Asahi Optical Corporation

The Japanese company Asahi Optical Corporation produces cameras under the Pentax brand name. It came to international prominence as a camera manufacturer in the 1950s, when Japanese companies began to challenge the dominance of European manufacturers in the 35mm rangefinder and single-lens reflex (SLR) camera sectors. Asahi developed a reputation for innovation and was responsible for a number of camera industry firsts. As well as producing Pentax cameras, lenses, and accessories, Asahi also manufactures eyeglass lenses, binoculars, printers, scanners, and endoscopes.

The company was formed in 1919 as the Asahi Optical Joint Stock Company and began to manufacture lenses for use in cameras, binoculars, and other optical instruments. In 1939, the company moved into the manufacture of aerial cameras for military use. After World War II, Asahi began to develop cameras for the consumer market. In 1952, Asahi launched the Asahiflex I camera, the first Japanese 35mm SLR camera. At this time, most SLR cameras suffered from a problem known as “mirror blackout:” the angled mirror behind the lens, which reflects the image to the viewfinder, is slow to retract when the shutter opens, thus blocking the path between the lens and the film. In 1954, Asahi solved this problem by fitting the Asahiflex II with an instant-return mirror. The first camera produced under the Pentax brand name appeared in 1957. The name was derived from the elision of the words “pentaprism,” or five-sided prism, and “reflex,” because the innovative feature of the Pentax camera was the incorporation of the pentaprism in the viewfinder, which made it possible for the viewfinder to be set vertically, providing a more natural viewing position.

Mass production of Pentax cameras began in 1959, reflecting the growing popularity of Japanese SLR cameras. The next major advance came with the introduction of the Pentax Spotmatic camera in 1964. This featured a photoelectric cell positioned behind the lens, which meant that the light reading was as accurate as possible. This arrangement, known as “through the lens” (TTL) metering, became standard in SLR cameras. TTL metering was taken a step further in the Pentax ES SLR camera of 1971, which introduced automatic exposure control by incorporating an electronic shutter that was programmed to select the exposure time according to the light reading. Accelerating sales meant that by 1971, Asahi had sold a total of three million SLR cameras since 1952, with a third of total sales coming in the last two years.

Asahi turned its attention to developing smaller, lightweight cameras. The Pentax MX SLR camera of 1976 was the world’s smallest and lightest SLR camera to date. Another variant of the MX model, the ME, was the first camera that operated wholly by automatic exposure, with no manual override. Even at its most compact, the 35mm SLR camera was still heavy and bulky in comparison to the pocket-size Instamatic cameras, pioneered by Eastman Kodak in the 1960s. Asahi’s solution was to create an SLR camera that used the same compact 110 film cartridges as the Instamatics. The Pentax System 10 SLR camera, launched in 1978, was compact and convenient, but also had the superior functionality provided by interchangeable lenses and numerous accessories. Meanwhile other companies were working on another lightweight format—the non-SLR 35mm compact camera. Asahi entered this field in 1982, when it introduced the Pentax Sport 35 camera. This camera also featured the innovative auto-focus lens technology introduced in the Pentax ME-F SLR camera of 1980. Asahi also became the first camera company to achieve total sales of 10 million SLR cameras in 1980.

Asahi continued to be a pioneer in the automation of camera functions. The Pentax Super Program SLR camera, introduced in 1983, offered the user a choice of six types of exposure control, including the use of auto flash. Two years later, the Pentax A3000 SLR camera provided fully automatic operation, with the addition of automatic film loading and winding and film-speed sensing. In 1986, Asahi improved the flexibility of the fixed-lens 35mm compact camera by marketing the world’s first compact 35mm camera with a zoom lens, the Pentax IQZoom camera. Since then, Asahi has extended the range of the compact zoom lens, culminating in 1998 with the launch of the Pentax IQZoom 200 camera, with a 48 mm to 200 mm zoom lens, which is still the longest zoom lens on a compact camera. Meanwhile, the first digital Pentax camera, the EI-C90, came on the market in 1996, followed in 1997 by the first Pentax APS (Advanced Photographic System) camera, the efina. As Asahi was not a partner in the consortium that developed APS, it played to its strengths by concentrating on applying its compact zoom lens technology to APS.

Apple Computer, Inc.

Steven Jobs and Stephen Wozniak founded Apple in 1976. In 1975, Jobs and Wozniak were both working in Silicon Valley, California, for Atari and Hewlett Packard, respectively. They were also members of the Home Brew Computer Club, a group of computer enthusiasts. Inspired by recent microprocessor developments, they built their own microcomputer, the Apple I, in Jobs’s garage. They received orders from a local computer shop and began small-scale production. Encouraged by this, they looked for financial backing. Mike Markkula became the third partner, taking over the financial and administrative side. The company was incorporated in 1977.

