Casio, Inc. (Japanese:カシオ計算機株式会社 Kashio Keisanki) is an electronic devices manufacturing company headquartered in Tokyo, Japan.
The company was founded in April 1946 by Tadao Kashio (樫尾 和雄 Kashio Tadao), an engineer specializing in fabrication technology. Kashio's first major product was the yubiwa pipe, a finger ring that would hold a cigarette, allowing the wearer to smoke the cigarette down to its nub while also leaving the wearer's hands free. Japan was impoverished immediately following World War II and cigarettes were valuable, so the invention was very successful.
After seeing the electric calculators at the first Business Show in Ginza, Tokyo in 1949, Kashio and his younger brothers used their profits from the yubiwa pipe to develop their own calculators. Most of the calculators at that time worked using gears and could be operated by hand using a crank or using a motor. Kashio had some knowledge of electronics, and set out to make a calculator using solenoids. The desk-sized calculator was finished in 1954, sold for 485,000 yen and was Japan's first electronic calculator. One of the central innovations of the calculator was its adoption of the 10-key number pad; at that time other calculators were using a "full keypad", which meant that each place in the number (1s, 10s, 100s, etc...) had nine keys. Another innovation was the use of a single display window instead of the three display windows (one for each argument and one for the answer) used in other calculators.
In 1957 Casio released the Model 14-A, the world's first all-electric compact calculator. 1957 also marked the establishment of Casio Computer Co. Ltd.
Timeline of important product releases
- 1957 Casio releases the Model 14-A, the world's first all electric compact calculator
- 1965 The 001 calculator is released
- 1972 The release of Casio's personal calculator, the "Casio Mini" sells for 12,800 yen, going on to sell over 10 million units
- 1974 The Casiotron, a watch that features a fully automatic calendar, including month lengths and leap years, is released.
- 1980 Casio releases their Casiotone musical keyboard.
- 1983 The first G-Shock watch, the DW-5000C, is released.
- 1985 Casio launches its first professional synthesiser, the CZ-101.
- 1995 The QV-10, the world's first digital camera that includes a TFT display, is released.
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