismanagement at the top.
I work on Sharp copiers at a Sharp dealership and these in generally are pretty good machines but some new models are another make branded as Sharp. Very differant then Sharp originals.
How many years ago was that?
@@paulsz6194 been doing this 26 years now. Sharp is one of our best sellers.
Wow. Back in the 1970s and 80s, SHARP, a Japanese supercorporation, was a familiar household name in the United States. Its products were good, useful, nice-looking, quality, priced reasonably, which is why Sharp was so successful at the time. In the 90s saw the decline and disappearance of Sharp.
Sharp became irreverent and forgotten starting in the year 2000 after getting out of CRT television production, and only sold the expensive Aquos LCD TVs that most middle-class families could not afford.
@@waltchan I don't get why so many companies only wanted to ship CRT TVs without digital tuners until the end of analog OTA.
HD CRT computer monitors had already been well established and making them into HD TVs wouldn't have been that hard.
They could have gotten some more years out of the technology.
Thanks for this interesting episode, it's sad to see Sharp's demise, they produced some high quality products. I still have a Sharp refrigerator, microwave, tv, and calculator all working well. The refrigerator is especially interesting as its door swings open from both sides, I've never seen another design like it. I expect there's still a lot of goodwill in the market for the Sharp brand name amongst older consumers.Y
They still exist, just now owned by foxconn.
Sharp. Great company. Maker of many calculators I used over 30 years.
Well done Jon.
Can we get a video on Akai?
I used to have a great little pocket radio with the Sharps name on it. It took 3 AA batteries but a horse stood on it when I wasn't looking.
in late 80's Sharp cassette recorders were ranked highly
I still have my 2007 Sharp Aquos. I love it. Starting to show it's age, though.
I have a 10 year old 80" Sharp Aquos TV that is still performing perfectly.
TV in my childhood home was Sharp. It was alright. That's basically my experience with this company. (10:55)
6:30 Radio production.
14:00 Liquid crystal displays brought to market.
19:00 Going local.
23:40 The Great Recession and decline.
27:47 Foxconn acqusition.
Great video. I was a sales representative for Sharp in the late 90s when they were a leader in LCD panels and they were making the big investment in new manufacturing locations. I voted selling their products. It is sad to see their decline. Everything in the electronics world has been commoditized.
I still have a 26 inch Sharp Aquos HDTV in my bedroom. It never missed a beat. Know why? On the back there is a sticker that says "Made In Japan". Working flawlessly for 14 years
I used to sell Sharp photocopiers in the 80's and they were truly innovative then, but just couldn't maintain it against the competition (like Canon) in the longer term.
I have a very fond memory with Sharp electronic products. My family bought a sharp refrigerator back in 97, it lasted until 2015. We bought a second-hand 14 inch sharp TV back in 94, it lasted until 2002 (we actually gave it to other family as a "gift"). Their produce high quality products it sad to hear they are in difficulty right now.
My very first PC was a Sharp PC 4502 laptop with a liquid crystal display. I also purchased a user-instalable 1200bps modem. The entire purchase in 1988 was about $2000. Because of the substantial investment and, more importantly, the internal modem, I stuck with this computer hobby for the year it took to master MS DOS 3.1. Untill then, it was the accessibility of online services like Compuserve that allowed me to actually DO SOMETHING with this expensive toy. About 1.5yrs later, I would purchase another Japanese made computer, the NEC Ultralite with a TWO megabyte battery backed "silicon hard disk" for $2500. I purchased the external floppy drive a few weeks later for a "mere" $350. It was the closest thing to an "instant boot" computer I would ever own. Anyway, this is a shout-out to the Japanese computer manufacturers who jump-started my 25yr career in technology.
I have a SHARP Elsi Mate EL-210! Takes 2 AA and still works!
By 2009, sharp is losing market share and I trade my hard-drive-based iPod for the last TV I will ever own. I ended up giving that TV to our movers as a tip for their services since I hardly ever used it. Yes, it was a Sharp LCD.
I do have a TV in my living room I haven't used for years. Last time I used it to play Zelda on my switch for a few hours. I got that TV for $40 from a flea market. So technically it's my real last TV, but I have used it for less than 10 hours in 5 years.
Great production. Thanks from Texas to Taiwan
In 1980 Sharp made the best programmable calculator.
Sharp ac are really really good. I am using a inverter ac for last 9 years. Zero maintanence on its different parts. Such a wonderful product.
I bought a bunch of SHARP LCD computer monitors around 2005. Around 2007, three broke from manufacturing defects while still under warranty. SHARP refused to honor the warranty. Amazing how bad customer service can spoil a brand, this is what I remember about the company 16 years later. Their demise is feel good news for me.
That was a sad story. I'm watching this on a Sharp TV, it has a good picture and I got it very cheap.
I'm disappointed at Sharp's downfall, back in 1993 when I first learned of the ViewCam I immediately recognized it as a revolutionary innovation and just had to get one of my own. The first video camera that could be used while wearing eyeglasses. Many other manufacturers added swing-out LCDs but retained eyepiece viewfinders. No other company I am aware of made camcorders in the same style as Sharp.
I had a few Sharp android phones, they were the best phone I ever got my hands on, every components and build quality is top notch.
Then in last few years, their phone disappear from market, I am still waiting for their upcoming release, their products are very tough. I had to changed them because of android versions, if it isn't, I might be still using them.
Missed my old Sharp Aquos Crystal phone with super sharp display for the time. I think Sharp still makes and release new Android phones, but sells them only in selected markets. With Foxconn being the new owner/boss, it's questionable whether their current phones are as good as 10 years ago.
I felt the same way about the newer Sony Xperia offerings, specifically for their cameras. The stuff you can do is light years beyond any other smart phone camera. Build quality is great too. But it’s almost impossible to buy one outside Japan and even counting domestic sales they’re an unmitigated failure. Yet somehow Sony keeps releasing a new one every year. It’s baffling.
Watched this on my SHARP LC-60LE600U from 2012, which is still my favorite 1080P LCD/LED TV. I believe it was the lowest powered 60in you could buy at the time @ 178W. Matte screen, easy to see in a bright room, no smart anything that stops getting updates and stops working after a couple years. No power supply issues like my older Samsungs that died long ago. It just keeps working so I keep it in the den.
I only recently found out Foxconn bought shares in Sharp Corporation. I did not expect this because i did not see any drastic change that indicates Foxconn now owned majority shares in Sharp. Its factory in my country Malaysia still operating. I did saw some products not available anymore and only Sharp products home appliances available .
I worked in a Sharp warehouse as a temp in the 90s. There was a mini-stereo model that had a CD player issue. Sharp built a line in the warehouse, stations disassembled the unit until it got to the Sharp tech at the end who did the fix. Maybe that's SOP, I don't know, but it was impressive to me the way they organized the project and that Sharp was truly interested in fixing these units.
Also the guy in charge gave me a bonus at the end of the project. So Sharp is fine by me :)
Amazing history! Thanks to you I discovered few new functions in my Casio calculator and I give it some cleaning 👍 We underestimate these devices nowadays.