The , commonly shortened to PC-98 or , is a lineup of Japanese

16-bit 16-bit microcomputers are microcomputers that use 16-bit microprocessors. A 16-bit register can store 216 different values. The range of integer values that can be stored in 16 bits depends on the integer representation used. With the two mo ...

and 32-bit personal computers manufactured by

NEC is a Japanese multinational information technology and electronics corporation, headquartered in Minato, Tokyo. The company was known as the Nippon Electric Company, Limited, before rebranding in 1983 as NEC. It provides IT and network soluti ...

from 1982 to 2000. The platform established NEC's dominance in the Japanese

personal computer A personal computer (PC) is a multi-purpose microcomputer whose size, capabilities, and price make it feasible for individual use. Personal computers are intended to be operated directly by an end user, rather than by a computer expert or tec ...

market, and, by 1999, more than 18 million units had been sold. While NEC did not market these specific machines in the West, it sold the NEC

APC series The NEC APC (Advanced Personal Computer), APC II and APC III were the international versions of models from the Japanese NEC N5200 series. The 8086-based N5200, released in 1981, was the first computer to use the NEC µPD7220 High-Performance Gr ...

, which had similar hardware to early PC-98 models. The PC-98 was initially released as a business-oriented personal computer which had backward compatibility with the successful

PC-8800 series 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 three major Japan ...

. The range of the series has expanded, and in the 1990s it was used in a variety of industry fields including education and hobbies. NEC succeeded in attracting third-party suppliers and a wide range of users, and the PC-98 dominated the Japanese PC market with more than 60% market share by 1991.

IBM clone IBM PC compatible computers are similar to the original IBM PC, XT, and AT, all from computer giant IBM, that are able to use the same software and expansion cards. Such computers were referred to as PC clones, IBM clones or IBM PC clones. ...

s lacked sufficient graphics capabilities to easily handle Japan's multiple writing systems, in particular

kanji are the logographic Chinese characters taken from the Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script and 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 ...

with its thousands of charaters. In addition, Japanese computer manufacturers marketed personal computers that were based on each proprietary architecture for the domestic market. Global PC manufacturers, with the exception of

Apple An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple trees are cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus ''Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, where its wild ancestor, ' ...

, had failed to overcome the language barrier, and the Japanese PC market was isolated from the global market. By 1990, average CPUs and graphics capabilities were sufficiently improved. The

DOS/V DOS/V is a Japanese computing initiative starting in 1990 to allow DOS on IBM PC compatibles with VGA cards to handle double-byte (DBCS) Japanese text via software alone. It was initially developed from PC DOS by IBM for its PS/55 machines (a ...

operating system enabled IBM clones to display Japanese text by using a software font only, giving a chance for global PC manufacturers to enter the Japanese PC market. The PC-98 is a non-IBM compatible

x86 x86 (also known as 80x86 or the 8086 family) is a family of complex instruction set computer (CISC) instruction set architectures initially developed by Intel based on the Intel 8086 microprocessor and its 8088 variant. The 8086 was intr ...

-based computer, thus it is capable of running ported (and localized) versions of

MS-DOS MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few ope ...

and Microsoft Windows. However, as Windows spread, software developers no longer had to code their software separately for each specific platform, and the PC-98 became regarded as one of the Windows-based machines like other IBM clones. The PC-98 adopted non-proprietary parts developed for IBM clones to reduce manufacturing costs. Due to the popularity of

Windows 95 Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of operating systems. The first operating system in the 9x family, it is the successor to Windows 3.1x, and was released to manufacturi ...

, the demand for the PC-98 on which legacy applications depend had declined. In 1997, NEC abandoned compatibility with the PC-98 and released the PC98-NX series based on the

PC System Design Guide The PC System Design Guide (also known as the PC-97, PC-98, PC-99, or PC 2001 specification) is a series of hardware design requirements and recommendations for IBM PC compatible personal computers, compiled by Microsoft and Intel Corporation d ...

History

Background

NEC developed mainframes since the 1950s. By 1976, the company had the 4th highest mainframe sales (10.4%) in Japan after IBM (29.6%), Fujitsu (20.1%) and Hitachi (15.8%). NEC did not have a presence in the consumer market, and its subsidiary, New Nippon Electric (later NEC Home Electronics), had limited success with consumer products. NEC's Information Processing Group, which developed mainframes and minicomputers, had not developed a

because they assumed microprocessors were not suitable for computing as they suffered from a lack of performance and reliability. However, the Electronic Device Sales Division developed the microprocessor evaluation kit

TK-80 The TK-80 (μCOM Training Kit TK-80) was an 8080-based single-board computer kit developed by Nippon Electric Company (NEC) in 1976. It was originally developed for engineers who considered using the '' μCOM-80 family'' in their product. It was ...

, which became unexpectedly popular among hobbyists. , a developer of the TK-80, observed the rise in popularity of personal computers at the 1977

West Coast Computer Faire The West Coast Computer Faire was an annual computer industry conference and exposition most often associated with San Francisco, its first and most frequent venue. The first fair was held in 1977 and was organized by Jim Warren and Bob Reil ...

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

. Goto and his section manager, , decided to develop a personal computer despite criticism from the Information Processing Group. The division only had a small distribution network of electronic parts stores, so they asked New Nippon Electric to sell the personal computers through their consumer distribution network. The Electronic Device Sales Division launched the PC-8001 in 1979, and it dominated 40% of the Japanese personal computer market in 1981. The vice president of NEC, , stated: In April 1981, NEC decided to expand their personal computer lines into three groups: New Nippon Electric, the Information Processing Group, and the Electronic Devices Group, with each specializing in a particular series. New Nippon Electric made 8-bit home computers (

PC-6000 series The NEC 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 versio ...

), while the Information Processing Group made 16-bit business personal computers and the Electronic Devices Group made other personal computers such as the PC-8000, the PC-8800 and the PC-100 series.

Development

In the Information Processing Small Systems Division, directed the project and did the product planning. The development team initially planned for the new personal computer to be a small version of the business computer line which originated from the 1973 NEAC System 100. Kazuya Watanabe stated that the personal computer must have

Microsoft BASIC Microsoft BASIC is the foundation software product of the Microsoft company and evolved into a line of BASIC interpreters and compiler(s) adapted for many different microcomputers. It first appeared in 1975 as Altair BASIC, which was the first ...

