website/content/museum/canon-cat.md

title, categories, types, origins, years, cpus, params

title	categories	types	origins	years	cpus	params
Canon CAT	Computers	Professional Computer	Japan	1987	Motorola 68000	name company company_name specs tabs photos screenshots links docs comments oc_id source CAT /companies/canon Canon label value NAME CAT label value MANUFACTURER Canon label value TYPE Professional Computer label value ORIGIN Japan label value YEAR 1987 label value END OF PRODUCTION Six months later label value BUILT IN LANGUAGE Forth label value KEYBOARD Monobloc system. Full-stroke keyboard (compatible with IBM Selectric), 49 keys. Special keys: LEAP (left & right), USE FRONT, DOCUMENT/PAGE, PERM SPACE/TAB, UNDO, ERASE, LOCK, SHIFT (x2) label value CPU Motorola 68000 label value SPEED 5 MHz label value RAM 256 KB label value ROM 256 KB label value TEXT MODES Unknown label value GRAPHIC MODES Unknown label value COLORS Black & white 9'' display label value SOUND Unknown label value SIZE / WEIGHT 27.18 X 33.78 X 45.21 cm (10.7 X 13.3 X 17.8 inches) / 7.71 kg (17 lbs.) label value I/O PORTS Centronics parallel port, RS-232C serial port (DB-25 connector), 2 x RJ-11 jacks (for telephone connections) label value BUILT IN MEDIA 3.5'' floppy disk drive (256 KB) label value OS Machine Specific label value POWER SUPPLY PSU built-in, 120v label value PRICE $1495 (USA, 1987) photos software links docs title subtitle text image CANON CAT Picture courtesy of M. J. Maloney null title subtitle text image CANON CAT ...running word processor program null title subtitle text image SIDE Picture courtesy of M. J. Maloney null title subtitle text image REAR Picture courtesy of M. J. Maloney null title subtitle text image KEYBOARD Picture courtesy of M. J. Maloney null title subtitle text image PRESSE RELEASE Picture of the Canon Cat press release in USA. null title subtitle text image BUILT-IN WORDPROCESSOR Picture courtesy of M. J. Maloney null title url text Canon's Cat Computer: The Real Macintosh http://www.jagshouse.com/swyft.html Large article about the Canon Cat title url text DigiBarn Museum - Canon Cat page http://www.digibarn.com/collections/systems/canon-cat/page_01.htm Numerous photos of the beast (with some links) title url text Forever70...80...90 http://perso.wanadoo.fr/fabrice.montupet/autrever.htm fabrice has set up a very informative page about the Canon CAT (french) title url text Jef raskin's home page http://jef.raskincenter.org/home/index.html Home page of the creator of the CAT title url text Wikipedia - Canon Cat entry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canon_Cat Nice page from Wikipedia title url cover text INSTRUCTION MANUAL http://web.archive.org/web/20070928072205/jef.raskincenter.org/published/cat_manual.html null [**INSTRUCTION MANUAL**](http://web.archive.org/web/20070928072205/jef.raskincenter.org/published/cat_manual.html)written by Jef Raskin  compiled/archived by Jef Raskin\  type of document : PDF\  source : [JefRaskin.com](http://web.archive.org/web/20070928072205/jef.raskincenter.org/) title url cover text REFERENCE GUIDE http://web.archive.org/web/20070928072639/jef.raskincenter.org/published/cat_ref.html null [**REFERENCE GUIDE**](http://web.archive.org/web/20070928072639/jef.raskincenter.org/published/cat_ref.html)written by Jef Raskin  compiled/archived by Jef Raskin\  type of document : PDF\  source : [JefRaskin.com](http://web.archive.org/web/20070928072639/jef.raskincenter.org/) **... READ THE ONLINE VERSION BY CLICKING BELOW :** title url cover text REFERENCE CARD http://web.archive.org/web/20070806230147/jef.raskincenter.org/published/cat_card.html null [**REFERENCE CARD**](http://web.archive.org/web/20070806230147/jef.raskincenter.org/published/cat_card.html)written by Jef Raskin  compiled/archived by Jef Raskin\  type of document : PDF\  source : [JefRaskin.com](http://web.archive.org/web/20070806230147/jef.raskincenter.org/) **... READ THE ONLINE VERSION BY CLICKING BELOW :** author date text Roger M Ribert (Rochester NY) Friday 3rd February 2017 In 1987, I worked as a sales representative for a Canon office products dealer. We received training on the Cat, but none of us ever got comfortable using it. Therefore, we didn''t try to sell it. Glad that some people got good use out of it. author date text simon crum (vancouver/Canada) Friday 9th November 2012 The Canon cat was great. I just pulled mine out and it still works. I took it to Europe and had it working there too. There was a switch inside to change the voltage from 110 to 240. I wrote tons of good stories on this machine (when I had time to write for myself). The printer let me print resumes and story submissions with real letters, not dot matrix. The "leap" function was way ahead of its time...allowing you to jump to any word or letter combination in your doc. One bad thing was the disk formatting. If you weren''t careful, you could easily overwrite your disk with the few words you had on the screen. Love the cat. Still have it. In a world where the only competition was machines that let you edit and see three lines at a time, the cat was king! author date text Antoinette Menne (New Orleans, LA, USA) Wednesday 10th November 2010 Hey, I hope you will still be notified of this, but I have a Canon Cat and printer that are still in working condition. I just took them out of storage about a month ago. I was so surprised that it worked. I just posted a craigslist ad for it.\ http://neworleans.craigslist.org/sys/2053690446.html (computers $ tech) Shoot me an email if you (or anyone who reads this!) might be interested! author date text Ruth M. Moser (USA) Wednesday 18th October 2006 I have a Canon Cat, which I love. It's admittedly a dinosaur, but it's very easy to use, and very useful for some purposes. I'm wondering whether there might be a working model available somewhere, that i could buy. Mine won't last forever, and I'll be heartbroken when it gives up the ghost. 642 url date https://web.archive.org/web/20230608161648/http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=642 2023-06-08

In 1987 Canon USA Inc. released a new computer named the Canon Cat. This computer was targeted at low-level clerical workers such as secretaries. After six months on the market and with 20,000 units sold, Canon discontinued the Cat.

The Cat featured an innovative text based user interface that did not rely upon a mouse, icons, or graphics. The key person behind the Cat was Jef Raskin, an eclectic gadgeteer, who began the design of the Cat during his work on the first Macintosh project at Apple Computer in 1979.

The Cat was a 17 pound desktop computer system containing a built in 9" black-and-white bit-mapped monitor, a single 3.5-inch 256K floppy disk drive, and an IBM Selectric-style keyboard. It came with an extensive collection of applications stored in ROM. These applications supported word processing, spell checking, mail merging, calculator functions, communications, data retrieval, and programming in the FORTH or 68000 assembly languages. Also present in the ROM was a spelling dictionary based on the 90,000 word American Heritage Dictionary. System setup information and a small personal user dictionary were stored in 8K of battery backed up RAM.

The Cat's user interface made this computer unique. The user interface was based on a simple text editor in which all data was seen as a long stream of text broken into pages. Special keyboard keys allowed the user to invoke various functions. An extra key titled "Use Front" acted as a control key. You pressed Use Front and then a special key to activate a specific feature. For example, the L key was marked Disk, the J key was marked Print, and the N key was marked Explain (Cat's context sensitive help facility). Other commands existed to let you change the system's various parameters (Setup key) and reverse your last action (Undo key).

Contributors: David Patterson (editor), John J. Diamond (editor)