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101-841: The PC-98 was initially released as a business-oriented personal computer which had backward compatibility with the successful PC-8800 series . The range of the series was 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 clones lacked sufficient graphics capabilities to easily handle Japan's multiple writing systems, in particular kanji with its thousands of characters. In addition, Japanese computer manufacturers marketed personal computers that were based on each proprietary architecture for

202-557: 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 processors. Some PC-98 applications use them, so the PC-9801VX (1986) was designed to run Intel 80286 and V30 selectively. The PC-9801RA (1988) has an Intel 80386 and a V30. The PC-9801DA (1990) does not have this, but its clock speed

303-541: A clock speed of 5 MHz, with two μPD7220 display controllers (one for text, the other for video graphics), and was shipped with 128 KB of RAM 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

404-694: A BASIC interpreter, but Watanabe decided to adopt Microsoft BASIC because it was widely used in the North American market. At that time, Microsoft and ASCII (the main Microsoft dealer in Japan) intended to expand OEM business in Japan, so N-BASIC was provided for NEC with a very low licence fee. It had been developed at Microsoft's office in Seattle , and NEC provided a wirewrapped prototype, known as

505-548: 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 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

606-520: A console. This also helps to make up for lack of titles at the launch of new systems, as users can pull from the previous console's library of games while developers transition to the new hardware. Moreover, studies in the mid-1990s found that even consumers who never play older games after purchasing a new system consider backward compatibility a highly desirable feature, valuing the mere ability to continue to play an existing collection of games even if they choose never to do so. Backward compatibility with

707-580: A custom chipset GRCG ( GRaphic CharGer ) to access several planar memory in parallel. The PC-9801VX introduced a blitter 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

808-490: 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 characters including numbers, English characters, and half-width kana , so most users added an optional kanji ROM board for using a Japanese word processor . Its successor, the PC-9801F, employs an 8086-2 CPU, which can selectively run at

909-766: 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 (SASI) or ST506 , and later models used SCSI or IDE drives. A standard PC-98 has two μPD7220 display controllers (a master and

1010-536: A long seller that "The biggest factor is the price setting of 168,000 yen. The major opinion insisted 220,000 to 230,000 yen was appropriate for value of the product, but Kazuya Watanabe never withdrew 168,000 yen. After all, Watanabe's proposal was accepted by the executive director Ouchi's decision, but his stubbornness was admirable." Although handicapped by the lack of English documentation, BYTE ' s American reviewers concluded in January 1981 after evaluating

1111-483: A manufacturer decides to stop supporting older hardware. Classic video games are a common example used when discussing the value of supporting older software. The cultural impact of video games is a large part of their continued success, and some believe ignoring backward compatibility would cause these titles to disappear. Backward compatibility also acts as a selling point for new hardware, as an existing player base can more affordably upgrade to subsequent generations of

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1212-585: A mid-range Windows 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,

1313-609: 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 PC System Design Guide and

1414-411: 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 personal computer because they assumed microprocessors were not suitable for computing as they suffered from a lack of performance and reliability. However,

1515-454: A printer, serial port and an expansion bus. The built-in BASIC interpreter, called N-BASIC, fits in 24 KB of ROM. This is a variant of Microsoft Disk BASIC 4.51. Optional DISK BASIC allows disk I/O for an external floppy drive. The video output is provided by an NEC μPD3301 CRT controller and a μPD8257C ( Intel 8257 clone) DMA controller. It has various text modes, and the maximum screen

1616-457: 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 recalled in 1985 that: The gap in share of the personal computer market is growing. Even though

1717-644: A serial port, a floppy drive controller, a parallel port and an IEEE-488 port. Original floppy disk drives for the PC-8001 are the dual-unit PC-8031 and the additional dual-unit PC-8032, which use 143 KB single-sided 5.25-inch format. They were followed by the single-unit PC-8031-1V, the dual-sided PC-8031-2W and PC-8032-2W. These units are attached to the PC-8001 through the PC-8011 or the PC-8033 adapter. In Japan, Nippon Electric's Microcomputer Sales Section in

1818-466: 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 JIS X 0201 and the double-byte character set JIS X 0208 , although early models provided