, considered compatibility of peripheral devices with previous NEC PCs, and disclosed specifications of its expansion slot. In September 1981, Hamada requested

ASCII ASCII ( ), abbreviated from American Standard Code for Information Interchange, is a character encoding standard for electronic communication. ASCII codes represent text in computers, telecommunications equipment, and other devices. Because ...

's Kazuhiko Nishi to rewrite N88-BASIC to run on the Intel 8086 processor, and Nishi replied, saying that he wanted to talk with

Bill Gates William Henry Gates III (born October 28, 1955) is an American business magnate and philanthropist. He is a co-founder of Microsoft, along with his late childhood friend Paul Allen. During his career at Microsoft, Gates held the positions ...

. Three months later, Nishi rejected Hamada's request because Microsoft was busy with the development of

GW-BASIC GW-BASIC is a dialect of the BASIC programming language developed by Microsoft from IBM BASICA. Functionally identical to BASICA, its BASIC interpreter is a fully self-contained executable and does not need the Cassette BASIC ROM found in the ...

, and they did not want to produce more variants of Microsoft BASIC. Nishi told him, "Microsoft is rewriting a BASIC that has the same function with more structured internal code, and it will be sold as the definitive 16-bit version named GW-BASIC. We'll provide a BASIC sooner if you choose the Japanese adoption of GW BASIC." Hamada replied, "As I said, we want a BASIC that is compatible with the previous ones." They could not make an agreement. Hamada could not decide which plan they should develop, a small business computer or a personal computer, because the possibilities of Watanabe's plan was uncertain. While they were visiting software companies to collect and research applications for the PC-8001 and PC-8801, Hamada and Watanabe discovered that the consumer market wanted a 16-bit machine compatible with both PCs. Hamada decided to adopt two plans for different markets. In April 1982, the small business personal computer became the NEC System 20 model 15, which used a proprietary 16-bit microprocessor. The machine was introduced as a new model of traditional business computers, so it was not notable. In February 1982, the software development team started reverse engineering N88-BASIC and designing N88-BASIC(86). After the team finished in March 1982, they started development on the PC-9801 (named ''N-10 Project''). A PC-9801 prototype was completed at the end of July 1982. The code of N88-BASIC (86) was written completely from scratch, but Nishi pointed out that the

bytecode Bytecode (also called portable code or p-code) is a form of instruction set designed for efficient execution by a software interpreter. Unlike human-readable source code, bytecodes are compact numeric codes, constants, and references (norma ...

matched Microsoft's. It was unclear if the copyright law could apply to the bytecode. Nishi suggested to Hamada that NEC must have purchased the same amount of Microsoft's product as it corresponded to the license fee, and N88-BASIC(86) must show copyright notification for both

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washin ...

and NEC. Hamada approved it. The team considered third-party developers to be very important for the market's expansion. They provided 50–100 prototypes and technical information for independent companies without a fee. In 1981, the Terminal Units Division of the Information Processing Group also launched the personal computer series , which was branded as the "personal terminal". It used an Intel 8086 processor and a µPD7220 display controller. Its architecture was similar to that of the PC-98, but it mostly ran the proprietary operating system ''PTOS''. NEC introduced it as an intelligent terminal or a

workstation A workstation is a special computer designed for technical or scientific applications. Intended primarily to be used by a single user, they are commonly connected to a local area network and run multi-user operating systems. The term ''workstat ...

and was distinguished within personal computer lines. For this market, Fujitsu released the in 1981, and IBM Japan released the Multistation 5550 in 1983.

Release and growing

The first model, the PC-9801, launched in October 1982, Reprinted from and employs an 8086 CPU. It runs at a

clock speed In computing, the clock rate or clock speed typically refers to the frequency at which the clock generator of a processor can generate pulses, which are used to synchronize the operations of its components, and is used as an indicator of the pro ...

of 5 MHz, with two µPD7220 display controllers (one for text, the other for video graphics), and was shipped with 128 KB of

RAM Ram, ram, or RAM may refer to: Animals * A male sheep * Ram cichlid, a freshwater tropical fish People * Ram (given name) * Ram (surname) * Ram (director) (Ramsubramaniam), an Indian Tamil film director * RAM (musician) (born 1974), Dutch * ...

that can be expanded to 640 KB. Its 8-color display has a maximum resolution of 640×400 pixels. When the PC-9801 launched in 1982, it was initially priced at 298,000 yen (about US$1,200 in 1982 dollars). It can use PC-88 peripherals such as displays and floppy disk drives, and it can run software developed for N88-BASIC with a few modifications. For new buyers, it required either an expensive 1232 KB 8-inch floppy drive or a smaller capacity 320 KB 5¼-inch floppy drive. The basic system can display

JIS X 0201 JIS X 0201, a Japanese Industrial Standard developed in 1969 (then called JIS C 6220 until the JIS category reform), was the first Japanese electronic character set to become widely used. It is either a 7-bit encoding or an 8-bit encoding, altho ...

characters including numbers, English characters, and

half-width kana are katakana characters displayed compressed at half their normal width (a 1:2 aspect ratio), instead of the usual square (1:1) aspect ratio. For example, the usual (full-width) form of the katakana ''ka'' is カ while the half-width form is ｶ. ...

, so most users added an optional

ROM Rom, or ROM may refer to: Biomechanics and medicine * Risk of mortality, a medical classification to estimate the likelihood of death for a patient * Rupture of membranes, a term used during pregnancy to describe a rupture of the amniotic sac * ...

board for using a Japanese

word processor A word processor (WP) is a device or computer program that provides for input, editing, formatting, and output of text, often with some additional features. Early word processors were stand-alone devices dedicated to the function, but current ...

