The history of the development of domestic printers such as Epson is described. At first Suwa Seikosha Co., Ltd., which made watches in Nagano Prefecture, developed a machine called a printing timer for the Tokyo Olympics in 1964, and its subsidiary Shinshu Seiki Co., Ltd. (later Epson Corporation) made the EP-101 calculator printer based on the printing timer in 1968, which became a bestseller, and after 1975 it became a product of Shinshu Seiki. The brand name "Epson" was given, Suwa Seikosha Co., Ltd. later changed its name to Seiko Epson Corporation. Since the 1970s, Epson has grown rapidly by launching printers for PCs, becoming a global manufacturer of printers. Next, manufacturers other than Epson are described. It is stated that the spread of PCs changed the needs of printers and gave rise to world-class manufacturers such as Epson, Canon, and Brother, while manufacturers that made mainframe machines stopped production except for Oki Electric Industry Co., Ltd. Finally, the causes of domestic manufacturers dominating the global market are discussed.
YOSHIDA et al. (Wed,) studied this question.