Casio Keyboard Timeline

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• Casio's first keyboard with a sampled sound source. Digital piano that sounds and plays like a real piano. First CELVIANO digital piano with AP sound source. Keyboard with the feel of a DJ setup. Mini keyboard with light-up keys. Electronic keyboard with standard-size light-up.
• Casio Computer Co., Ltd. Was formed in June 1957. That year, Casio released the Model 14-A, sold for 485,000 yen, the world's first all-electric compact calculator, which was based on relay technology. In the 1980s, Casio's budget electronic instruments and its line of affordable home electronic musical keyboard instruments became.

The CasioTone 101 (CT-101) is a VERY basic analog synth from Casio circa 1981. The keyboard has 49 full-size keys and is finished in satin black painted metal, has wooden end-cheeks and a wood grain finish underneath the front of the keys. It gives your studio a good analog/vintage feel. Most sounds are very basic and fairly unusable. Casio Computer Co., Ltd. Was formed in June 1957. That year, Casio released the Model 14-A, sold for 485,000 yen, the world's first all-electric compact calculator, which was based on relay technology. In the 1980s, Casio's budget electronic instruments and its line of affordable home electronic musical keyboard instruments became. Casio AZ-1 Remote Keyboard Brochure, 1986 (est) Casio AZ-1 Remote Keyboard brochure from approximately 1986. Its been so warm and sunny outside, that I thought I would jump a decade into the future from my previous posts and write about an ad or brochure that reminds me of summer.

lying cars, robot servants, personal jetpacks: This was the life envisioned for us by the futurists, science fiction writers and gadget makers of the '40s, '50s and '60s.

And one of the most memorable of those fictional inventions was the famed Dick Tracy watch.

Introduced in 1946, the two-way wrist radio was almost as iconic as the comic strip police detective who used it. By 1964 the watch, used by Tracy to keep in contact with police HQ and get out of many a jam, became a two-way wrist TV.

It was the sort of gadget — tiny, powerful, seemingly innocuous in its presentation — that fired the imagination of a generation of children, among them Apple's Tim Cook, who recently referenced the watch when unveiling Apple's own take on the idea.

Table of contents

The nearly 40-year history of watch gaming shares a common root with all portable gaming: the calculator.

In this collection of stories, we trace the roots of watch gaming, talk to today's smartwatch innovators and look to the future for what wearable gaming has in store for us.

Here's a guide to help you navigate through the timeline, stories and reviews.

• Watch gaming timeline
  A visual timeline tracing the nearly 40-year history of watch gaming.
• The current state of watch gaming
  Apple, Android, Pebble platform creators, gamers and developers discuss today's watch gaming.
• Smartwatch reviews
  Reviews of some of today's best smartwatches.
• The future
  We discuss where watch gaming is headed with some of today's wearable innovators.

While the Apple Watch may be one of the most advanced takes on that famous idea, it's far from the first smartwatch to deliver on a comic book future. The history of smartwatches, computerized watches that deliver more than the time, dates back to the '70s, and gaming on those watches has just as long a history.

Throughout that somewhat muddled five-decade period, gaming has pushed the technology forward. It was gaming that helped turn calculators into handheld toys. It was gaming that inspired Casio to try to create a new sort of technophile lifestyle. And even today, it is gaming that is empowering a new generation of developers to push the boundaries of what a smartwatch can do.

Gaming for many smartwatches isn't just a fun aside; it is the fuel that may finally help this technology break into the mainstream.

The nearly 40-year history of watch gaming shares a common root with all portable gaming: the calculator. It was from the calculator that Mattel built its first portable gaming machines, Nintendo was inspired to make the Game & Watch and Casio created its popular line of, at first, game calculators, but then game watches.

The first innovators of that often overlooked branch of portable gaming, the game watch, included a mix of little-known, tiny electronics and watch manufacturers from Germany, Russia and Hong Kong, but it was mostly influenced in the early years by Casio and then a duo of American manufacturers: General Consumer Electronics and Nelsonic.

And it's possible that the rise of gaming on watches may have never happened had it not been for the success of a strange little low-tech smoking gadget created in 1946 for a supply-constrained postwar Japan.