1919-402: 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

2020-452: A system. Modifying a system in a way that does not allow backward compatibility is sometimes called " breaking " backward compatibility. Such breaking usually incurs various types of costs, such as switching cost . A complementary concept is forward compatibility ; a design that is forward-compatible usually has a roadmap for compatibility with future standards and products. A simple example of both backward and forward compatibility

2121-535: Is Windows 2000 . 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 addressing, memory management and graphics output are also different. However, localized MS-DOS, Unix, OS/2, or Windows will still run on PC-9801s. All PC-98 desktop models use a 100-pin expansion slot. It has 16 data lines and 24 address lines. The bus frequency

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2222-533: Is 80×25 text with 8×8 pixel font. Each character has two attributes chosen from blinking, highlight, reverse, secret, vertical line, over line, under line and RGB colors, and up to 20 different attributes per line can be set. The attribution also supports semigraphics , and each characters have a 2×4 matrix. The PC-8011 Expansion Unit provides additional capabilities and interfaces, which has 32 KB RAM sockets for μPD416 DRAMs , 8 KB ROM sockets for 2716 PROMs, an interrupt controller , an interval timer ,

2323-479: Is a general notion of interoperation between software pieces that will not produce any errors when its functionality is invoked via API . The software is considered stable when its API that is used to invoke functions is stable across different versions. In operating systems, upgrades to newer versions are said to be backward compatible if executables and other files from the previous versions will work as usual. In compilers , backward compatibility may refer to

2424-620: 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. Backward compatibility In telecommunications and computing , backward compatibility (or backwards compatibility ) is a property of an operating system , software, real-world product, or technology that allows for interoperability with an older legacy system , or with input designed for such

2525-589: Is configurable. NEC focused heavily on financing advertisements and exhibitions, from ¥1,000,000,000 in the 1970s, to over ¥25,000,000,000 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, 2 million PC-9800/9801 units were sold in Japan. Toshiba had developed laptop computers since

2626-464: 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

2727-708: 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. 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

2828-607: 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 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,

2929-534: Is particularly important in computer instruction set architectures , two of the most successful being the IBM 360 / 370 / 390 / Zseries families of mainframes, and the Intel x86 family of microprocessors . IBM announced the first 360 models in 1964 and has continued to update the series ever since, with migration over the decades from 32-bit register/24-bit addresses to 64-bit registers and addresses. Intel announced

3030-441: Is sure that we cannot deny contributions of Electronic Devices Group as a parent of the personal computer. However, if personal computers are considered computers, Information Processing Group should handle them in NEC. Also, if personal computers are considered home electronics, we cannot deny a proposal from New Nippon Electric. In April 1981, NEC decided to expand their personal computer lines into three groups: New Nippon Electric,

3131-466: Is the introduction of FM radio in stereo . FM radio was initially mono , with only one audio channel represented by one signal . With the introduction of two-channel stereo FM radio, many listeners had only mono FM receivers. Forward compatibility for mono receivers with stereo signals was achieved by sending the sum of both left and right audio channels in one signal and the difference in another signal. That allows mono FM receivers to receive and decode

PC-98 - Misplaced Pages Continue

3232-494: Is the last official supported version for PC-98. 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 , like the PC speaker . The PC-8801mkIISR home computer, introduced in 1985, has a Yamaha YM2203 FM synthesis , an Atari joystick port and BASIC sound commands. The optional PC-9801-26 sound card

3333-512: 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 novels appeared as a revival of 1980's adventure games and gained popularity, such as Dōkyūsei and YU-NO . After

3434-657: The Romance of the Three Kingdoms 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

3535-569: The FM-16β  [ ja ] 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

3636-411: The Intel 8086 processor, and Nishi replied, saying that he wanted to talk with Bill Gates . Three months later, Nishi rejected Hamada's request because Microsoft was busy with the development of GW-BASIC , 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

3737-556: The PC Open Architecture Developer Group (OADG) organized by IBM Japan and Microsoft. In October 1992, Compaq released a DOS/V computer priced at ¥128,000 compared to the lowest priced PC-98 at ¥248,000 , 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. In November 1992, NEC introduced

3838-404: The bytecode 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 and NEC. Hamada approved it. The team considered third-party developers to be very important for