. Its successor, the PC-9801F, employs an 8086-2 CPU, which can selectively run at a speed of either 5 or 8 MHz. The F2 model contains two 640 KB 5¼-inch 2DD (quad density) floppy drives, a JIS level 1 kanji (2,965 characters) font ROM, and was priced at 398,000 yen (about US$1,700 in 1983). It was positively received by engineers and businesses. Ozawa explained the reason why the PC-9801F used a 640 KB floppy drive, "For Japanese business softwares, 320 KB is small, 640 KB is just barely enough, and 1 MB is preferable. We want to choose a 1 MB floppy drive, but its 8-inch drive is expensive, and its 5-inch drive lacks reliability. So, we think 640 KB is the best choice. Also, it can read a 320 KB floppy disk". The Electronic Devices Group launched the

PC-100 The NEC Corporation, NEC PC-100 was a Japanese home computer available on October 13, 1983. It operated on Intel 8086, 8086 CPU 7 MHz, 128KB RAM, 128KB VRAM, a Japanese language capable keyboard and a two button Computer mouse, mouse. It had thre ...

in October 1983 and attempted to present a GUI similar to the Apple Lisa. The PC-100 did not sell well due to its time and high cost. Moreover, the marketing competed with the PC-98 of the Information Processing Group, which did not assure distributors. In December 1983, Ouchi decided that NEC would consolidate their personal computer business into two divisions: NEC Home Electronics to deal with the 8-bit home computer line, and Nippon Electric's Information Processing Group to deal with the 16-bit personal computer line. The Electronic Device Group passed off their personal computer business to NEC Home Electronics. Fujitsu released the in December 1984. It has an Intel 80186 CPU at 8 MHz and a 1.2 MB 5¼-inch 2HD (high density) floppy drive. The FM-16β failed because it bundled CP/M-86, not MS-DOS, and was marketed by Fujitsu's Electronic Devices department instead of the Computers department. They modified their policies in mid-1985, but it was too late. In another incident, Fujitsu bundled a business software package with the FM-11 (predecessor to FM-16β) which discouraged users from purchasing third-party software and forced them to use it for a specific purpose, which caused Fujitsu to fail to expand their platform. NEC PC-9801VM Front

NEC introduced the PC-9801M2 that has two 5¼-inch 2HD floppy drives against the release of FM-16β. This model cannot read 2DD floppy disks. The PC-9801VM uses an NEC V30 CPU clocked at 10 MHz, and was released in July 1985. The VM2 model shipped with two 5¼-inch 2HD floppy drives and supports both 2DD and 2HD floppy disks. It became the best-selling computer in Japan, with annual sales of 210,000 units. NEC permitted software companies to bundle a subset of

2.11 without a license fee between 1983 and 1987. ASCII and Microsoft allowed it to enter the market and compete with CP/M-86. NEC also let users buy a self-contained application package. It occupied half of the Japanese personal computer market at the end of 1983. As of March 1984, 700 software packages were available for PC-98. In 1987, NEC announced one million PC-98s were shipped, and about 3,000 software packages were available.

Masayoshi Son Masayoshi Son ( ja, 孫正義, translit=Son Masayoshi, ko, 손정의, translit=Son Jeong-ui) (born 11 August 1957) is a Korean-Japanese billionaire technology entrepreneur, investor, financier and philanthropist. A 3rd generation "Zainichi Kore ...

recalled in 1985 that: NEC took care to maintain compatibility and inheritance. The PC-9801VM can select a clock frequency between 8 and 10 MHz and also offers an optional 8086 card because the V30 has different instruction cycles. The V30 has unique instructions which are not implemented in other

Intel x86 x86 (also known as 80x86 or the 8086 family) is a family of complex instruction set computer (CISC) instruction set architectures initially developed by Intel based on the Intel 8086 microprocessor and its 8088 variant. The 8086 was intr ...

processors. Some PC-98 applications use them, so the PC-9801VX (1986) was designed to run

Intel 80286 The Intel 80286 (also marketed as the iAPX 286 and often called Intel 286) is a 16-bit microprocessor that was introduced on February 1, 1982. It was the first 8086-based CPU with separate, non- multiplexed address and data buses and also the ...

and V30 selectively. The PC-9801RA (1988) has an

Intel 80386 The Intel 386, originally released as 80386 and later renamed i386, is a 32-bit microprocessor introduced in 1985. The first versions had 275,000 transistors NEC focused heavily on financing advertisements and exhibitions, from in the 1970s, to over in 1985. While NEC did not market these specific machines in the West, it sold the NEC APC III, which had similar hardware as early PC-98 models. However, NEC began selling an IBM clone (APC IV) outside Japan in 1986. By 1990, PC-9800/9801 units were sold in Japan.

Race with laptops and PC-98 clones

Toshiba , commonly known as Toshiba and stylized as TOSHIBA, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. Its diversified products and services include power, industrial and social infrastructure systems, ...

had developed

laptop computer A laptop, laptop computer, or notebook computer is a small, portable personal computer (PC) with a screen and alphanumeric keyboard. Laptops typically have a clam shell form factor with the screen mounted on the inside of the upper li ...

s since the autumn of 1983, while their desktops were a failure in the Japanese PC market. In October 1986, they introduced the which allowed the T3100 to handle Japanese text. NEC did not expect it to become the first successful laptop computer. In Japan, a typical office layout is an open office that is made up of rows of tight desks, so laptop computers received a good reception from corporate customers. In the same month, NEC introduced the PC-98LT laptop computer. This model had poor compatibility with the PC-9801 and could not gain a significant profit. NEC understood, despite difficulties, that the PC-98 needed a new custom chipset to make the motherboard smaller. In March 1987,

Epson Seiko Epson Corporation, or simply known as Epson, is a Japanese multinational electronics company and one of the world's largest manufacturers of computer printers and information- and imaging-related equipment. Headquartered in Suwa, Nagano ...

announced the first PC-98 clone desktop computer and named it the PC-286 series. NEC investigated and sued Epson on the claim that its BIOS infringed their copyright. Epson canceled their PC-286 model 1-4 and released the PC-286 model 0 whose BIOS was made by another team under a

clean room design Clean-room design (also known as the Chinese wall technique) is the method of copying a design by reverse engineering and then recreating it without infringing any of the copyrights associated with the original design. Clean-room design is usef ...

; it did not have a built-in

BASIC interpreter A BASIC interpreter is an interpreter that enables users to enter and run programs in the BASIC language and was, for the first part of the microcomputer era, the default application that computers would launch. Users were expected to use the BAS ...

