Al Shugart is a name that probably won't mean anything to young whippersnappers, but back in the day, some of us connected our drives using the Shugart Interface, or sometimes SASI (Shugart Associates Systems Interface). Indeed, if you now use a SCSI (Small Computer Systems Interface) drive, that's basically the same thing, only standardised.
The Shugart Interface was also used to connect floppy drives to the motherboard, with up to four drives on the same ribbon cable. IBM varied this for the IBM PC in 1981 by putting a twist in the cable. That way it only supported two drives, so you got two connectors as well.
I never met Al, but wish I had. Reporter and Silicon Valley historian Mike Cassidy writes:
The guy helped build the 305 RAMAC for IBM over on Notre Dame Avenue in San Jose. He founded Seagate Technologies and worked in a bar and as a commercial fisherman. He wore Hawaiian shirts and ran his dog, Ernest, for Congress. He wrote a book about it.
Reuters and AP have obituaries, though the most detailed appears to be the San Jose Mercury News