3939-472: The frame-buffer memory from 16 kB to 48 kB, allowing for 640×200-pixel graphics or 320×200-pixel double-buffered graphics modes. Additionally, the primitive PC speaker was replaced by an FM synthesis audio system. Its internal BASIC was also updated to allow usage of this new hardware, as well as providing mkII and PC-8001 compatibility modes (although a significant proportion of older software would not run properly under these modes). Other changes included

4040-404: The keyboard and the mainboard into a single unit. At a time when most microcomputers were sold as "semi-kits" requiring end user assembly, the fully assembled PC-8001 was a rarity in the market. Peripherals included a printer , a cassette tape storage unit, and a CRT interface. Although it is often believed to be the first domestically produced personal computer for the Japanese market, it

4141-634: The 14.6 MB barrier, and supported memory up to 79.6 MB. Later desktop models shipped with standard SIMM or DIMM 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. Early PC-9801 models supported 1232 KB 8-inch floppy drives and/or 640 KB 5 + 1 ⁄ 4 -inch floppy drives. Each used different IRQ lines and I/O ports. Later models support both interfaces. High density 5 + 1 ⁄ 4 -inch and 3 + 1 ⁄ 2 -inch floppy disks use

PC-98 - Misplaced Pages Continue

4242-548: The COMPO BS/80, but it failed in the market due to its poor built-in BASIC and slow clock speed. The PC-8001 was intended to be a high-performance and inexpensive computer for personal use. When Goto visited Silicon Valley to survey the application of microprocessors, he ran across Kazuhiko Nishi at a computer store. They only exchanged business cards, but Nishi introduced Microsoft to him after he returned to Japan. Goto thought of visiting Microsoft, but he worried that

4343-629: The Electronic Device Sales Division developed the microprocessor evaluation kit TK-80 , which became unexpectedly popular among hobbyists. Tomio Gotō ( 後藤 富雄 ) , a developer of the TK-80, observed the rise in popularity of personal computers at the 1977 West Coast Computer Faire in San Francisco . Goto and his section manager, Kazuya Watanabe ( 渡邊 和也 ) , decided to develop a personal computer despite criticism from

4444-744: The Electronic Device Sales Division released the TK-80 in 1976, a single-board computer kit, and it became popular among hobbyists. American personal computers were expensive for personal use (Initial list price of the Apple II was 358,000 yen, Commodore PET was 298,000 yen, and the TRS-80 was 248,000 yen). In 1978, the Hitachi Basic Master and Sharp MZ-80K , both developed by consumer electronics companies, were released as personal computers targeted for hobbyists, not for business use. In

4545-848: 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 ), 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 . In the Information Processing Small Systems Division, Shunzō Hamada ( 浜田 俊三 ) directed

4646-489: 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, Atsuyoshi Ōuchi ( 大内 淳義 ) , stated: It

4747-657: 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,

4848-643: 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 chips. These chipsets are also used in other desktops such as the PC-9801UV11 and the PC-9801RA. In July 1989, Toshiba released

4949-410: The Japanese PC market. The PC-98 is a non-IBM compatible x86 -based computer and is thus capable of running ported (and localized) versions of MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows . However, as Windows spread, software developers no longer had to code their software separately for each specific platform. An influx of cheaper clone computers by American vendors, and later the popularity of Windows 95 reducing

5050-464: 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 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

5151-757: The PC-8001g. The Electronic Device Group only had a small distribution network of electronic parts stores, and the Information Processing Group only had corporate customers who purchased expensive mainframe computers. Also, they didn't have the capability for mass production. They asked New Nippon Electric (NEC Home Electronics since 1983) to sell the personal computers through their consumer distribution network. The system unit, displays and storage devices were all developed by NEC, and manufactured by New Nippon Electric. Printers were provided from Tokyo Denki ( Toshiba TEC ) because NEC had only developed expensive printers for mainframes. Other NEC divisions didn't appreciate

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5252-474: The PC-98 adopted 72-pin SIMMs , the 3.5-inch 1.44 MB floppy format , IDE storage drives, a 640×480 DOS screen mode, 2D GUI acceleration GPUs , Windows Sound System , PCI slots, and PCMCIA card slots. NEC had outsourced manufacturing of motherboards to Taiwanese companies such as ECS and GVC (acquired by Lite-On ). Aside from other Japanese domestic platforms which had disappeared, Windows 95 overturned

