Canon
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The Japanese camera maker quietly sitting inside the first laser printers to carry HP's and Apple's names.
Founded in Tokyo in 1937 as Precision Optical Industry, the company took its name from the Kwanon prototype camera, named after the Buddhist goddess of mercy. Cameras stayed at the core, but it is the office machines that earn Canon its place in computing history.
The LBP-CX laser engine of the early 1980s was the heart of the HP LaserJet in 1984 and the Apple LaserWriter in 1985, which means the desktop publishing revolution ran on Japanese mechanics. Bubble Jet, Canon's take on thermal inkjet, followed in 1985. In 1987 the company sold the Canon Cat, Jef Raskin's mouseless, text-centred computer, which came and went without anyone much noticing. In 2015 Canon bought Sweden's Axis Communications.