. NEC countered that the PC-286 model 0 lacked compatibility with the PC-98. Although it seemed NEC would not be able to win the lawsuit, Epson settled with NEC in November 1987 after considering the damage that would be done to their reputation. The PC-286 model 0 employs an Intel 80286 processor operating at 10 MHz - 25% faster than NEC's PC-9801VX using the same CPU at 8 MHz. In June 1987, NEC released a 10 MHz version of the PC-9801VX (VX01, VX21 and VX41 models). They added a BIOS signature check to their operating systems to prevent non-NEC machines from booting the OSes; it was commonly called an "EPSON check". In September 1987, Epson introduced the PC-286V and the PC-286U and also released the BASIC Support ROM to add a BASIC interpreter to their computers. Epson also bundled the Software Installation Program which was a patch kit to remove the EPSON check. Both machines were received well due to their reasonable prices and better compatibility. In 1988, Epson made annual sales of 200,000 units and successfully established PC-98 clones in the Japanese PC market. In October 1987, Epson released the PC-286L which was a PC-98 compatible laptop before NEC started development of their own laptop. In March 1988, NEC released the PC-9801LV which was a 100% PC-98 compatible laptop. It was accomplished by three custom

VLSI Very large-scale integration (VLSI) is the process of creating an integrated circuit (IC) by combining millions or billions of MOS transistors onto a single chip. VLSI began in the 1970s when MOS integrated circuit (Metal Oxide Semiconductor) ...

chips. These chipsets are also used in other desktops such as the PC-9801UV11 and the PC-9801RA. In July 1989, Toshiba released the J-3100SS branded as the ''DynaBook'', a true laptop computer which was light and battery operated. It made annual sales of 170,000 units. Four months later, NEC released the PC-9801N and branded it as the "98NOTE". The DynaBook started off well but the 98NOTE outsold it in 1990. Microsoft and other PC manufacturers developed the AX specification in 1987. It allowed IBM PC clones to handle Japanese text by using special video chips, the Japanese keyboard, and software written for it. However, the AX could not break into the Japanese PC market due to its higher cost and less compatible software. Sharp

X68000 The is a home computer created by Sharp Corporation. It was first released in 1987 and sold only in Japan. The initial model has a 10 MHz Motorola 68000 CPU, 1 MB of RAM, and lacks a hard drive. The final model was released in 1993 wi ...

and Fujitsu FM Towns intended to offer a multimedia platform for home users. Both have rich graphics and sound capabilities in comparison to the basic configuration of PC-98. They enjoyed modest success, but not enough to threaten the domination of the PC-98. The Nikkei Personal Computing magazine stated in January 1992 that "users choose a PC with considering compatibility and expandability. The PC-9800 compatibles is the most popular, and the IBM PC/AT compatibles also gains their strong support. PC users are stubborn and conservative. We conclude these opinions are related to the slump in other PC sales including Fujitsu FMR, Sharp X68000, AX machines, Canon Navi and rapidly declining 8-bit machines like MSX."

As a PC game platform

Japanese PC Shipments by bit designs 1983-1993

In the early 1980s, home users chose 8-bit machines rather than 16-bit machines because 16-bit systems were expensive and designed exclusively for business. By the mid-1980s, the Japanese home computer market was dominated by the NEC PC-88, the

Fujitsu FM-7 The FM-7 ("Fujitsu Micro 7") is a home computer created by Fujitsu. It was first released in 1982 and was sold in Japan and Spain. It is a stripped-down version of Fujitsu's earlier FM-8 computer, and during development it was referred to as th ...

, and the

Sharp X1 The , sometimes called the Sharp X1 or CZ-800C, is a series of home computers released by Sharp Corporation from 1982 to 1988. It is based on a Zilog Z80 CPU. The RGB display monitor for the X1 had a television tuner, and a computer screen co ...

. In this era, simulation games was the most popular genre for PC-98, which took advantage of higher clock speed and larger memory reserves. The '' Daisenryaku'' series and the ''

Romance of the Three Kingdoms ''Romance of the Three Kingdoms'' () is a 14th-century historical novel attributed to Luo Guanzhong. It is set in the turbulent years towards the end of the Han dynasty and the Three Kingdoms period in Chinese history, starting in 184 AD ...

'' series were particularly popular and they established PC-98 as a PC game platform. Towards the end of the 1980s, the Japanese PC game platform slowly shifted from PC-88 to PC-98, as the X68000 and the FM Towns also had a niche market. In the 1990s, many computer role-playing games were developed for the PC-98 or imported from other platforms, such as '' Brandish'', '' Dungeon Master'' and the '' Alone in the Dark'' series. The higher display resolution and higher storage capacity allowed better graphics, but because of the PC-98's lack of hardware sprites, most of the games made for the system were slow-paced. As a result of this limitation, adult dating sims and

visual novel A , often abbreviated as VN, is a form of digital semi-interactive fiction. Visual novels are often associated with and used in the medium of video games, but are not always labeled as such themselves. They combine a textual narrative with sta ...

s appeared as a revival of 1980's adventure games and gained popularity, such as '' Dōkyūsei'' and '' YU-NO''. After the PC-98 declined, many Japanese PC game developers shifted the game platform to

video game console A video game console is an electronic device that outputs a video signal or image to display a video game that can be played with a game controller. These may be home consoles, which are generally placed in a permanent location connected to ...

s, except for

eroge An ''eroge'' ( or , ''erogē''; ; a portmanteau of ''erotic game'' , ''erochikku gēmu'') is a Japanese genre of erotic video game. In 1982, Japan's Koei, founded by husband-and-wife team Yoichi and Keiko Erikawa (and later known for strate ...

distributed by computer stores.

Price war with DOS/V PCs

In the 1980s and early 1990s, NEC dominated the Japanese domestic PC market with more than 60% of the PCs sold as PC-9801 or PC-8801. In 1990, IBM Japan introduced the

operating system which enabled displaying Japanese text on standard

IBM PC/AT The IBM Personal Computer/AT (model 5170, abbreviated as IBM AT or PC/AT) was released in 1984 as the fourth model in the IBM Personal Computer line, following the IBM PC/XT and its IBM Portable PC variant. It was designed around the Intel 80 ...

VGA Video Graphics Array (VGA) is a video display controller and accompanying de facto graphics standard, first introduced with the IBM PS/2 line of computers in 1987, which became ubiquitous in the PC industry within three years. The term can no ...

adapters. Other Japanese PC manufacturers joined the PC Open Architecture Developer Group (OADG) organized by IBM Japan and Microsoft. In October 1992,

Compaq Compaq Computer Corporation (sometimes abbreviated to CQ prior to a 2007 rebranding) was an American information technology company founded in 1982 that developed, sold, and supported computers and related products and services. Compaq produced ...

released a DOS/V computer priced at compared to the lowest priced PC-98 at , causing a price war in the Japanese PC market. In 1993, Toshiba introduced DOS/V computers, Epson founded Epson Direct Corporation to sell DOS/V computers, and Fujitsu started selling DOS/V computers branded as FMV. Readers interested PC by machines in Japan 1993

Readers interested PC by machines in Japan 1993

In November 1992, NEC introduced a mid-range

Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for ser ...