5353-570: The PC-98 declined, many Japanese PC game developers shifted the game platform to video game consoles , except for eroge distributed by computer stores. 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 DOS/V operating system which enabled displaying Japanese text on standard IBM PC/AT VGA adapters. Other Japanese PC manufacturers joined

5454-471: The ability of a compiler for a newer version of the language to accept source code of programs or data that worked under the previous version. A data format is said to be backward compatible when a newer version of the program can open it without errors just like its predecessor. There are several incentives for a company to implement backward compatibility. Backward compatibility can be used to preserve older software that would have otherwise been lost when

5555-541: The autumn of 1983, while their desktops were a failure in the Japanese PC market. In October 1986, they introduced the J-3100  [ ja ] 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

5656-550: The basis that it would allow for easy backwards compatibility with the original Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), but ultimately did not proved to be workable once the rest of the Super NES's architecture was designed. PC-8000 series The PC-8000 series ( Japanese : PC-8000シリーズ , Hepburn : Pī-Shī Hassen Shirīzu ) is a line of personal computers developed for the Japanese market by NEC . The PC-8001 model

5757-416: The change of one general-purpose expansion slot to a Kanji character ROM expansion slot, a PC-8800 series keyboard connector, and an Atari -style joystick connector. The Japanese personal computer magazine ASCII concluded in 1979 that "Although some problems remain, at present, we can guarantee it is the strongest machine for both software and hardware." Sawanobori recalled why the PC-8001 became

5858-538: 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 ; it did not have a built-in BASIC interpreter . 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

5959-459: 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

6060-399: 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

6161-403: The demand for PC-98 legacy applications, led to NEC abandoning compatibility with the PC-98 platform in 1997 and releasing the PC98-NX series of Wintel computers, based on the PC System Design Guide . 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

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6262-478: The director, "It's profitable, so there is no problem. We are salesmen." Watanabe knew importance of the industrial standard and third party developers, but his perception was against company's practice. Watanabe's bosses, Electronic Device Sales Division manager Morichika Sawanobori ( 沢登 盛親 ) and executive director Atsuyoshi Ōuchi ( 大内 淳義 ) , let him do what he wanted. When he suggested the TK-80 project, Sawanobori supported him in anticipation that it would expand

6363-424: The domestic market. Global PC manufacturers, with the exception of Apple , 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 operating system enabled IBM clones to display Japanese text by using a software font only, giving a chance for global PC manufacturers to enter

6464-496: 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

6565-555: 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." In

6666-402: 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 video memory, allowing it to display 640 × 400 pixel graphics with 16 colors out of a palette of 4096. This video RAM

6767-622: 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 , and the Sharp X1 . 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

6868-411: The educational market because NEC advertised that the PC-8001 used the industrial standard of Microsoft BASIC. Kanagawa Prefectural Chigasaki Nishihama High School was the first futsu-ka school (upper secondary schools with a focus on a common course) to purchase PC-8001 computers (buying 17 units) and started teaching programming as an elective subject in 1981. In April 1982, NHK Educational TV started

6969-513: The first Intel 8086 / 8088 processors in 1978, again with migrations over the decades from 16-bit to 64-bit. (The 8086/8088, in turn, were designed with easy machine-translatability of programs written for its predecessor in mind, although they were not instruction-set compatible with the 8-bit Intel 8080 processor of 1974. The Zilog Z80 , however, was fully backward compatible with the Intel 8080.) Fully backward compatible processors can process

7070-664: The main CPU for PS1 mode or upclocking itself to offload I/O in PS2 mode. This coprocessor was replaced with a PowerPC -based processor in later systems to serve the same functions, emulating the PS1 CPU core. Such an approach can backfire, though, as was the case of the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (Super NES). It opted for the more peculiar 65C816 CPU over the more popular 16-bit microprocessors on

7171-480: 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 N5200  [ ja ] , which was branded as the "personal terminal". It used an Intel 8086 processor and a μPD7220 display controller. Its architecture

