Tadao Kashio’s Journey to start Casio Computer

In the era of the 1970’s and ’80s, the only name that was in highlight for electronic devices was Casio. Scientific calculators, electronic musical instruments, digital watches, etc were majorly manufactured by this company. Even today, this is the most common name in the consumer electronics company. Almost 90% of engineering students use Casio calculators. And that’s how most of us know this name. Want to know more about the company and how it was founded? Read ahead to find out.

Casio Computer Co

Founded by Tadao Kashio in 1946, Casio Computer Co is a Japanese company that makes consumer electronics and commercial electronics products. It is currently headquartered in Shibuya, located in Tokyo (Japan). The products of this company include calculators, mobile phones, digital watches, music instruments. In 1957, this company introduced the world’s first entirely electric compact calculator. 

Founder Tadao Kashio 

Born in an ordinary family on November 26, 1917, Tadao had a rough childhood. He has seen the worst of the days in the early years of his life. But his condition did not hold him back from achieving academic excellence. Tadao was the best student in his class. He joined a company just after his school graduation, which recycled oil cans. Later he joined another company which used to make military medals for soldiers. He was working as a lathe operator and never failed to impress his managers with his skills. They encouraged him to take further education and asked him to take admission into Waseda’s worker’s school (Currently, Waseda University). He got a chance to enrich his professional knowledge there.

Later he took up a few jobs and demonstrated his excellence and continued to impress his managers. After getting experience in various fields, he started making pots, bicycle generator lamps, and pans. He gained a lot of popularity in his locality because of which he started getting some contracts for making various products.

 Starting own company 

In 1946, Japan was going through a major loss caused by world war II. After completing his graduation, Kashio started his own company to manufacture simple electrical relays. The company was called Kashio Seisakujo. It is commonly known as Casio in English speaking countries. He started this venture with his father, Shigeru, and three brothers – Kazuo, Toshio and Yukio. The first product of the company was the Yubiwa pipe which was a finger ringer to hold a cigarette. That product was celebrated by its users because it was giving comfort to them. During world war II, there was a lot of tension and stress in Japan and that’s why Cigarette usage increased, and the product went successful. 

Casio Computer

The first fully electrical product of the company was released in 1957, which was a compact electric calculator. His father was the president till 1960 and later Tadao became the president. With Tadao’s leadership, Casio became worldwide famous with products like digital watches cash registers liquid crystal display pocket televisions and other devices for business and private use. The company became a $2 billion-dollar global operation with thousands of employees worldwide.

In the 1980s, Casio’s affordable electronic instruments and its line of affordable home electronic musical keyboard instruments became very famous. With this, their wristwatches also got worldwide acceptance because they were one of the only digital and analog watches. Casio was the first company to manufacture watches that displayed timezones and temperature. Casio also made some contributions to the digital camera field.

Later Life                                

Tadao lived his entire life as the president of the company. In the history of Japan, he is one of the most celebrated industrialists because he founded that electric company when Japan was at the lowest point in the industrial area. His company emerged as a saviour. The boost in the Japanese economy was very evident.

Death

On 4th March 1993, Mr. Tadao died in Tokyo, Japan. The causes of his death were vague. The company was taken over by his brothers after his death. 

Bottom line

Casio is an outcome of tremendous efforts made by its founders even in the toughest time of their lives and countries. Currently, Casio sells ‘n’ types of calculators, watches, and other different products. The simple message from their story is, it is not the situation that determines your success, but your will power and hard work do.