Canon Computer Systems
Canon Computer Systems, Inc. (CCSI), sometimes shortened to Canon Computer, was an American subsidiary of Canon Inc. formed in 1992 to develop and market the parent company's personal computers and workstations. The subsidiary also assumed the responsibility of marketing Canon's printers and photocopiers, which were formerly sold by other Canon divisions. It went defunct in January 2001.
 | |
 Former headquarters in Costa Mesa, California | |
| Company type | Subsidiary |
|---|---|
| Industry | Computers |
| Founded | April 1992 |
| Defunct | January 2001 |
| Fate | Restructured |
| Successor | Canon Digital Home and Personal Systems |
| Headquarters | Costa Mesa, California , United States |
| Products |
|
| Parent | Canon Inc. |
| Website | ccsi.canon.com at the Wayback Machine (archived October 31, 1996) |
Canon Computer Systems, Inc. (CCSI), sometimes shortened to Canon Computer, was an American subsidiary of Canon Inc. formed in 1992 to develop and market the parent company's personal computers and workstations. The subsidiary also assumed the responsibility of marketing Canon's printers and photocopiers, which were formerly sold by other Canon divisions. It went defunct in January 2001.
History
[edit]Canon entered the computer industry in the 1970s,[1] starting with the AX-1 in October 1978. It sported the form factor of a desktop calculator and was fully programmable.[2][3] This was followed up with the AS-100 in 1982, which was a more-traditional albeit heavier personal computer that ran a Intel 8088 and ran MS-DOS.[4][3] Canon entered the home computer market in 1984 with the V-20 and V-10 in 1984 and 1985 respectively.[3] In 1987, the company released the Canon Cat—the brainchild of Jef Raskin who pioneered Apple's original Macintosh.[5] In 1989, the company took a large stake in NeXT, a computer hardware company founded by Steve Jobs in 1987 after he resigned as CEO of Apple in the mid-1980s.[6]
In April 1992, Canon spun off their computer manufacturing into Canon Computer Systems, a new subsidiary that also assumed the responsibility of marketing their parent company's printers and photocopiers. The subsidiary initially comprised 100 employees in October 1992, 50 based in Costa Mesa, California. Yasuhiro Tsubota, who founded Epson America in 1978, was named president. Several other higher-ups came from Epson America;[7] Tsubota left Epson for NeXT 1990, to serve as a consultant for Jobs.[8] The subsidiary's first offerings were a line of desktop computers and notebook-sized laptops, branded as the Innova and Innova Book respectively. The company expected $125 million in revenue by October 1993.[7] They allocated $10 million of their initial budget on advertising, hiring the newly formed Hajjar/Kaufman (a spinoff of Dentsu) as their advertising agency.[9]
Most if not all of the notebooks in the Innova Book line were produced offshore by Taiwanese OEMs. Canon repeatedly turned to Chicony of Taipei, who lent their designs to Canon for their Innova Book 10 and Innova Book 200LS.[10][11] The former, released in 1994, was a subnotebook four pounds in weight,[12] while the latter, released in 1995, sported the largest screen of any laptop up to that point, at 11.3 inches diagonal.[13][14] Other models, including the 150, 300, and 400 series Innova Books, were manufactured by Featron, another Taiwanese OEM/ODM. Canon Computer collaborated with IBM's Japanese subsidiary to produce the Canon NoteJet, a notebook computer with a built-in inkjet printer, introduced to market in 1993.[15] In March 1994, Canon Computer took the reins of the NeXTstation after NeXT ceased manufacturing hardware in 1993.[16] They later released the Object.Station, an x86-based workstation based on the NeXTstation design.[17]
Although Canon Computer set a goal of $1 billion sales by 1997 in 1994, they were considered late newcomers to the market of personal computers.[18] Innovas and Innova Books continued to be sold until January 1997, when the company quietly left the desktop and notebook market, citing poor sales.[19] The subsidiary shifted its focus to silicon-on-insulator manufacturing, spending ¥3 billion (US$25.8 million in 1997) to open up a clean room facility at Canon's plant in Hiratsuka, Tokyo. As part of this refocusing, Canon sold its existing shares of NeXT to Apple, who were in the process of acquiring that company after Jobs re-entered Apple in 1997.[1] Canon Computer continued to sell printers, scanners and digital cameras until January 2001, when the subsidiary was restructured and renamed to Canon Digital Home and Personal Systems. Tsubota was replaced by Ryoichi Bamba.[20]