7272-500: 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

7373-481: The microprocessor market, and Ouchi trusted their decision. When he planned to develop the personal computer, Ouchi wavered. It would become a computer product involved in NEC's core business, and would influence their corporate image. Watanabe also hesitated to develop it in the device division instead of the computer division, but he saw the burgeoning personal computer market in America, and then he decided to continue

7474-494: The microprocessors of the time were not suitable for computing due to their lack of performance and reliability. He believed microprocessors were more reliable than wirewrapped minicomputers . When he circulated the contract with Microsoft for approval, computer division's director criticized they planned to purchase the software from a small company. Inside the company, it was considered engineers were confident in their softwares and had to develop softwares themselves. He explained to

7575-431: The new system. Because of this, several console manufacturers phased out backward compatibility towards the end of the console generation in order to reduce cost and briefly reinvigorate sales before the arrival of newer hardware. It is possible to bypass some of these hardware costs. For instance, earlier PlayStation 2 (PS2) systems used the core of the original PlayStation (PS1) CPU as a dual-purpose processor, either as

7676-492: The newest generation of consoles such as PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S also support this feature. A large part of the success and implementation of this feature is that the hardware within newer generation consoles is both powerful and similar enough to legacy systems that older titles can be broken down and re-configured to run on the Xbox One. This program has proven incredibly popular with Xbox players and goes against

7777-497: The original PlayStation (PS) software discs and peripherals is considered to have been a key selling point for the PlayStation 2 (PS2) during its early months on the market. Despite not being included at launch, Microsoft slowly incorporated backward compatibility for select titles on the Xbox One several years into its product life cycle. Players have racked up over a billion hours with backward-compatible games on Xbox, and

7878-423: The product that may lead to longer time to market , technological hindrances, and slowing innovation; and increased expectations from users in terms of compatibility. It also introduces the risk that developers will favor developing games that are compatible with both the old and new systems, since this gives them a larger base of potential buyers, resulting in a dearth of software which uses the advanced features of

7979-531: The project and Noboru Ozawa ( 小澤 昇 ) 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 , considered compatibility of peripheral devices with previous NEC PCs, and disclosed specifications of its expansion slot. In September 1981, Hamada requested ASCII 's Kazuhiko Nishi to rewrite N88-BASIC to run on

8080-549: The project before the PC-8001 went on sale. Most people, even in NEC, didn't know about microcomputers, and they couldn't understand what the Microcomputer Sales Section aimed for. The TK-80 sold well for computer enthusiasts, but the computer division regarded it as a toy. Their projects were often criticized inside the company. Watanabe recalled that engineers of the computer division criticized microcomputers didn't have parity bit checking, and they assumed

8181-429: The project. As the project progressed, Watanabe, Sawanobori and Ouchi discussed their thoughts about marketing, planned a method for mass production, and reached an agreement they devoted all their energies to the project. In January 1979, Goto submitted the first mass production request to New Nippon Electric. They were sure the product would sell, but planned to educate and increase dealers little by little. The PC-8001

8282-424: The recent trend of studio-made remasters of classic titles, creating what some believe to be an important shift in console makers' strategies. The monetary costs of supporting old software is considered a large drawback to the usage of backward compatibility. The associated costs of backward compatibility are a larger bill of materials if hardware is required to support the legacy systems; increased complexity of

8383-494: The same binary executable software instructions as their predecessors, allowing the use of a newer processor without having to acquire new applications or operating systems . Similarly, the success of the Wi-Fi digital communication standard is attributed to its broad forward and backward compatibility; it became more popular than other standards that were not backward compatible. In software development, backward compatibility

8484-400: 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

8585-463: 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 announced the first PC-98 clone desktop computer and named it the PC-286 series. NEC investigated and sued Epson on

8686-481: The start was not limited to NEC only, why did this gap cause? It can be said that NEC has taken a positive attitude towards disclosing hardware and operating systems since the early period, and free for third parties to develop software and peripherals. While the competitors adopted the same Microsoft's BASIC, they didn't disclose them. This difference in attitude is reflected in today's share. NEC took care to maintain compatibility and inheritance. The PC-9801VM can select

