Canon rolled out the AS-100 in 1982. It was a full-featured personal computer for business that ran on a 16-bit microprocessor CPU.
The model's primary features were as follows.
- （1）The 16-bit microprocessor both increased the computer's operation throughput and extended its maximum memory storage to 512 kilobytes.
- （2）The AS-100 brought together many cutting-edge technologies, such as processing of 4×24-dot kanji characters, online and real-time communication controls, and local area network functions for email and office automation.
- （3）The 12-inch 640×400-pixel color CRT display had a color palette of 27 colors, the largest color palette in its class, from which eight screen colors could be selected. It was possible to specify the colors of individual pixels.
- （4）The AS-100 ran CP/M-86 and MS-DOS as its standard operating systems. It worked with a variety of programming languages, including Canon BASIC, GW-BASIC, LII-COBOL, PASCAL, and FORTRAN.