Computers
[edit]Desktops
[edit]| Name | Processor | Clock speed (MHz) |
Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| Innova 386SX/33 | 386SX | 33 | October 1992[21] |
| Innova 486 | 486SX | 25 | October 1992[21] |
| Innova 486SX/33 | 486SX | 33 | August 1993[22] |
| Innova 486e | 486SX | 25 | August 1993[22] |
| Innova 486v | 486DX2 | 33–66 | August 1993[22] |
| Innova Vision L33/210 | 486SX | 33 | March 1994[23] |
| Innova Vision L50/340 | 486DX2 | 50 | March 1994[23] |
| Innova Media MT4900 | 486DX4 | 100 | March 1995[24] |
| Innova Media MT7010 | Pentium | 75 | March 1995[24] |
| Innova Media MT9110 | Pentium | 100 | March 1995[24] |
| Innova Media MT7000 | Pentium | 75 | March 1995[24] |
| Innova Media MT9100 | Pentium | 90 | March 1995[24] |
| Innova Media MT4610 | 486DX2 | 66 | June 1995[25] |
| Innova Media MT9010 | Pentium | 90 | June 1995[25] |
| Innova Media MT7030 | Pentium | 75 | August 1995[26] |
| Innova Media MT7040 | Pentium | 75 | August 1995[26] |
| Innova Media MT9120 | Pentium | 100 | August 1995[26] |
| Innova Media MT9130 | Pentium | 100 | August 1995[26] |
| Innova Media MT9300 | Pentium | 100 | August 1995[26] |
| Innova Media MT9310 | Pentium | 100 | August 1995[26] |
| Innova Media MT9320 | Pentium | 133 | August 1995[26] |
| Innova Media MT9600 | Pentium | 166 | June 1996[27] |
| Innova Pro 5100SD | Pentium | 100 | May 1996[28] |
| Innova Pro 5400ST | Pentium | 166 | May 1996[28] |
| Innova Media MT9210 | Pentium | 120 | November 1996[29] |
| Innova Media MT9340 | Pentium | 133 | November 1996[29] |
| Innova Media MT9350 | Pentium | 133 | November 1996[29] |
| Innova Media MT9620 | Pentium | 166 | November 1996[29] |
| Innova Media MT9630 | Pentium | 166 | November 1996[29] |
| Innova Media MT9800 | Pentium | 200 | November 1996[29] |
Notebooks
[edit]Innova
[edit]| Name | Processor | Clock speed (MHz) |
Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| Innova 386NX | Am386SX | 33 | October 1992[30] |
| Innova 486NX | 486SX | 25 | October 1992[30] |
| Innova Book 150C | 486DX2 | 50 | August 1994[31] |
| Innova Book 150CT | 486DX2 | 50 | August 1994[31] |
| Innova Book 1110 P75 | Pentium | 75 | November 1995[32] |
| Innova Book 1100 P75T | Pentium | 75 | November 1995[32] |
| Innova Book 1100 P90 | Pentium | 90 | November 1995[32] |
| Innova Book 1100 P90T | Pentium | 90 | November 1995[32] |
| Innova Book 1100 P120T | Pentium | 120 | November 1995[32] |
| Innova Book 175C | Cx486 | 100 | November 1995[33] |
| Innova Book 200LS | 486DX4 | 100 | February 1995[14] |
| Innova Book 300P | Pentium | 75 | November 1995[33] |
| Innova Book 350CD | Cx5x86 | 100 | November 1995[33] |
| Innova Book 360CD | Am5x86 | 133 | April 1996[34] |
| Innova Book 475CDS | Pentium | 100 | May 1996[35] |
| Innova Book 475CDT | Pentium | 100 | May 1996[35] |
| Innova Book 620CDT | Pentium | 133 | June 1996[35] |
| Innova Book 480CDS | Pentium | 100 | November 1996[29] |
| Innova Book 480CDT | Pentium | 100 | November 1996[29] |
| Innova Book 490CDS | Pentium | 133 | November 1996[29] |
| Innova Book 490CDT | Pentium | 133 | November 1996[29] |
Subnotebooks
[edit]| Name | Processor | Clock speed (MHz) |
Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| Innova Book 10 | 486SL | 33 | May 1994[12] |
| Innova Book 10C | 486SL | 33 | May 1994[12] |
NoteJet
[edit]Other
[edit]| Name | Processor | Clock speed (MHz) |
Stock RAM |
LCD technology | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PN-100 | PowerPC 603e | 100 | 16 | Active-matrix color | July 1995[36] |
| Power Notebook | PowerPC 603e | 100 | 32 | Active-matrix color | August 1995[37] |
Workstations
[edit]| Name | Processor | Clock speed (MHz) |
Hard drive interface |
Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Object.Station 31 | Pentium | 100 | IDE | February 1995[38] |
| Object.Station 41 | Pentium | 100 | SCSI | February 1995[38] |
| Object.Station 50 | Pentium | 100 | SCSI | June 1995[39] |
| Object.Station 52 | Pentium | 120 | SCSI | June 1995[39] |
| Power Workstation | PowerPC 604 (single or dual) | 100, 120, or 133 | SCSI | June 1995[40] |
References
[edit]- ^ a b Staff writer (January 7, 1997). "Canon Bows Out of PC Market And Instead Will Produce Wafers". Asian Wall Street Journal. Dow Jones & Company: 7. ProQuest 315650791.