8787-444: The sum signal while ignoring the difference signal, which is necessary only for separating the audio channels. Stereo FM receivers can receive a mono signal and decode it without the need for a second signal, and they can separate a sum signal to left and right channels if both sum and difference signals are received. Without the requirement for backward compatibility, a simpler method could have been chosen. Full backward compatibility

8888-464: The summer of 1978, the Microcomputer Sales Section started developing the PC-8001, codenamed "PCX-1". The development team consisted of 10 engineers including section manager Kazuya Watanabe(engineer)  [ jp ] ( 渡邊 和也 ) and chief designer Tomio Gotō ( 後藤 富雄 ) . They had already planned to release a version of the TK-80BS within a plastic case as a personal computer. It was released as

8989-511: The television program "Interest course 'Introduction to Microcomputers' ( 趣味講座「マイコン入門」 ) " using the PC-8001. Its textbook "Introduction to Microcomputers - the first half of Showa 57 ( マイコン入門 昭和57年度 前期 ) " sold 700,000 copies. A higher-performance, more graphically capable revision of the PC-8001, the Mark II debuted in March 1983 for a price of 123,000 yen. While its most obvious improvement

9090-462: The trip wouldn't be accepted by his boss because Microsoft was a small company. Instead, he attended the fall 1978 West Coast Computer Faire during its first day. The next day, he met Bill Gates at the airport in Albuquerque . After lunch, they went to Microsoft's office, and then Gates told him the importance of having a de facto standard . Goto agreed. The team had already been developing

9191-479: Was Windows-based IBM PC compatible but not DOS/V compatible. The PC-9801's last successor was the Celeron -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

9292-974: 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 some European countries like in the UK , France , Spain , Italy and the Netherlands and in Australia and New Zealand as well. The first member of the PC-8000 series, the PC-8001 was first introduced on May 9, 1979, and went on sale in September 1979 for ¥ 168,000. Its design combines

9393-789: 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

9494-532: Was comparable with other 8-bit computer offerings at the time, its graphics were notably worse than its competitors (most likely an attempt on NEC's part to avoid competing with their own, higher-powered PC-8800 series ). This led to a relative dearth of software produced for it, particularly games . A games-oriented revision of the PC-8001mkII with significantly better graphics and sound, making its debut in January 1985 for 108,000 yen. The mkIISR increased

9595-402: Was in its graphical capabilities, the Mark II also included an internal 5.25" floppy disk interface as well as two internal expansion slots, doing away with the need for an "expansion box" to permit upgrades. The internal BASIC was changed as well, from the 24 KB N-BASIC to a 32 KB "N80-BASIC" that added new conditional statements as well as graphics commands. While the price of the PC-8001mkII

9696-459: 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

9797-820: Was introduced on May 9, 1979, and its prototype went to the public at the Microcomputer Show '79 ( マイクロコンピュータショウ'79 ) held from May 16 to 19 at the Tokyo Ryūtsū Center. Soon after the exposition, NEC received thousands of orders. It took half a year to ship about 10,000 backorders after shipment began on September 20, 1979. By 1981, it dominated 40% of the Japanese personal computer market. About 250,000 units were shipped until production stopped in January 1983. NEC also succeeded in expanding their personal computer chain in Japan. The chain owned 7 stores in 1979, 15 stores in 1980, more than 100 stores in 1981, and reached 200 stores by 1983. The PC-8001 sold well in

9898-852: Was preceded by both the Hitachi Basic Master  [ ja ] and the Sharp MZ-80K  [ ja ] . The PC-8001A was released in the United States in August 1981, and was priced at US$ 1,295 (32 KB of RAM). It is modified to reduce electromagnetic interference to comply with FCC regulations. The Katakana glyphs in the character ROM (see JIS X 0201 ) are replaced by Greek alphabet . The PC-8001 has an NEC μPD780C-1 ( Z80 -compatible processor) clocked at 4 MHz, 16 KB of RAM (expandable to 32 KB), CRT video output, cassette port, parallel port for

9999-476: 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 MS-DOS 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

10100-557: 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 and was distinguished within personal computer lines. For this market, Fujitsu released the FACOM 9450  [ ja ] in 1981, and IBM Japan released the Multistation 5550 in 1983. The first model, the PC-9801, launched in October 1982, and employs an 8086 CPU . It runs at

10201-493: 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

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