 The world's first electronic miniprinter: the EP-101The EP-101 was the first ever electronic miniprinter for printing figures and symbols and was launched by Shinshu Seiki Co. (now known as Epson) in September 1968. It wasn't very big, being only 16.4 centimetres in width, 7.2 centimetres in height, 13.3 centimetres in depth and weighed just under 2.2 kilograms. It was created out of development work that Shinshu Seiki Co. did for Suwa Seikosha Co., Ltd (now known as Seiko Instruments, Inc.) when they became the official time-keepers for the 1964 Tokyo Olympic games and needed a machine that could print out times they gathered from their time-pieces.
Epson's name comes from the next generation version of this printer - son of EP, or EP-son.
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