- ^ Staff writer (April 15, 2011). "Canon AX-1". IPSJ Computer Museum. Archived from the original on July 3, 2014.
- ^ a b c Wiltshire, Alex; John Short (2020). Home Computers: 100 Icons that Defined a Digital Generation. MIT Press. ISBN 9780262044011 – via Google Books. Excerpt in Leonard, Marie-Anne (2020). "The Canon V-20, home computing icon". Canon Inc. Archived from the original on November 27, 2021.
- ^ Staff writer (n.d.). "Canon AS-100". Old-Computers.com. Archived from the original on August 2, 2021.
- ^ Rubin, Ross (July 27, 2019). "Meet the Canon Cat, the forgotten 1987 alternate-reality Mac". Fast Company. Archived from the original on July 27, 2019.
- ^ Staff writer (March 2, 1994). "Canon Computer to Ship NextStation". Los Angeles Times. Bloomberg Business News. Archived from the original on November 27, 2021.
- ^ a b Vranizan, Michelle (October 24, 1992). "Canon Computer Joins PC Wars". The Orange County Register: C1. ProQuest 272621646.
- ^ Levin, Dan (January 1994). "Canon nabs Epson execs". NextWorld Extra. Archived from the original on March 11, 2010 – via Simson.net.
- ^ Elliott, Stuart (November 16, 1992). "Dentsu Americ Forms a Spinoff". The New York Times: D7. ProQuest 428761538.
- ^ Zimmerman, Michael R. (June 27, 1994). "Chicony sows crop of portables". PC Week. 11 (25). Ziff-Davis: 61 – via Gale OneFile.
- ^ DiCarlo, Lisa (March 27, 1995). "IPC releases slim notebook, big-screen unit". PC Week. 12 (12). Ziff-Davis: 45 – via Gale OneFile.
- ^ a b c Lee, Yvonne L. (May 9, 1994). "Canon ships color notebooks, ink-jet printers". InfoWorld. 16 (19). IDG Communications: 36 – via Google Books.
- ^ Somers, Ana (May 30, 1995). "Innova Book: If Screen Size Matters More than Performance". PC Magazine. 14 (10). Ziff-Davis: 40 – via Google Books.
- ^ a b Lee, Yvonne L. (February 13, 1995). "Innova Book 200LS line sports largest screen". InfoWorld. 17 (7). IDG Communications: 40 – via Google Books.
- ^ Lewis, Peter H. (April 18, 1993). "The Executive Computer; Canon's New Laptop Packs a Nice Printer Inside". The New York Times. Archived from the original on December 14, 2009. Retrieved November 27, 2021.
- ^ Staff writer (March 10, 1994). "Canon Computer Systems Forms Advanced Technology Unit in the US for NeXTstation, PowerHouse Boxes". Computer Business Review. New Statesman Media Group. Archived from the original on November 27, 2021.
- ^ Staff writer (n.d.). "Canon Object.Station". Old-Computers.com. Archived from the original on August 3, 2021.