The world’s first commercial personal computer, the Apple II, was displayed at a San Francisco computer fair in 1977 and was an immediate success. Wozniak was injured in a plane crash in 1981, and although he returned briefly after recovering, he subsequently quit Apple. Apple became the first personal computer company to achieve annual sales of $1 billion and the fastest growing American corporation ever, but by 1983 it needed to counter the challenge of the fast-selling IBM PC. Its response was the Apple Lisa, a computer featuring an innovative, user-friendly interface. Program options were displayed in the form of graphic icons, pull-down menus, and windows, with easy navigation via a mouse. However, the Lisa was too expensive for the home computer market. Its basic features were incorporated in the Apple Macintosh, styled by the Californian branch of the German design consultancy, Frogdesign. The Mac received a high profile launch in January 1984 with the showing of an unusually long (60 seconds) TV commercial, directed by acclaimed British film director Ridley Scott. In addition to the graphical user interface (GUI), the Apple Mac had the advantage of compactness. With the monitor, processor unit, and disk drive contained in one streamlined shell, the Mac became a style icon.

Disagreements with John Sculley, the company’s president and chief executive officer, led Jobs to resign in May 1985, and Apple faltered as IBM-compatible personal computers began to flood the market. A dispute with Microsoft over the alleged infringement of Apple’s design rights by Windows 1.0 was settled in a way that left Microsoft free to mimic the Apple GUI in later versions of Windows. In 1986, Apple bounced back by making desktop publishing affordable with the launch of PageMaker software for the Mac and the LaserWriter printer. A portable Apple Mac was introduced in 1989. The introduction of Microsoft Windows 3.0 in 1990 made Apple increasingly vulnerable to competition from PC manufacturers and allied software companies. Apple initially sustained its market share thanks to its loyal existing customer base and then bolstered its position with the introduction in 1991 of the Macintosh PowerBook, a notebook computer with networking and multimedia capability.

A joint venture with the Japanese company Sharp led in 1993 to the Apple Newton. This hand-held computer featured built-in optical character recognition software, allowing input to be handwritten onto the liquid crystal display with a plastic stylus. In 1994, the technical performance of the Mac was boosted by the adoption of the PowerPC chip, a fast microprocessor. In spite of such innovations, Apple’s market share declined steeply, prompting major corporate changes. The decision to license the Mac operating system came too late to be effective. In December 1996, Steven Jobs returned when he agreed to Apple’s acquisition of his NeXT software company. Jobs soon regained control of Apple as acting chief executive officer and in 1997 negotiated a five-year software development deal with Microsoft whereby Microsoft also invested $150 million in Apple.

While Apple continued to improve technical performance through the G3 (and later G4) versions of the PowerMac and PowerBook, it also developed a more competitively priced computer, the iMac. Like the first Mac, the 1998 iMac has a single-shell monitor-cum-processor-and-disk drive. Its distinctiveness lies in its rounded lines and availability in a range of five strong colors combined with translucent white. Back on a profitable footing, Apple consolidated its position in 1999 with the introduction of the iBook notebook computer.

Answering Machine

An answering machine is a device that allows incoming phone calls to be received and messages recorded when the phone user is unavailable. It may be a separate machine that is connected to a telephone or combined with a telephone to form an integrated telephone answering machine. Today’s answering machines may be either analog or digital. Analog answering machines use conventional audiotape recording, whereas digital answering machines use memory chips. The modern tape format is the continuous-loop microcassette, identical in size to the double-sided microcassettes used in dictating machines. Most machines take one cassette, which holds both the user’s message and incoming messages, but some machines take two cassettes so that the user has two prerecorded messages available. When analog answering machines first became available in the late 1940s, they were marketed as business machines. The use of the name “electronic secretary” conveyed their main selling point—as a secretarial substitute. In the 1980s, as answering machines became cheaper and more compact, they became standard items for the home as well as the office.

From National Bell to AT&T

The National Bell Telephone Company was formed in Boston in 1877. Hubbard, Sanders, Bell, and Watson were the founding partners. The telegraph company, Western Union, also entered the telephone business, having acquired the rights to Gray’s patent and the U.S. rights to Thomas Alva Edison’s improved telephone mouthpiece. While a series of telephone patent disputes were not finally settled in Bell’s favor until 1893, Western Union decided to sign over its patent rights to National Bell in 1879, in return for a share of profits. National Bell was renamed the American Bell Telephone Company and gained a monopoly on telephone services until the expiry of Bell’s patents in 1894. In Britain, where Edison held the rights to his improved mouthpiece, American Bell and Edison joined forces to form the United Telephone Company.

Further restructuring followed as American Bell sought to optimize the management of its expanding business. In 1882, the Western Electric Manufacturing Company was set up in Boston to manufacture telephones for American Bell. The American Telephone and Telegraph Company was registered in New York as a subsidiary of American Bell in 1885. At first, AT&T was solely responsible for American Bell’s long-distance telephone services, complementing the Bell Telephone System’s control of local telephone services, but it assumed the role of the parent company in 1899. This move gave the company more flexibility in dealing with the renewed competition that followed the expiry of the original patents, as New York’s corporate laws were more permissive than those of Massachusetts were.