Kashio founds Casio

Founded in 1946 by Tadao Kashio, Casio didn't start out as an electronics company, but as the manufacturer of a plastic ring for smokers. The yubiwa pipe slipped onto a smoker's finger and held a cigarette, helping a smoker extract every bit of tobacco. And it was a tremendous hit.

Looking for a follow-up success, Kashio and his brothers started working on an all-electronic calculator. In 1954, they designed Japan's first, though it was outdated compared to calculators found in other parts of the world. The brothers decided to work on creating a smaller electronic calculator, and in 1957 they succeeded and released the world's first compact office calculator.

It was the success of that calculator that turned Casio into a company that focused not just on producing electronics, but on setting itself apart from the competition through innovative design, specifically by working to make things more compact.

In 1974, Casio entered the watch market with the idea that watches shouldn't be just timepieces. Its initial creation was one of the first watches with a liquid crystal display, and the company marketed it as a leap forward in technology. While it saw early success through the design, the brothers were also trying to figure out how to set Casio's devices apart from the rest.

'In the early days, Casio's watch business strategy was mainly about pricing that was made possible by mass production, as there was growing demand for digital watches in the '70s,' says Yuichi Masuda, senior executive managing officer and Casio board member. 'We saw demand for digital watches settle down in the '80s and Casio went back to its original thinking when it first entered the watch market; that is, ‘a watch is not a mere tool to tell the time.' We started talking about a multifunction, ‘time display plus other things, such as telephone number, memory and music alarm' strategy.'

And it just so happened that the world was in the grips of a new sort of entertainment.

In the early '70s, coin-operated computer games had started making their way into bars, coffee shops and college campuses. These early video games saw modest success, but it wasn't until 1978 and Taito's release of Space Invaders that shops dedicated to video games — arcades — came into their golden age and gaming became a social phenomenon.

With Casio hunting for new features to help sell watches and calculators, video games seemed like a perfect fit.

'Casio, paying attention to this booming game trend, contemplated fusion of the game and the device that people always wear or carry around anywhere,' says Masuda, who now runs Casio's watch business. 'And that device was a watch and a calculator for Casio. By doing so, we wanted to create a new lifestyle of enjoying the game anywhere at any time. It also matched the multifunction strategy Casio was pursuing with its watch and calculator businesses.'

The first product of this relatively new concept was actually a calculator that hit stores in the summer of 1980. The MG-880 calculator is a tiny silver rectangle with black buttons and a relatively small gray-green screen. When switched to game mode, it attempted to recreate the experience of playing Space Invaders, but with numbers instead of aliens.

A year later, Casio released the CA-90 watch, a calculator watch with that strange, numbers-based version of Space Invaders installed.

'Although we took advantage of the development assets of the game calculator MG-880 in developing the CA-90 watch, the idea of the first Casio game watch was driven by Casio's philosophy of wanting to create a new lifestyle by introducing novel products that are made possible by advances in digital technologies,' says Masuda.

While Casio wasn't the first company to release a gaming watch (at least two watches with casino games built into them hit in the late '70s), it was the first to so embrace the concept that the watch helped to create a new sort of lifestyle. By 1996, Casio had produced and sold nearly three dozen different gaming watch models and quite a few other mashup watches that included things like cameras and television screens.

And Casio wasn't the only company playing around with the idea of miniaturizing arcade games into something you could take with you wherever you go. Nintendo's push into portable gaming not only helped fuel the success of that company in the game industry; it also helped attract more attention to both calculator and game watches.

Game & Watch

Where Casio got its start selling cigarette accessories to smokers in the '40s, Nintendo launched as a playing card company in 1889. After dallying with a number of side ventures, including a taxi service, a food company and even a 'love hotel,' Nintendo shifted first into the toy business and then, in the late '70s, into the fledgling video game industry.

Nintendo made a number of color TV game consoles in the mid-‘70s before moving into the arcade business with EVR Race and then Donkey Kong.

But it was in the spring of 1980, the same year Casio released its calculator game, that Nintendo made its own entry into the portable game market with its first of many Game & Watch games.

