The PC-6000 series is a series of 8-bit

home computers Home computers were a class of microcomputers that entered the market in 1977 and became common during the 1980s. They were marketed to consumers as affordable and accessible computers that, for the first time, were intended for the use of a s ...

introduced in November 1981 by

NEC Home Electronics is a Japanese multinational corporation, multinational information technology and electronics corporation, headquartered at the NEC Supertower in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. It provides IT and network solutions, including cloud computing, artificia ...

. There are several models in this series, such as the PC-6001, the PC-6001 MK2 and the PC-6001 MK2 SR. There is also an American version, called the NEC TREK or NEC PC-6001A. Several peripherals were available for the system in North America, including an expander with three cartridge jacks (some of the

cartridge-based game A ROM cartridge, usually referred to in context simply as a cartridge, cart, cassette, or card, is a replaceable part designed to be connected to a consumer electronics device such as a home computer, video game console or, to a lesser extent, ...

s used two cartridges), a cassette-tape recorder, a 5.25"

floppy disk drive A floppy disk or floppy diskette (casually referred to as a floppy, a diskette, or a disk) is a type of disk storage composed of a thin and flexible disk of a magnetic storage medium in a square or nearly square plastic enclosure lined with a ...

, a printer, and a

touchpad A touchpad or trackpad is a type of pointing device. Its largest component is a tactile sensor: an electronic device with a flat surface, that detects the motion and position of a user's fingers, and translates them to 2D motion, to control a Cu ...

. The PC-6000 series was followed by the PC-6600 series.

Development

was a subsidiary of

NEC is a Japanese multinational information technology and electronics corporation, headquartered at the NEC Supertower in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. It provides IT and network solutions, including cloud computing, artificial intelligence (AI), Inte ...

and a manufacturer of consumer electronics. They started manufacturing the

PC-8001 The is a line of personal computers developed for the Japanese market by NEC. The PC-8001 model was also sold in the United States and Canada as the PC-8001A. Original models of the NEC PC-8001B (or sometimes the NEC PC-8000) were also sold in s ...

and its peripherals which were developed by the Electronic Devices Group of Nippon Electric. It was successful and grew the personal computer market in Japan. They started developing a low-cost home computer, and it became the PC-6001. At the same time, the Electronic Devices Group developed the

PC-8801 The , commonly shortened to PC-88, are a brand of Zilog Z80-based 8-bit home computers released by Nippon Electric Company (NEC) in 1981 and primarily sold in Japan. The PC-8800 series sold extremely well and became one of the four major Japanes ...

for home and business, and the Information Processing Group developed the

PC-9801 The , commonly shortened to PC-98 or simply , is a lineup of Japanese 16-bit and 32-bit Personal computer, personal computers manufactured by NEC from 1982 to 2003. While based on Intel processors, it uses an in-house architecture making it inc ...

for business market. In 1983, New Nippon Electric changed its name to NEC Home Electronics. At that time, NEC group had four personal computer lines come out from different divisions. To avoid conflict, they decided to consolidate personal computer business into two divisions; NEC Home Electronics dealt with the 8-bit home computer line, and the Information Processing Group dealt with the 16-bit personal computer line. NEC Home Electronics discontinued development of the PC-6000 series, the PC-6600 series, and the PC-8000 series. These lines were merged to the PC-8800 series.

PC-6001

The PC-6001 has the μPD780 processor (NEC clone of

Zilog Z80 The Zilog Z80 is an 8-bit computing, 8-bit microprocessor designed by Zilog that played an important role in the evolution of early personal computing. Launched in 1976, it was designed to be Backward compatibility, software-compatible with the ...

), 16 KB RAM (up to 32 KB),

General Instrument AY-3-8910 The AY-3-8910 is a 3-voice programmable sound generator (PSG) designed by General Instrument (GI) in 1978, initially for use with their 16-bit computing, 16-bit General Instrument CP1600, CP1610 or one of the PIC microcontrollers, PIC1650 ser ...

3-voice sound generator, a

ROM Cartridge A ROM cartridge, usually referred to in context simply as a cartridge, cart, cassette, or card, is a replaceable part designed to be connected to a consumer electronics device such as a home computer, video game console or, to a lesser extent, ...

connector, a cassette tape interface, 2 x

joystick A joystick, sometimes called a flight stick, is an input device consisting of a stick that pivots on a base and reports its angle or direction to the device it is controlling. Also known as the control column, it is the principal control devic ...

port, a parallel printer connector, an

RF modulator An RF modulator (radio frequency modulator) is an electronic device used to convert signals from devices such as media players, VCRs and game consoles to a format that can be handled by a device designed to receive a modulated RF input, such ...

output and a

composite video Composite video, also known as CVBS (composite video baseband signal or color, video, blanking and sync), is an analog video format that combines image information—such as brightness (luminance), color (chrominance), and synchronization, int ...

output. The ROM cartridge allowed the user to easily use software such as video games. It supports four screen modes; 32x16 characters with 4 colors, 64x48 pixel graphics with 9 colors, 128x192 graphics with 4 colors, and 256x192 graphics with white and green colors. The Japanese version uses a

chiclet keyboard A chiclet keyboard is a computer keyboard with keys that form an array of small, flat rectangular or lozenge-shaped rubber or plastic keys that look like erasers or " Chiclets", a brand of chewing gum manufactured in the shape of small squares ...

while a North American version (PC-6001A) uses a typewriter keyboard.

PC-6001 MK2

The PC-6001 MK2 has 64 KB memory, 16 KB video RAM, a -inch 2D

floppy drive A floppy disk or floppy diskette (casually referred to as a floppy, a diskette, or a disk) is a type of disk storage composed of a thin and flexible disk of a magnetic storage medium in a square or nearly square plastic enclosure lined with a ...

interface,

Kanji are logographic Chinese characters, adapted from Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script, used in the writing of Japanese language, Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese and are ...

character generator, RGB monitor out, speech synthesizer unit and a typewriter keyboard. It supports following screen modes: 40x20 characters, 80x80 pixel graphics with 15 colors, 160x200 graphics with 15 colors, and 320x200 graphics with 4 colors.

References

{{NEC computers

Pc-6001 The PC-6000 series is a series of 8-bit home computers introduced in November 1981 by NEC Home Electronics. There are several models in this series, such as the PC-6001, the PC-6001 MK2 and the PC-6001 MK2 SR. There is also an American version, c ...

Z80-based home computers Computer-related introductions in 1981