Epson company history

Epson's history spans over 100 years with a heritage that began in watch-making and led to the invention of the world's first quartz watch.

industry leaders
In the early 1960s, Seiko Epson was established to develop crystal chronometers and printing timers for official timekeeping at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. Based on those technologies, the company introduced the world's first commercially successful printer mechanism four years later, the EP-101, and has since pioneered the development of computer printers that lead the industry in print quality, function, ease of use, quietness and speed. Today, Epson delivers a vast array of high-quality technology products that are compact, reliable, easy to use, energy- and cost-efficient.

Epson’s ‘saving’ technology
Since 1975, Epson has provided an extensive array of technology products based on ‘saving’ technology - technology that saves space, energy, costs and resources. The company's product line includes color ink jet printers, laser and dot matrix printers, scanners, projectors, digital cameras, PC cards, computers and a wide variety of sophisticated component and electronic devices.

OEM products
Epson's heritage as a manufacturer and marketer of electronics products has enabled the company to become a global provider of a wide range of OEM products such as printer mechanisms, point-of-sale terminals and printers, crystal oscillators, handheld computers, liquid crystal displays and other components. These products are sold to other companies that repackage or resell them as part of their own offerings.

technical innovations
Epson's many ‘firsts’ in technical innovations, driven by its core technologies, have given it a leading position in a variety of industries. Some of these ‘firsts’ include:

1964	-	High-precision crystal chronometers and printing timers (Tokyo Olympics)
1968	-	Printer mechanism, EP-101
1969	-	Quartz watch
1973	-	Digital wristwatch
1982	-	Notebook computer (HX-20)
	-	Wristwatch-sized LCD TV
1983	-	Battery-powered 3.5" floppy disk drive (SMD 200)
1984	-	Full-color LCD TV (ET-10)
1985	-	DOS-based PC
	-	Memory card (SRAM)
	-	Plastic-packaged oscillator
1988	-	Printer manufactured totally by automation
1989	-	Single-pass color flatbed scanner
1990	-	Wristwatch pager
1992	-	Light hardening lens production system
1994	-	Desktop color ink jet printer with 720 x 720 dpi resolution (Epson Stylus Color)
1995	-	Smallest, lightest and brightest LCD projector (ELP-3000)
1997	-	Desktop color ink jet printers with 1440 dpi resolution (Epson Stylus® Color 600, Epson Stylus® Color 800)
	-	Six-color photo quality printer (Epson Stylus® Color Photo)
1998	-	Color ink jet printer with built-in USB connectivity (Epson Stylus Color 740)
1999	-	World's fastest color ink jet printer in its class (Epson Stylus Color 900)
	-	iMac printer (Epson Stylus Color 740i)
	-	Superportable projectors (PowerLite 710c, PowerLite 700c and PowerLite 500c) become industry's lightest three-LCD projectors.
	-	Printers offer FireWire connectivity
2000	-	World's first edge-to-edge 4" x 6" snapshot printing on an ink jet printer
	-	First seven-color archival desktop photo printer
2002	-	World's first 2 picoliter ink drop in an ink jet printer