These toys started out as small rectangular devices, each about the size of a credit card, that included a clock, an alarm and a single game on an LCD screen. The early games usually relied on one or two buttons for controls.

Nintendo declined to speak to Polygon for this article, but in early 2010, then-Nintendo president Satoru Iwata held a roundtable discussion with many of the people involved in the creation of those games.

In that interview, the group said it believed that Gunpei Yokoi came up with the idea for the Game & Watch after seeing a businessman playing with a calculator on a train.

Nintendo released the last Game & Watch in 1991. And most of the 59 different games did tremendously well. 'The Game & Watch series sold 12.87 million domestically and 30.53 million overseas for a total of 43.4 million,' Iwata said in the 2010 discussion.

And the Game & Watch wasn't just a huge financial success for Nintendo; it also led to a number of innovations within the company, including the dual screen and directional pad. 'One year before the NES went on sale, Game & Watch: Donkey Kong was the first game to use the D-pad,' Iwata said in 2010.

The directional pad, or D-pad, would go on to become an important element for not just Nintendo's early controllers, but for most video game controllers.

The team told Iwata at the time that it tried a number of different prototypes before landing on what would become the final design. One key concern was making sure that players would be able to use the D-pad without looking at their hands. That simple controller had a huge impact on gaming when released as part of Donkey Kong, Iwata said.

Casio's Masuda believes that Nintendo's interest in portable gaming, like Casio's, was largely due to the sudden, massive success of Space Invaders.

'Taito's Space Invaders was an arcade game installed in a game arcade or coffee shop, and people had to go there to play a game,' Masuda says. 'We thought, if it is possible to put the game in a portable device that you can carry around, that we could create a new lifestyle to enjoy games during small time pockets of everyday life.

'For Casio, the device was a calculator and a watch, and for Nintendo it was the Game & Watch.'

While Nintendo went on to chase portable gaming in a form that continued to look a bit like a calculator — with the Game Boy and DS lines of portables — other companies decided to go a different route, pursuing the watch as gaming platform.

Despite never entering the gaming watch market, Nintendo still had an impact. Other companies, like GCE and Nelsonic, were drawn to the idea of gaming on the go by the successes of the Game & Watch. Instead of creating calculator games, though, they decided to create watch games.

From calculators to watches

As portable gaming continued to blossom, fueled by the success of Nintendo's Game & Watch and the increasing draw of arcade games, more companies started looking into how they could create devices that let people play on the go.

For GCE, an electronics company already involved in the use of LCDs for electronic toys, that meant designing a gaming system you could play on your wrist. So the company went to Western Technologies, which created everything from an early video game console to a reimagined take on the tricycle, to do the design work.

But Western Technologies may not have been able to deliver had it not been for Tom Sloper.

Sloper moved to Los Angeles in 1979 hoping that one day he would became a model prop creator in Hollywood. Biding his time for that big break, he spotted an ad for a job in Santa Monica working at Western Technologies.

The company described itself as a toy think tank, and that intrigued Sloper.

Two years into his job there, a co-worker came to Sloper for some help on the GCE game watch project. Sloper's friend needed to create the games but didn't know where to start.

The two grabbed lunch and they sketched out ideas for a number of arcade game knockoffs and then presented them to the vice president in charge of the GCE project.

While Nintendo's Game & Watch series and Casio's calculator and watch games were both popular, portable takes on arcade games, those gadgets were only each able to play a single game. The key differentiator between what would become the GCE Game Time watch and those earlier creations was that Sloper's idea reused a display of dots and circles to create four games that could be played on one watch.

Ultimately, the Game Time went on sale with an original game called Firing Squad and three others 'inspired by' Missile Command, Space Invaders and Breakout.

Sloper says that the Game Time's success led to two more game watches: the Arcade Time and the Sports Time. He says he thinks the devices were so popular back then because they were portable, something that couldn't be said of most electronics of the time.

'Back then people didn't have smartphones or feature phones,' he says. 'They didn't have anything you could carry around, like a DS or a Game Boy.

'And these were things you could wear on your wrist and that looked relatively innocuous. A kid could wear the watch to school.'

