Olympus C-120

A model number the archive can't yet pin to a camera, and the record says so.

Overview

The Olympus C-120 file has no verified research on the camera itself. The fact sheet came back empty. The only source material attached to the model number is a set of tape-and-cassette ads and equipment reviews from 1972 and 1981-83. Those pages carry a "C120" designation because that was a standard blank-cassette length, not because they describe an Olympus camera. The HiFI-Stereo (1981, p.144) blank-tape listings price a "C120" cassette at $1.74 next to C30, C60 and C90 lengths. A 1972 Studio Sound trade page sells "C120 MASTERTAPE" at 65p. All of that is magnetic tape.

Given the Olympus catalog, the C-120 designation most plausibly points to a member of the Camedia C-series of digital compacts. That family produced documented models like the C-100, C-460 Zoom, and C-1400L. But "most plausibly" is not a fact. No sensor resolution, lens specification, storage format, battery type, price, or production year for the C-120 appears in any source the archive can verify. There is no spec sheet here because there is nothing to build one from.

The one thing the record does establish is negative. The period review chunks attached to this model number are misattributed. The HiFI-Stereo and Studio Sound excerpts cover blank cassette tape and reel-to-reel tape retail - C120 as a tape length, not a camera - and predate any plausible Olympus digital compact by decades. They are catalog artifacts, not evidence. Until a manual, a period review, or a verified owner's account names the Olympus C-120 as a camera, this page stays short.