Japanese 35 mm cameras of the 1970s

When I was in high school I got interested in photography. I wanted to own a nice camera so I started to save my money to buy one. While looking at camera magazines I read the articles about the great cameras and lenses. The front of the magazines featured full page adds by manufacturers such as Canon, Nikon, Konica, Mamiya, Minolta, Miranda, Olympus, Pentax, Topcon and Yashika. Most of the cameras were made in Japan.
Flipping to the back of the magazine, a reader could find pages and pages of advertisements from camera stores. The type in the ads was very tiny and hard to read. Each ad listed dozens and dozens of cameras and accessories. Most of the camera stores were located in New York and did a lot of mail order business to customers far and wide.
I did not want to take a chance on a log distance transaction so I just looked at the ads and dreamed. There were two camera stores about 30 miles from my home and sometimes I would go inside and look at the cameras and pick up some of the glossy brochures about photo equipment.
When I started getting almost enough money to buy a camera I went to one of the stores and asked the clerk if I could see some cameras. The only camera I could afford was an East German Praktika but it did not impress me, so I decided to wait. About a month later I had enough money to buy a Canon TX, an entry level camera with no fancy features. It was a sold camera made of metal and glass. Since I had withdrawn nearly all the money from my savings account I could not afford extras like lenses, filters or strobe lights. But I had a 35 mm camera and film so I was on my way.