Wax nostalgic about and learn from the history of early electronics. See articles
from Electronics World, published May 1959
- December 1971. All copyrights hereby acknowledged.
The January 1969 issue of Electronics World magazine published an extensive list
of Japanese company trade names and their addresses. Many of them went out of business or
were bought by other corporations long ago, as occurs in all countries. I OCRed the company
names, but didn't bother with the addresses. You will see that "Craig" is listed twice, which
appears to be a typo where the first one should
have been "Cardinal." "Aiwa" is also listed twice, but that might have been a legitimate duplication
due to separate locations (BTW, I owned an Aiwa stereo at one time). Aiwa stereo equipment
is now being serviced by Sony according to the Aiwa.com website. My first "real" cassette
tape deck was made by TEAC (founded in 1953 as the Tokyo Electro Acoustic Company) and my first
"real" stereo receiver was made by Sansui. Japan definitely Pioneer-ed (pun intended) some really good stereo
equipment. I remember the line in "Back to the Future 3"
(which, ironically, Melanie and I plan to watch tonight) where
Doc Brown, back in 1858 (where he time-travelled from 1955), makes a disparaging remark about
a circuit failing in the DeLorean (back from the future - 1985) failing because of it being
labeled "Made in Japan." Marty responds, "Waddaya mean Doc? All the best stuff's made in Japan."
A listing* of the most popular Japanese transistor
radios and hi-fi equipment, along with the addresses of U.S. representatives offering sales
and servicing.
AGS
Akai
Aircastle
Airline
Aiwa
Aiwa
Ambassador
AMD
Astrotone
Autosonic
Aztec
Bradford
Brenell
Cipher
Coronet
Craig (Cardinal?)
Craig
Crown
Delmonico
Dempa1
Denon
Ebner
Electra
Electrophonic
Essex
Everplay
Fleetwood
Globe
Granada
Highwave
Hitachi
Jade, Realtone
JVC
Kenwood
Lloyds
Masterwork
Mayfair
Mercury
Midland
Mirandette
Mitsubishi
National
Nivico
Orion
Panasonic
Penncrest
Pioneer
Playtape
Ranger
Realistic
Rembrandt
Rhapsody
Roberts
Ross
Sansui
Sanyo
Satellite
Sharp
Sony
Standard
Superex
Supersonic
Teac
Technicorder
Telmar
Toshiba
Truetone
Unicord
Viscount
Vista
Wilco
*For a more complete list of Japanese consumer electronic products, write Electronics Div.,
Japan Light Machinery Information Centre, 437 Fifth Ave., New York 10016.
1 Publishers of Japanese television schematic diagrams.
