Manufacturers: Canon

Canon Inc. is a Japanese company with its headquarters in Ota, Tokyo. It was founded in 1937 as the "Precision Optical Instruments Laboratory", and developed a prototype 35 mm camera with focal plane shutter called the "Kwanon", from which the company name was derived. The products we tend to associate with the Canon brand are photographic equipment, especially cameras, lenses, printers and photocopiers. But it is less widely known that Canon also manufacture the internal print mechanisms used by other printer manufacturers including Apple and HP.

Like many of the early pioneers, Canon initially produced desktop calculators in the 1960s, and was an important brand in the early days of pocket calculators. They worked in partnership with TI (at that stage primarily looking for a market for its integrated circuits) to develop a version of the "Cal-Tech" prototype for the Japanese market called the "Pocketronic". It was introduced in the US in 1971 and in terms of size it was a breakthrough in portable calculators.

Canon calculators include the "Canola" and "Palmtronic" ranges. Canon produced a range of "Green Calculators" which are manufactured from recycled Canon photocopiers. Currently Canon market a range of arithmetic, scientific and desktop calculators.

More information can be found at the Canon corporate website.