History of science and technology in Japan at the Computer Technique Group, Japan, in 1967. The first electronic printer was the EP-101, invented by Japanese company Epson and released in 1968. The world's first inkjet printer was Casio's Typuter, released in 1971. Thermal transfer printing was invented by SATO corporation, a Japanese company. They produced the world's first thermal transfer label printer, SATO M-2311, in 1981. The concept of a single-chip microprocessor CPU (central processing unit) was conceived in a 1968 meeting in Japan between Sharp engineer Tadashi Sasaki and an unnamed female software engineering researcher from Nara Women's College. He discussed the concept at a brainstorming
History of science and technology in Japan fluorescent display (VFD) and rechargeable NiCad batteries. The EL-8 was the first battery-powered handheld calculator. The concept of a single-chip calculator was conceived by Sharp engineer Tadashi Sasaki in 1968. The first truly pocket-sized electronic calculator was the Busicom LE-120A "HANDY", the first single-chip calculator to be built, released in February 1971. The Busicom 141-PF desktop calculator, released in March 1971, was the first computing machine to use a microprocessor, the 4-bit Intel 4004 (co-designed by Busicom's Masatoshi Shima). In 1971, Tadashi Sasaki began research on the use of LCD displays for calculators at Sharp Corporation. In 1973, Sharp commercially