PC, the PC-9821 which contained an Intel 386SX processor, a CD-ROM drive, 16-bit PCM audio playback, MS-DOS 5.0A, and Windows 3.0A. In January 1993, PC-98 desktops were expanded into three lines: a high-performance Windows-based line named "98MATE", a low-priced MS-DOS line named "98FELLOW", and an all-in-one desktop line named "98MULTi". PC-98s were still popular among Japanese users because they had many applications. NEC managed to adopt industrial standards and reduce costs. From 1993 to 1995, the PC-98 adopted 72-pin

SIMM A SIMM (single in-line memory module) is a type of memory module containing random-access memory used in computers from the early 1980s to the early 2000s. It differs from a dual in-line memory module (DIMM), the most predominant form of memory ...

s, the 3.5-inch 1.44 MB floppy format, IDE storage drives, a 640×480 DOS screen mode, 2D GUI acceleration

GPU A graphics processing unit (GPU) is a specialized electronic circuit designed to manipulate and alter memory to accelerate the creation of images in a frame buffer intended for output to a display device. GPUs are used in embedded systems, mobi ...

Windows Sound System Windows Sound System (WSS) is a sound card specification developed by Microsoft released at the end of 1992 for Windows 3.1. WSS featured support for up to 16-bit, 48 kHz digital sampling, beyond the capabilities of the popular contemporary S ...

, PCI slots, and PCMCIA card slots. NEC had outsourced manufacturing of motherboards to Taiwanese companies such as ECS and GVC (acquired by Lite-On).

Decline

Aside from other Japanese domestic platforms which had disappeared,

overturned the dominance of the PC-98. The difference in the architecture was not only ineffective for platform-independent environments but also increasing development resources to adopt them. During the development of Windows 95, NEC sent an average of 20 engineers to Microsoft's office in Seattle. Even though the PC-98 uses some IBM clone components, Windows requires the special driver or HAL to support its IRQ, I/O and C-Bus. The Nikkei Personal Computing magazine wrote, "The PC-98 features a number of MS-DOS applications, but there is no difference between PC-98 and PC/AT clones for using Windows 95. The status of the PC-98 series is not based on its hardware feature or the number of softwares and peripherals, but its strength in promotion, parts procurement and faith in the NEC brand." In 1997, NEC introduced the PC98-NX series as a main personal computer line that conformed to the

and were IBM PC compatible. The PC-9801's last successor was the

Celeron Celeron is Intel's brand name for low-end IA-32 and x86-64 computer microprocessor models targeted at low-cost personal computers. Celeron processors are compatible with IA-32 software. They typically offer less performance per clock speed com ...

-based PC-9821Ra43 (with a clock frequency of 433 MHz, using a 440FX chipset-based motherboard design from 1998), which appeared in 2000. NEC announced that the PC-98 would be discontinued in 2003. 18.3 million of PC-98s shipped by the end of shipments in March 2004. The last version of Windows to support PC-98 is

Windows 2000 Windows 2000 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft and oriented towards businesses. It was the direct successor to Windows NT 4.0, and was released to manufacturing on December 15, 1999, and was officiall ...

Hardware

The PC-98 is different from the IBM PC in many ways; for instance, it uses its own 16-bit C-bus ( Cバス) instead of the ISA bus; BIOS,

I/O port Memory-mapped I/O (MMIO) and port-mapped I/O (PMIO) are two complementary methods of performing input/output (I/O) between the central processing unit (CPU) and peripheral devices in a computer. An alternative approach is using dedicated I/O pro ...

addressing, memory management and graphics output are also different. However, localized MS-DOS, Unix, OS/2, or Windows will still run on PC-9801s.

Expansion bus

All PC-98 desktop models use a 100-pin expansion slot. It has 16 data lines and 24 address lines. The bus frequency is fixed at 5, 8 or 10 MHz. The PC-H98 and PC-9821A series computers use a proprietary 32-bit local bus slot along with 16-bit slots. The 16-bit expansion bus was also called C-bus (Compatible Bus). The PC-9821Xf introduced in 1994 shipped with C-bus slots and PCI slots on the motherboard, replacing the proprietary local bus slot.

Memory

Many PC-9801 models can increase system memory by installing expansion boards, daughterboards, or proprietary SIMMs. They are limited to 14.6 MB, due to 24-bit address pins and reserve space. EMS memory boards for C-bus are also available. The PC-9821Af introduced in 1993 shipped with standard 72-pin SIMMs, broke the 14.6 MB barrier, and supported memory up to 79.6 MB. Later desktop models shipped with standard SIMM or

DIMM A DIMM () (Dual In-line Memory Module), commonly called a RAM stick, comprises a series of dynamic random-access memory integrated circuits. These memory modules are mounted on a printed circuit board and designed for use in personal computers ...

memory. The PC-98XA (1985) and its successors, called ''high-resolution machine'' or simply ''hi-reso machine'', are capable of 768 KB base memory, but their I/O ports and memory addressing are quite different from normal PC-98s.

Storage

Early PC-9801 models supported 1232 KB 8-inch floppy drives and/or 640 KB -inch floppy drives. Each used different IRQ lines and I/O ports. Later models support both interfaces. High density -inch and -inch floppy disks use the same logical format and data rate as 1232 KB 8-inch floppy disks. They became a non-standard format while formats brought by IBM PC/AT and PS/2 became the industry standard. The PC-98 supports up to four floppy drives. If the system is booted from a floppy drive, MS-DOS assigns letters to all of the floppy drives before considering hard drives; it does the opposite if it is booted from a hard drive. If the OS was installed on the hard drive, MS-DOS would assign the hard drive as drive "A:" and the floppy as drive "B:"; this would cause incompatibility among Windows PC applications, although it can be resolved with the SETUP command in Windows 95 by turning on the "/AT" switch to assign the Windows system drive to the standard "C:" drive. The PC-98 uses several different interfaces of hard drives. Early models used

Shugart Associates System Interface Small Computer System Interface (SCSI, ) is a set of standards for physically connecting and transferring data between computers and peripheral devices. The SCSI standards define commands, protocols, electrical, optical and logical interface ...

(SASI) or ST506, and later models used SCSI or IDE drives.

