The foundation is the NP — “New Process” — system, patented 1965, launched 1970 in the NP-1100, Japan’s first plain-paper copier. It sidestepped Xerox’s xerography with a CdS photoreceptor under an insulating skin, tough enough to take a hard rubber cleaning blade. Canon licensed those blade patents so widely that by 1990 a little Canon engineering sat inside most of its rivals. Empires have been built on less.

Through the nineties the NP badge holds the office analog line together, from the NP-1015 and NP-1215 small-office staples to the mighty print-room machines: the NP-8580 reviewed below, and the NP-9800 of 1990 — the world’s first high-speed copier with fuzzy-logic image control, 83 copies a minute of self-tuning confidence. Heritage runs deeper still: 1981’s NP-8500 SUPER hit 135 cpm, a number Canon was still quoting a decade on.

The decade’s headline, though, is colour. The CLC-1 (1987) was the first full-colour digital copier; the CLC-500 (1989) — our cover star — was the one that sold, and once EFI’s Fiery controllers taught it to be a networked printer, it quietly founded the digital colour print industry. Then the firsts keep coming: currency-recognition anti-forgery tech (CLC 550/350, 1992, because colour had become good enough to counterfeit with), automatic duplex colour (CLC 800, 1994), high-speed colour (CLC 1000, 1995).

And at the small end, the revolution nobody dignifies with the word: the PC personal copiers, born 1982 with the PC-10’s all-in-one cartridge — drum, toner, cleaner, snap it in, no service call, about $150. Two million machines by 1988; one hundred million cartridges by 1992; the industry’s first cartridge recycling programme by 1990. Ten million copiers built by 1993. That is what an empire looks like in the product listings.

The entry ticket

The bottom rung is the one Canon invented. Since the PC-10 and PC-20 of 1982, the personal copier meant one thing: drum, toner and cleaner in a single snap-in cartridge of roughly 2,000 copies, under $150, no service call, ever. By the nineties the desk range ran from the PC-320 at 4 cpm to the PC-720 at 10 cpm — the latter with a 70–141% zoom and runs of up to 100 copies, plus a whole PC-7xx family on the same platform — with the truly portable FC-3 and FC-5 of 1986 still knocking about. This was copying for the den, the church newsletter and the surgery front desk: people who wanted copies, not a relationship with a technician.

One step up, the NP-1015 and NP-1215 were the small-office staples — platen-fed analog machines on NPG-1 toner, and by common consent among the most-seen Canons of the era. Sharp ran the same cartridge play at the desk end — the Z-20 at about 5 cpm (unverified) — but in sub-desktop personal copying Canon was effectively unchallenged, and the rest of the industry paid the cartridge the sincerest compliment available.

The engine room

The middle of the range is where the NP badge earned its keep. The NP-6025 gave you 25 cpm and the “4-in-1” image-combination trick; the NP-6030 of 1992 — Canon’s “green” launch — did 30 cpm and opened the options catalogue properly: RDF-C1 recirculating feeder at US$1,515, 20-Bin Stapler Sorter-C1 at US$3,240, Duplexing Unit-G1 on its paper-deck pedestal at US$2,705 (all 1994 money). The trade-off of the tier, in other words, was not the machine — it was how much machine you bolted on afterwards.

Above that sat the departmental spine: NP-6050 at 50 cpm and NP-6060 at 60, ADF and sorter as the sensible config, with the NP-6650 II carrying the 50 cpm line long into the decade. This is who bought them: the legal practice running briefs, the council office, the school that had finally worn out its spirit duplicator. Against Sharp’s SF-2050 at 50 cpm — which shipped with duplex on by default — the NP-6050 sent you back to the options list; Canon’s answer was a range so deep the options list was a genre.

The summit

The print room belonged to the NP-8580 (c. 1988, unverified): 80 cpm, duplex built in — 1:2, 2:2, 2:1 — zoom from 64 to 142%, runs of 1 to 999, rated for 50,000–100,000 copies a month. Then the NP-9800 of 1990, the world’s first fuzzy-logic high-speed copier, self-tuning its image at 83 cpm, with the NP-9850 carrying 85 cpm to the analog line’s end. Against Xerox’s 1090 at 92 cpm the Canons gave up raw speed and answered with judgement — and with the memory of 1981’s NP-8500 SUPER at 135 cpm, a number Canon still quoted like a war record.

And then there is colour, which at Canon was not a tier so much as a separate weather system. The CLC-1 of 1987 was the first full-colour digital copier; the CLC-500 of 1989 was the one that sold — readers will recognise it from the cover of this very magazine, where it sits by right. Lashed to EFI’s Fiery controllers it became a networked colour press and quietly founded the digital colour print industry; the CLC 550/350 added anti-forgery currency recognition in 1992, the CLC 800 automatic duplex colour in 1994, the CLC 1000 high-speed colour in 1995. The repro room and the agency art department did not buy these so much as convert to them.