- ^ Takahashi, Dean (March 29, 1994). "Canon Computer a Latecomer to PC Movement". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on November 27, 2021.
- ^ Kirchner, Jake (July 1997). "The PC Magazine 100". PC Magazine. 16 (13). Ziff-Davis: 213–245 – via Google Books.
- ^ "Canon U.S.A. Makes Strategic Move to Serve Digital Marketplace". Business Wire. January 5, 2001. ProQuest 446066585.
- ^ a b Staff writer (October 1992). "New Canon desktops, notebooks, printers". Home Furnishings Daily. 66 (43). BridgeTower Media: 115 – via Gale OneFile.
- ^ a b c Zimmerman, Michael R. (September 27, 1993). "Canon makes a major push into PC arena". PC World. 10 (38). Ziff-Davis: 29 – via Gale OneFile.
- ^ a b Staff writer (March 1994). "Canon adds 2 feature-laden PCs". Home Furnishings Daily. 68 (21). BridgeTower Media: 80 – via Gale OneFile.
- ^ a b c d e Staff writer (March 13, 1995). "Canon introduces Internet-ready computers for instant infobahn cruising". EDGE. 6 (251). EDGE Publishing: 5 – via Gale OneFile.
- ^ a b Staff writer (June 21, 1995). "Multimedia system from Canon touted as plug-and-go". Computing Canada. 21 (13). CEDROM-SNi: 47 – via Gale OneFile.
- ^ a b c d e f g Hernandez, Alejandro; Sherri Snelling (August 30, 1995). "Canon Multimedia Systems Among First to Ship with Windows 95; Six New Next-Generation Innova Media Tower Models in Stores Now". PR Newswire – via Gale OneFile.
- ^ Spiwak, Marc (June 1996). "Loaded Canon is on target". Windows Magazine. 7 (6). UBM LLC: 104 – via Gale OneFile.
- ^ a b Staff writer (May 6, 1996). "Pipeline: Shipping". InfoWorld. 18 (19). IDG Communications: 29 – via Google Books.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j Staff writer (November 25, 1996). "PC price cuts: Canon cuts prices on new multimedia computers and notebooks". EDGE. 7. EDGE Publishing: 4 – via Gale OneFile.
- ^ a b Staff writer (December 22, 1992). "Briefs: Portables, Palmtops, and Peripherals". PC Magazine. Ziff-Davis: 59.
- ^ a b Lee, Yvonne L. (August 15, 1994). "Canon notebooks offer built-in sound, accelerated graphics". InfoWorld. 16 (33). IDG Communications: 31 – via Google Books.
- ^ a b c d e Lee, Yvonne L. (November 6, 1995). "Canon portables add punch with Pentium". InfoWorld. 17 (45). IDG Communications: 43 – via Google Books.
- ^ a b c Harrington, Mark (November 13, 1995). "Key notebooks refreshed". Computer Retail Week. 5 (119). UBM LLC: 6 – via Gale OneFile.
- ^ DiCarlo, Lisa (April 1, 1996). "Dell makes Latitude change; Canon aims for multimedia". PC Week. 13 (13). Ziff-Davis: 43 – via Gale OneFile.
- ^ a b c DiCarlo, Lisa (April 1, 1996). "Dell makes Latitude change; Canon aims for multimedia". PC Week. 13 (13). Ziff-Davis: 43 – via Gale OneFile.
- ^ Staff writer (July 10, 1995). "Canon debuts PowerPC line". Computerworld. 29 (28). IDG Communications: 42 – via Google Books.
- ^ Clyman, John (August 1995). "Power Notebook: PowerPC Goes Mobile". PC Magazine. 14 (14). Ziff-Davis: 40 – via Google Books.
- ^ a b Kahn, Scott (February 27, 1995). "Canon object.station takes NextStep to Intel-based systems: Pentium-class action meets 486s". PC Week. 12 (8). Ziff-Davis: N3 – via Gale OneFile.
- ^ a b Staff writer (June 5, 1995). "Canon Preps Pentiums". CommunicationsWeek. CMP Publications: 26. ProQuest 226869753.
- ^ Quinlan, Tom (June 19, 1995). "Canon unveils PowerPC desktop, notebook systems". InfoWorld. 17 (25). IDG Communications: 40 – via Google Books.
External links
[edit]- Official website at the Wayback Machine (archived October 31, 1996)