Graphics

A standard PC-98 has two µPD7220 display controllers (a master and a slave) with 12 KB and 256 KB of video RAMs respectively. The master display controller provides video timings and the memory address for the character generator, and the character generator generates a video signal from two bytes of the character code and a single byte of the attribute. The font ROM contains over 7,000 glyphs including the single-byte character set

and the double-byte character set

JIS X 0208 JIS X 0208 is a 2-byte character set specified as a Japanese Industrial Standards, Japanese Industrial Standard, containing 6879 graphic characters suitable for writing text, place names, personal names, and so forth in the Japanese language. Th ...

, although early models provided the double-byte character set as an option. Each character has a variety of display options, including bits for secret, blinking, reverse, underline, and three intensity bits (grayscale or RGB). The other display controller is set to slave mode and connected to 256 KB of

planar Planar is an adjective meaning "relating to a plane (geometry)". Planar may also refer to: Science and technology * Planar (computer graphics), computer graphics pixel information from several bitplanes * Planar (transmission line technologies), ...

video memory, allowing it to display 640 × 400 pixel graphics with 16 colors out of a palette of 4096. This video RAM is divided into pages (2 pages × 4 planes × 32 KB in 640 × 400 with 16 colors), and the programmer can control which page is written to and which page is output. The slave display controller synchronizes with the master, so the text screen can be overlapped onto the graphics. The high-resolution machines (PC-98XA, XL and PC-H98) offered an 1120 × 750 display mode and aimed for tasks such as CAD and word processing. The PC-9801U (optional) and VM introduced a custom chipset GRCG (''GRaphic CharGer'') to access several planar memory in parallel. The PC-9801VX introduced a

blitter A blitter is a circuit, sometimes as a coprocessor or a logic block on a microprocessor, dedicated to the rapid movement and modification of data within a computer's memory. A blitter can copy large quantities of data from one memory area to ano ...

chip called the EGC (''Enhanced Graphic Charger''). It had raster operations and bit shifting. In 1993, NEC introduced a 2D Windows accelerator card for PC-98, called the ''Window Accelerator Board'', which employed a S3 86C928. Video cards for C-bus, local bus and PCI are also available from other manufacturers. DirectX 7.0a is the last official supported version for PC-98.

Sound

The first generation of PC-9801s (the E, F and M models) only have an internal buzzer. PC-9801U2 and later models can change the sound frequency by controlling the

programmable interval timer In CPU, computing and in embedded systems, a programmable interval timer (PIT) is a Counter (digital), counter that generates an output signal when it reaches a programmed count. The output signal may trigger an interrupt. Common features PITs may ...

, like the

PC speaker A PC speaker is a loudspeaker built into some IBM PC compatible computers. The first IBM Personal Computer, model 5150, employed a standard 2.25 inch magnetic driven (dynamic) speaker. More recent computers use a tiny moving-iron or pie ...

. The PC-8801mkIISR home computer, introduced in 1985, has a

Yamaha YM2203 The YM2203, a.k.a. OPN (FM Operator Type-N), is a six-channel (3 FM and 3 SSG) sound chip developed by Yamaha. It was the progenitor of Yamaha's OPN family of FM synthesis chips used in many video game and computer systems throughout the 1980s an ...

FM synthesis, an

Atari joystick port The Atari joystick port is a computer port used to connect various gaming controllers to game console and home computer systems in the 1970s to the 1990s. It was originally introduced on the Atari 2600 in 1977 and then used on the Atari 400 an ...

and BASIC sound commands. The optional PC-9801-26 sound card is based around these features, although in some PC-9801 models it is integrated with the motherboard. It was replaced by the PC-9801-26K to support the 80286 CPU. This became the most common sound card for playing in-game music on the PC-98. The PC-9801-26K was succeeded by the PC-9801-73 (1991) and PC-9801-86 (1993) sound card, which employs the YM2608 FM synthesis and adds support for CD-quality PCM playback. The latter has a reasonable price and fully backward compatibility with the 26K sound card, so it gained strong support in PC games. Due to lack of DMA support and poor sound drivers, it often has issues in Windows and created popping and clicking sounds. Late PC-9821 models use the

Crystal Semiconductor Cirrus Logic Inc. is an American fabless semiconductor supplier that specializes in analog, mixed-signal, and audio DSP integrated circuits (ICs). Since 1998, the company's headquarters have been in Austin, Texas. The company's audio process ...

audio codec to resolve this, but the newer sound chip is not compatible with the older conventional sound cards. The PC-9801-118 (1995) sound card has both the YMF297 (hybrid of YM2608 and

YMF262 The OPL (FM Operator Type-L) series are a family of sound chips developed by Yamaha. The OPL series are low-cost sound chips providing FM synthesis for use in computing, music and video game applications. Internal operation The internal operatio ...

) and the WSS audio, but its PCM playback is not compatible with the 86 sound card. Roland released a music production starter kit for PC-98, which combines the MT-32 synthesizer module, a

MIDI MIDI (; Musical Instrument Digital Interface) is a technical standard that describes a communications protocol, digital interface, and electrical connectors that connect a wide variety of electronic musical instruments, computers, and ...

interface card and a MIDI editing software.

Creative Labs Creative Technology Ltd. is a Singaporean multinational technology company headquartered with overseas offices in Shanghai, Tokyo, Dublin, and Silicon Valley (where in the US it is known as Creative Labs). The principal activities of the compa ...

developed a C-bus variant of

Sound Blaster 16 The Sound Blaster 16 is a series of sound cards by Creative Technology. They are add-on boards for PCs with an ISA or PCI slot. Sound Blaster 16 Sound Blaster 16 (June 1992), the successor to the Sound Blaster Pro, introduced CD-quality dig ...

Keyboard

The first PC-9801 model has the same keyboard layout as the PC-8801's except it adds conversion key XFER and 5 function keys. Later models have some minor changes: NFER, 15 function keys, LED status indicators, and replacing

CAPS Caps are flat headgear. Caps or CAPS may also refer to: Science and technology Computing * CESG Assisted Products Service, provided by the U.K. Government Communications Headquarters * Composite Application Platform Suite, by Java Caps, a Ja ...

and alternate action switches.

Mouse

The bus mouse and interface card kit was introduced for PC-98 in 1983. The PC-9801F3 and later models have a mouse interface. Although the

PS/2 port The PS/2 port is a 6-pin mini-DIN connector used for connecting keyboards and mice to a PC compatible computer system. Its name comes from the IBM Personal System/2 series of personal computers, with which it was introduced in 1987. The PS/2 m ...

became popular among IBM PC clones in the 1990s, the bus mouse was used until the end of PC-98.

