Canon NoteJet Line (1993-1995)

✅ Canon NoteJet 486

🥇 First Laptop to Feature a Built-In "Bubble Jet" Printer 

The Canon NoteJet 486, launched in 1993 for $2,499 (roughly $5,400 today), was a fascinating "Franken-PC" that merged a fast laptop computer with a fully functional ink printer hidden directly beneath the keyboard. A joint venture between Canon and IBM Japan, the NoteJet allowed business travelers to print letter-sized documents on the fly by simply feeding paper into a slot at the front of the laptop and watching the finished page emerge from the rear. While it was widely praised for its sheer engineering ingenuity, it was also notoriously heavy at 7.7 pounds and thick enough to resemble a small briefcase, making it a legendary, oversized icon of the early 90s portable office movement.

✅ Canon NoteJet II 486C

 The Canon NoteJet II 486C, launched in 1994, was an ambitious "all-in-one" portable office computer that famously combined a full-featured Windows laptop with a complete built-in inkjet printer inside a single chassis. Developed through a joint engineering venture between Canon and IBM Japan, this 8.6-pound device eliminated the need for mobile professionals to carry a separate portable printer by housing a miniaturized 360-dpi monochrome Bubble Jet printer directly underneath its liftable keyboard. Powered by an IBM 486SLC2 50 MHz processor running MS-DOS and Windows 3.11, the NoteJet II allowed users to feed blank sheets into a front slot, watch paper travel through the body of the machine, and take finished documents or plain-paper faxes directly out of the rear print output tray. Equipped with a 10.3-inch dual-scan color LCD screen, a built-in joystick pointer, and a 10-sheet automatic paper feeder, it dazzled business travelers with its mobile versatility, even though its thick "briefcase" profile and high price tag ultimately made it an iconic, highly unique dead end in the evolution of laptop design.

Donated by: Rich Rubin, Connecticut