Alan Shugart, an engineer who changed the modern computer disk drive industry, died in Monterey, Calif., of complications after a recent heart operation.

Shugart, 76, was involved with the computer storage industry for more than 40 years, having helped develop the first disk drive, which could store 5 million characters of data.

He worked at IBM and Memorex for many years and was in on the development of many projects including a storage system that was the basis for Sabre, the nation's first online reservation system IBM created for American Airlines, The New York Times said Friday.

In 1979, Shugart and Finis Conner founded Seagate Technology, the first maker of 5.25-inch hard disks. After leaving Seagate, he founded Al Shugart International, a venture capital company.

Shugart, who died Tuesday, is survived by his wife, a sister, a son, four daughters and seven grandchildren.