From Pac-Man to Zelda

As Nintendo's Game & Watch series and Casio's game watches continued to flourish, and GCE and Sloper began work on the Game Time follow-up, Arcade Time, a third U.S. company started looking into the blossoming game watch market.

Founded in 1950 by Michael Zachary Berger and Joseph Mermelstein, MZ Berger & Co. would go on to become a well-established watch and jewelry designer and manufacturer.

Back in the late '70s, though, looking to create stronger ties with Hong Kong, Bernie Mermelstein, son of one of the founders, helped to create a new brand name for the company. Nelsonic Industries focused on licensing deals — specifically, licensing deals tied to movies and television.

'For the most part, watches were a neglected category for licensing and [Bernie] understood that market failure,' says Bernard Frieder, who worked at the company for about eight years in the early '80s. 'Initially, he was able to secure contracts for a series of very successful TV programs — we sold Six Million Dollar Man watches, Mork [& Mindy] watches and a range of other character watches.

'I don't know exactly what triggered his moving into the game watches — might have been someone from Hong Kong offering him the product, or the fact we all played these games ourselves. But it was when he began focusing on the new video games that were beginning to take over the world that the company sales went vertical.'

Nelsonic's first game watch was called Space Attacker.

'It was a great-looking, bulky, silver metal case watch with buttons that shot the missiles at the descending aliens, full-on audio — explosions and beeping and the rest,' Frieder says. 'The game was very addicting. We all wasted many hours playing it.'

While Nelsonic would go on to create and sell more than 30 game watches tied to everything from Simon to Q*Bert to a long list of Nintendo franchises, there was one game watch in particular that changed everything for the company.

'Many varieties of games came and went — the company made good money on them for years — but of course the game changer of all was the Pac-Man game watch,' Frieder says. 'Again I think the reason Bernie saw this first was because we were the demographic of the kids putting hundreds of quarters into the arcade versions.

'To play this game on your wrist was just too unbelievable. One version actually supplied four colored mini joysticks to insert into the port in the watch face and play the game as if it were in the arcade.'

In the early '90s, arcades saw a dramatic resurgence in popularity, setting the stage for a new wave of more powerful home video game consoles. The new consoles would eventually help essentially kill off the arcade and, it seemed, the game calculator and gaming watch.

By the mid-'90s, Casio, Nelsonic and GCE had all stopped making game watches, and Nintendo's take on the game calculator — the Game & Watch — had evolved to become the Game Boy.

But, it turned out, the game watch wasn't exactly dead; it was just transforming.

Rise of the smartwatch

While watches designed around games or with single games built into them were quickly becoming a thing of the past, a new sort of watch was beginning to come into favor: the smartwatch.

In 1984, Seiko released its Wrist Terminal, a watch that could connect to the computers of the day, including the Apple II, TRS-80 and Commodore 64. In the mid-'90s, Timex released its first Data Link. By the early 2000s, handheld personal digital assistants were becoming full-fledged smartphones, and in 2002, Fossil released a watch PDA that could, among other things, play small text games.

Smartwatches continued to roll out through that decade and included failed attempts by Microsoft, IBM and Samsung to capture the zeitgeist that Casio and Nintendo had co-created in the early '80s.

It wasn't until recently, with the rise of Kickstarter, that smartwatches and wrist gaming began, once more, to grow in widespread popularity.

In 2013, both Pebble and Omate launched wildly successful fundraisers through Kickstarter. A year later, Google announced Android Wear, which brought the company's operating system to smartwatches. In 2015, smartwatches started to flood the market with new devices hitting from Apple, Pebble, Omate and a slew of Android Wear watch designers.

All of them played games; some of them even relied on games to help fuel their success.

That gaming on a tiny screen strapped to a wrist is somehow still appealing during a time when modern console and computer games offer graphically rich, open-world play, is not surprising to some.

Garrick Laing, who runs a website dedicated to retro watches and calculators — including the ones that play games — has been a watch collector since finding an old Casio calculator watch on an auction website about 10 years ago.

Currently, he owns about 30 watches, 10 of which play games.

'I love them,' he says. 'They're pretty basic compared to what you could code into an Apple Watch today, but considering the massive limitations they had in terms of storage, graphics, programming and quality of materials, they are marvels of their time.

