KOJI KOBAYASHI, BOOSTED NEC OF JAPAN.

Byline: Andrew Pollack The New York Times

Koji Kobayashi, an industrial visionary who built NEC Corp. of Japan into a leader in the world electronics industry, died Saturday in a hospital in Tokyo. He was 89.

Kobayashi served as the president of NEC from 1964 until 1976 and then as chairman until 1988, overseeing the company's expansion from its initial business of telephone equipment into computers and computer chips.

Today, NEC is the largest supplier of personal computers in Japan and is the second largest semiconductor manufacturer in the world behind Intel Corp. of the United States.

Kobayashi is perhaps best known for coining NEC's watchword, ``C&C,'' standing for computers and communication, a reference to his belief that the computer and telecommunications industries would merge.

When he first used the expression at a telecommunications conference in Atlanta in 1977, he was ahead of his time and it was not well understood. But today the computer and communications industries, as well as consumer electronics and publishing, are all converging in the form of the Internet and in what is called multimedia.

``Dr. Kobayashi was a great man, not only for NEC but for the high-technology business,'' Tadahiro Sekimoto, the current chairman of NEC, said Sunday in an interview. ``He was a kyoso,'' he added, using a Japanese term for the founder of a religion.

Koji Kobayashi was born in Yamanashi Prefecture, near Mount Fuji, and earned a degree in electrical engineering in 1929 from Tokyo Imperial University, now known as the University of Tokyo. He later earned a doctorate based on research he did at NEC.

After graduation he immediately joined what was then known as Nippon Electric Co. and was involved in designing and installing underground coaxial cable transmission systems. One of his first jobs was to install such a system to connect Japan to Manchuria, which Japan occupied in the 1930s.

He played a key role in restoring NEC to health after the company went through a bleak period during World War II and its immediate aftermath. In those days, the story goes, Kobayashi carried the company's cash receipts in a bandanna and would leave by back exits and travel by back roads to pay employees before creditors could seize the funds.

Displaying an independent streak, Kobayashi pushed to free NEC as much as possible from the Sumitomo Group, the collection of companies centered around Sumitomo Bank, to which it belongs.

And unlike its rivals Fujitsu and Hitachi, NEC under Kobayashi developed mainframe computers that were not compatible with IBM machines.

He has been a supporter of the United Nations University, which is based in Tokyo, and was a member of the Club of Rome, an international group of businessmen and academics who discussed limits to the earth's resources. He received high awards from the Japanese government and from engineering societies.

Kobayashi had been honorary chairman of NEC since 1988 and still showed up at the office twice a week until shortly before he died.

He is survived by his wife, Kazuko; three daughters, Teiko Takamatsu, Kimiko Hirano and Noriko Hatori, all of Tokyo; and seven grandchildren.