Epson clones

Seiko Epson Seiko Epson Corporation, or simply known as Epson, is a Japanese multinational electronics company and one of the world's largest manufacturers of computer printers and information- and imaging-related equipment. Headquartered in Suwa, Nagano ...

manufactured PC-9801 clones between 1987 and 1995, as well as compatible peripherals. In the 1980s, Epson's clones preceded NEC's in terms of its features such as performance and portability. In the early 1990s, Epson concentrated a line of low-priced computer which had low profit margins, but it did not sell well. This made resellers negative. Also, NEC had strong sales in the enterprise market, but Epson did not. Manufacturers of DOS/V computers began to get sales channels, and they became competitors for the PC-98 and its Epson clones. Nikkei Personal Computing magazine reported in 1992 that "NEC has various opinions inside the company about the future PC-98, and it is doubtful whether the PC-98 will continue to be the domestic standard. The decline of the 98 compatible machine business may lead to the decline of the PC-98 itself". In May 1992, Epson released a high performance machine, the PC-486GR. It has a 32-bit local bus for graphic processing and an Intel 486SX CPU running at 20 MHz, which was faster than NEC's flagship PC-9801FA, which had a 486SX running at 16 MHz. In January 1993, NEC released the 98MATE to compete with Epson's clones and DOS/V computers. From 1992 to 1994, Epson sold about 200,000 units of PC-98 clones every year. As of 1994, Epson expected only 40% growth in their PC sales despite they expected 100% growth in their peripherals sales by 1995. However, Nikkei Personal Computer magazine expected that Epson would continue manufacturing PC-98 clones for a while because NEC had kept a 50% share of the Japanese PC market.

AST Research AST Research, Inc., later doing business as AST Computer, was a personal computer manufacturer. It was founded in 1980 in Irvine, California by Albert Wong, Safi Qureshey, and Thomas Yuen, as an initialism of their first names. In the 1980s, AST ...

Japan released the DualStation 386 SX/16 in 1990 which was both PC-9801 and IBM PC compatible, but it failed because of poor marketing. Sharp,

Sanyo , stylized as SANYO, is a Japanese electronics company and formerly a member of the ''Fortune'' Global 500 whose headquarters was located in Moriguchi, Osaka prefecture, Japan. Sanyo had over 230 subsidiaries and affiliates, and was founded by ...

and

Seikosha was a branch of the Japanese company Seiko that produced clocks, watches, shutters, computer printers and other devices. It was the root of the manufacturing companies of the Seiko Group. History *1881 — Kintarō Hattori opens the wa ...

each worked on PC-98 clones, but all gave up. An executive of Sanyo said, "NEC paid far more attention to its copyright than we had imagined. We decided that the loss of our corporate image would be greater than its profit, and cancelled the 98 compatible machine business."

Software

The PC-98 was primarily used for businesses and industry in Japan from 1980s to mid-1990s. As of September 1992, out of 16,000 PC-98 software applications, 60% of them were corporate

business software Business software (or a business application) is any software or set of computer programs used by business users to perform various business functions. These business applications are used to increase productivity, measure productivity, and perf ...

applications (including CAD), 10% of them were operating systems and development tools, 10% of them were

educational software Educational software is a term used for any computer software which is made for an educational purpose. It encompasses different ranges from language learning software to classroom management software to reference software. The purpose of all t ...

applications, with the rest being a mix of graphic design, networking, word processing and games. The Nikkei Personal Computing magazine reported in 1993 that most home users purchased PCs to complete office work at home. The publisher sent a questionnaire to 2000 readers, and out of 1227 readers who answered, 82% of users used it for word processing, 72% for spreadsheets, 47% as a database, and 43% for games. Ichitaro, a Japanese word processor for the PC-98 and considered one of its

killer application In marketing terminology, a killer application (commonly shortened to killer app) is any computer program or software that is so necessary or desirable that it proves the core value of some larger technology, such as computer hardware, a video game ...

s, was released in 1985 and ported to other machines in 1987. A Japanese version of

Lotus 1-2-3 Lotus 1-2-3 is a discontinued spreadsheet program from Lotus Software (later part of IBM). It was the first killer application of the IBM PC, was hugely popular in the 1980s, and significantly contributed to the success of IBM PC-compatibles i ...

was also ported to PC-98 first in 1986. 1 million copies of all Ichitaro versions and 500,000 copies of Lotus 1-2-3 were shipped by 1991. PC-98 software generally ran from program and data disks (Disk 0 & 1 or A & B). For example, Ichitaro's system disk contained a runtime version of MS-DOS, main programs, an

input method editor An input method (or input method editor, commonly abbreviated IME) is an operating system component or program that enables users to generate characters not natively available on their input devices by using sequences of characters (or mouse o ...

( ATOK) and its dictionary file. It used the entire space of an 1.2 MB floppy disk. In 1980s, most machines only had two floppy drives because HDDs were an expensive additional feature. NEC provided a variety of operating systems including CP/M-86,

Concurrent CP/M MP/M (Multi-Programming Monitor Control Program) is a discontinued multi-user version of the CP/M operating system, created by Digital Research developer Tom Rolander in 1979. It allowed multiple users to connect to a single computer, each u ...

, PC-UX,

OS/2 OS/2 (Operating System/2) is a series of computer operating systems, initially created by Microsoft and IBM under the leadership of IBM software designer Ed Iacobucci. As a result of a feud between the two companies over how to position OS/2 r ...

and

(discontinued after

). Localized versions of NetWare and FreeBSD were also available. The PC-98 had many game titles designed for it, many of which made creative use of the system's limitations (as it was originally designed as a business machine) to great commercial success. Despite having hardware specifications inferior to the FM Towns and the X68000, the massive install base and steady flow of game titles (in particular " dōjin" style dating sims and

RPGs RPG may refer to: Military * Rocket-propelled grenade, a shoulder-launched anti-tank weapon **''Ruchnoi Protivotankoviy Granatomyot'' (Russian: ''Ручной Противотанковый Гранатомёт''), hand-held anti-tank grenade launc ...

, as well as games such as '' Policenauts'', '' YU-NO: A Girl Who Chants Love at the Bound of this World'', '' Koutetsu no Kishi'', '' Mayonaka no Tantei Nightwalker'', '' MechWarrior'', '' Rusty'', '' Hiōden: Mamono-tachi tono Chikai'', '' Shūjin e no Pert-em-Hru'', ''

Corpse Party is an adventure, and dōjin soft video game series originally created by Makoto Kedōin and developed by Team GrisGris. The first game in the series was developed using the RPG Maker software version RPG Tsukūru Dante 98 and released on April 2 ...