'The games are, surprisingly maybe, still quite addictive even 30-plus years later and still provide a challenge. They're a snapshot of another time, and many people remember them from their childhood.'

Next: A visual history of portable gaming, game watches and smartwatches.

The Privia is a line of digital pianos and stage pianos manufactured by Casio. They have 4-layer stereo piano samples and up to 256 notes of polyphony, depending on model. All Privia models feature some kind of weighted keyboard action which simulates the action on an acoustic piano.

First introduced in 2003, the Privia was originally designed to be a new competitor to other brands like Yamaha, Roland, and Kawai in budget digital piano products, but since then more exclusive pianos has been added to the line as well.

Overview[edit]

The original Privia was introduced by Casio in 2003, as a new concept within budget digital pianos, and is widely known for offering more advanced features and high-quality sound at affordable prices, being able to keep up with more expensive instruments. The first Privia was the PX-100. Like any other compact digital pianos, it was able to be played on a table or optional stand, and was equipped with a digital sound source created by independent sampling of various piano timbres.^[3]

The first generation Privia was produced from 2003 to 2006, and utilizes the Zygotech Polynomial Interpolation (ZPI) synthesis sound engine, as used in Casio's numerous former flagship keyboards. Second generation follows from 2006 to 2009, using similar sound engine.

The third generation was introduced in 2009, featuring an all new Linear Morphing AiF (Acoustic and Intelligent Filtering) sound engine with 4-level dynamic stereo piano sampling and 128-note polyphony.

The fourth generation is the current version of the Privia, first introduced in 2012 . It uses the improved rendition of Linear Morphing AiF engine, called Multi-Dimensional Acoustic and Intelligent Resonator (AiR) sound engine, featuring a revamped 4-layer sampling and new features such as simulated sympathetic resonance, adjustable key sensor response (referred to as 'Hammer Response'), half-damper effect, pedal noises and key-off simulation.

Minor update of fourth generation is introduced in 2015, with some models included color touchscreen and improved built-in speaker system, as well as updated various features with few models has up to 256-note polyphony.

Keyboard action[edit]

As with other digital pianos, the Privia features a fully weighted keyboard action to simulate the action on an acoustic piano.

This key action consist of a mechanical system of small 'hammers' and weights attached to each keys that will lift up when the key is pressed, while the keys trigger the sensors to generate sound. The sensors are located in the bottom of the keyboard, similar to that of a synthesizer keyboard action

Throughout various incarnations, the key action has undergone several changes over time:

Scaled Hammer Action (2003–2008 models)[edit]

The original keyboard action, featuring a single or double sensors installed below the keybed. The weights are attached far back to the keys, giving it a slight resistance after the keys are released. It is also have a simulated weight in which lower notes are heavier than higher ones.

Tri-Sensor Scaled Hammer Action (2009–2011 models)[edit]

Tri-Sensor Scaled Hammer utilizes three individual sensors for each keys, two installed below the key's base, and one installed slightly further back near the hammers. The hammers are also modified to have less resistance and swings back faster upon release. The three sensors ensures precision response and improved touch sensitivity compared to its predecessor.

Tri-Sensor Scaled Hammer Action II (2012–2018 models)[edit]

A revamped incarnation of the previous action. The triple sensors are now installed right below the key's base, while the hammers remain unchanged. Furthermore, this action even features unique keys with simulated synthetic ebony and ivory texture and the sensor's response can be digitally adjusted to match the playing style realistically.

The Scaled Hammer Action II has been described as being harder, more substantial and heavier compared to the previous versions. It is also widely criticized for its characteristic knocking noises when played at medium to high velocities, and considered as being heavier than a generic acoustic piano keys.

Smart Scaled Hammer Action (2019–present models)[edit]

Reduces size and weight without compromising playing feel. Included in PX-S1000 PX-S3000 models.

Models[edit]

Models sold in 2021 in black.

