Your talking to a fan of 60hz and 110V, 240v 50hz to me adds an
annoying noise on stereos where the lower volts seems to add less of a
buzz, and 50hz I find too flicky, though PAL is a much better system
than "Never Twice the Same Color".  Now digital clocks are standard and
no longer depend on wall power as a timer, this also becomes moot.

TV I think was in part due to difference in power systems.  The French
Secam on the other hand was popular in old Communist block contries as
it was totally incompatable with anything else.  There was a push when
the UK was switching to colour to use NTSC, or at least a similar
system that would permit the old VHF TVs being used while upgrading to
color, or some such.  I forget the exact details but NTSC respectfuly
sucked.  While spiffy in the fact that you could use TVs older than
dirt, these older TVs didn't have the lead to filter shield from
x-rays.

But as to why... I don't have the historic info.  It wasn't so big a
deal in the 20th century as for example Australia and USA are so far a
part that no bugger could pickup station so compatability wasn't
needed.  But in this age of travel such a thing would be nice, esp
since we are reworking TV to HDTV digital it would have been a good
idea to standardize our nations, but fortunatly most DVD players can
output in terms of PAL or NTSC, and many TVs can switch resolutions.
As TV becomes obsolete in favor of podcasting and such, these standards
become 100% moot.

But as for the Canon issue... I think it's an issue with Phillips's
patent on CDs.  While you own the same physical printer as a North
American would CD printing was simply not offered.  Canon I believe
simply refuses to pay the license fee required to release the product
in the USA.  It's not a big deal with the pixma series as they have all
the same parts as non-North American models except the tray.  The
i860-i990 required that front part to permit inserting the tray.

It's the same deal with "labelflash", a system of burning images on
discs developed by Fuji and Yamaha IIRC.  In all respects superior to
HP's lightscribe but is not something that will be seen in America due
to patent issues.  So it will be disabled in software, but the hardware
will remain the same.

But if you could manage to scan yours, as in find a friend who has one
that would be ultra handy.  While I know it's shape and relative
relfector positions I lack accurate measurements.  For example tray
type B for the early PIXMA series there are spiffy templates one can
print off an image of the tray for testing.