'', ''

Slayers is a Japanese light novel series written by Hajime Kanzaka and illustrated by Rui Araizumi. The novels have been serialized in ''Dragon Magazine'' since 1989, before being published into individual volumes. They follow th ...

'', ''

J.B. Harold Murder Club ''J.B. Harold Murder Club'', known as ''J.B. Harold no Jikenbo #1: Murder Club'' in Japan, is a 1986 murder mystery adventure game, developed by Riverhillsoft and released for the NEC PC-9801, NEC PC-98, MSX, MS-DOS, NEC TurboGrafx-CD (TurboDuo) ...

'' and '' Touhou Project'') kept it as the favored platform for PC game developers in Japan until the rise of the DOS/V clones.

Models

Partial list of PC-98 models sold in the Japanese market (no 1992-2000 models, no notebook models, etc.).

Timeline of PC-9801 models

Reception

Marketing

A journalist explained in 1988 how NEC ''established the nation of Japanese personal computers'': * NEC responded quickly to the new demand for business personal computers. * NEC succeeded in attracting many third-party suppliers and dominated software production and distribution. * NEC adopted Microsoft's MS-DOS as an operating system for the PC-98. Western computers lacked Japanese support due to its display resolution and memory, so they could not get into the Japanese PC market until the

and faster computers came out; for example, IBM Japan sold the IBM 5550 instead of the IBM PC. Yoshihiko Hyodo, a programmer who developed the text editor VZ Editor, said two advantages that the PC-98 had were its kanji character memory and non- interlaced monitor. Both provided users with a more comfortable Japanese environment. A senior vice president of Otsuka Shokai (a computer distributor for enterprises) recalled that "early users such as Kao already had office automation with the PC-8000, but it lacked speed and kanji support. Then, the PC-9800 was released, and it was perfect, so distributors and users immediately switched to it." Shunzo Hamada of NEC thought the biggest reason for the success of PC-98 was that NEC could get software companies to cooperate. He said, "Third-party suppliers of Japanese PCs had already grown up to a certain extent. However, it was not because they were organized. They were born by themselves, and hardware manufacturers didn't touch them. When we developed the PC-9800 series, we changed our method to make a conscious effort to grow them up". PC-98's large software library assured buyers that the machine could be used for all purposes, although most users actually purchased only a few major softwares. Ichiran Kou, a computer consultant, pointed out that IBM influenced NEC's strategy. Since 1982, NEC had four personal computer lines, and they covered a wide price range, similar to IBM's mainframe business. However, NEC's computers had poor backward compatibility and as such was criticized by users and software developers. After reforming personal computer lines in 1983, NEC began expanding the PC-9801 series and its number of models exceeded its competitors. NEC encouraged third-party developers as IBM did for the IBM PC. The basic hardware of PC-98 was also similar to the IBM PC, though it was not IBM compatible. Kou guessed that NEC avoided releasing an IBM compatible PC because the company was proud of developing an original mainframe. Yasuhiro Uchida, a literature professor, wrote an essay titled "Users chose the most ''playable'' PC". He felt the PC-98 was an "ordinary" 16-bit personal computer, but it had plenty of games because it did not deny the ''playability''. He theorized that Fujitsu did not consider the 16-bit personal computer as a game platform, and considered IBM JX handling games to be of minor importance, which made personal computers less attractive. He concluded that the actual value of personal computers must be found by not sellers but consumers.

Legacy

A writer of the ASCII magazine wrote that the

Japanese input method Japanese input methods are used to input Japanese characters on a computer. There are two main methods of inputting Japanese on computers. One is via a romanized version of Japanese called ''rōmaji'' (literally "Roman character"), and the ot ...

and the Japanese

video game industry The video game industry encompasses the development, marketing, and monetization of video games. The industry encompasses dozens of job disciplines and thousands of jobs worldwide. The video game industry has grown from niches to mainstrea ...

were significantly developed in the PC-98 era. Because the PC-98 had a kanji character ROM, Japanese applications were developed for it, which influenced Japanese input methods being developed for them; the two built off of each other. Software companies that developed games for the PC-98 immediately expanded the video game business on the

Famicom The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) is an 8-bit Third generation of video game consoles, third-generation home video game console produced by Nintendo. It was first released in Japan in 1983 as the commonly known as the The NES, a redes ...

platform. He believed most programmers learned

computer programming Computer programming is the process of performing a particular computation (or more generally, accomplishing a specific computing result), usually by designing and building an executable computer program. Programming involves tasks such as anal ...

on the PC-98 at that time.

Criticism

In the late 1980s, competitors accused NEC of monopolizing the Japanese computer market. Takayoshi Shina, a founder of

Sord Sorbitol dehydrogenase is an enzyme that in humans is encoded by the ''SORD'' gene In biology, the word gene (from , ; "...Wilhelm Johannsen coined the word gene to describe the Mendelian units of heredity..." meaning ''generation'' or ''b ...

, said, "The Japanese PC market is suffocating because of one company's dominance. There is no freedom. This is why its prices are 3-4 times as expensive as America's. To fulfil the same international price as America's, we really need the era of clone computers." A software company also complained that "although there are few excellent engineers in Japan, the more incompatible machines appear, the more development resources are divided." Contrary to the IBM PC and the Apple II, every Japanese personal computer had a short lifespan; NEC released a new model of the PC-98 every year. When the PC-9801VX01/21/41 models brought a new BASIC interpreter which supported the Enhanced Graphic Charger (EGC) chipset, most commercial software did not use it as they were written in C. Many developers did not follow it because they wanted to make their software less dependent on the specific platform. A software developer said, "Using the special one (EGC) goes against the trend. I don't want to use it if new machines come out so frequently."

References

External links

Intro to NEC PC-9800 World

* * * *
Neko Project II, a PC-98 emulator for Windows and Mac OS X
{{NEC computers

PC-9801 The , commonly shortened to PC-98 or , is a lineup of Japanese 16-bit and 32-bit personal computers manufactured by NEC from 1982 to 2000. The platform established NEC's dominance in the Japanese personal computer market, and, by 1999, more th ...

8086-based home computers Home video game consoles Computer-related introductions in 1982 1982 establishments in Japan