Console models[edit]

• 2006 : PX-700
• 2007 : PX-720
• 2008 : PX-800
• 2009 : PX-730
• 2010 : PX-830
• 2012 : PX-750; PX-780 and PX-850
• 2013 : PX-A800
• 2015 : PX-760 and PX-860
• 2017 : PX-770 and PX-870

Casio Keyboard Manual - Free Piano Lessons

Standard models[edit]

• 2003 : PX-100 – the original Privia, with Dual-Element HL sound engine
• 2004 : PX-400R – first Privia with LCD display and auto-accompaniment capabilities
• 2005 : PX-110 – first model with ZPI Synthesis sound engine
• 2005 : PX-310
• 2005 : PX-500L
• 2006 : PX-300
• 2007 : PX-200 – first entry-level Privia model with AiF sound engine
• 2007 : PX-320 – first Privia model with AiF sound engine
• 2007 : PX-410R – minor upgrade to the PX-500L
• 2007/08 : PX-120
• 2008 : PX-575 – the last Privia model with ZPI sound engine
• 2009 : PX-330 – first Privia model with Linear Morphing; introducing dot-matrix LCD display, replacing the digital alphanumeric display as seen on PX-410R and PX-575
• 2009/10 : PX-130/PX-135BK/WE – first entry-level model with Linear Morphing
• 2012 : PX-350M – successor to the PX-330, Features the same dot matrix display, new improved 4 layer stereo piano tones with AiR sound engine, a 16 track recorder and new accompaniment capabilities.
• 2012 : PX-150 – successor to the PX-130/135 with enhanced sampling system and the first model with the present AiR sound engine
• 2013 : PX-A100 – Privia 10th Anniversary model, based on the PX-150 and available in red or blue color
• 2015 : PX-160 – successor to the PX-150; minor improvements with enhanced sounds
• 2015 : PX-360M/CGP-700 – Successor to the PX-350M; features a color touch screen and improved sounds from its predecessors, with a new proprietary Multi-Expressive Intelligence (MXi) sound engine in collaboration with the default AiR engine, as well as revamped built-in speakers.
• 2019 : PX-S1000 and PX-S3000

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The CGP-700 includes a unique stand equipped with built-in amplification and speakers.

The MXi sound engine was later used for Casio's latest MZ-X series of keyboard/synthesizer hybrid instrument, introduced in early 2016

Note: the CGP-700^[4](2015 model) and PX-A100/A800 Anniversary series (2013 model) was offered only in Japan and Western markets, and not available in other regions.^{[citation needed]}

Stage pianos (Privia PRO series)[edit]

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• 2010 : PX-7WE
• 2011 : PX-3BK/WH – Casio's first-ever stage piano model
• 2013 : PX-5S – stage ready variation of the PX-350, the PX-5S adds tone editing and controller capabilities and a new Ivory Touch keybed. The internal speakers and accompaniment were removed to a facilitate the new features. The PX-5S weighs under 25 lbs., holding the distinction of being the lightest stage piano ever manufactured.
• 2015 : PX-560M – stage ready variation of the PX-360 and CGP-700, featuring the same color touch screen and auto-accompaniment function, but added synthesizer control, Hex Layers (tones with up to 6 simultaneous instruments) and sound editing capabilities, similar to that of PX-5S. Unlike the PX-5S, this model is equipped with built-in speakers.

Footnotes[edit]

Target Casio Keyboard

• 'Privia – Product archive'. Casio. (see Technical Specifications tab on each product)

1. ^ ^abEarly models utilized 'ZPI synthesis' were maximum 32-note polyphony.
   (Models: PX-100, PX-110, PX-300, PX-310, PX-400, PX-410, PX-500, PX-575, PX-700, etc)
2. ^ ^abLatest models utilizing Linear Morphing AiF sound source are maximum 256-note polyphony, or 4-layers 32-note polyphony.
   (Models: PX-120, PX-130, PX-135, PX-200, PX-3, PX-320, PX-330, PX-7, PX-720, PX-730, PX-735, PX-800, PX-830, etc)
3. ^'Casio Privia 10th Year Anniversary Concept, History'. Casio Computer Co., Ltd. 2013. Retrieved 4 April 2014.
4. ^'Casio CGP 700 Digital Piano'. 2019-04-13. Retrieved 2019-05-11.

External links[edit]

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