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About Pentax
The company that would become Pentax was founded in 1919 as Asahi Optical. It was originally an optical company, beginning by making glasses under the Aoco brand (presumably the acronym of Asahi Optical Company), and made its first Aoco projection lens in 1923. It began to produce camera lenses in the early 1930s, under the impulsion of the CEO Kajiwara Kumao and his closest collaborator Matsumoto Sabur. These lenses were not marked as made by Asahi, and were produced lenses for various camera models made by other makers. From 1933, the company produced Optor and meniscus achromat lenses designed at Rokuoh-sha for Konishiroku models. From the mid-1930s to the end of World War II, the company was also the main supplier of Molta, then Chiyoda K?gaku Seik? (predecessors of Minolta), whose cameras were equipped with Coronar and Promar lenses.
The company changed status in 1938, becoming Asahi K?gaku K?gy? K.K. or Asahi Optical Co. based in Tokyo. It would keep this name until it became Pentax Corporation in 2002. A merger with the Hoya Corporation is set to be completed on October 1, 2007. The new name will be Hoya Pentax HD Corporation....
from Camerapedia.org