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PC Open Architecture Developers' Group
PC Open Architecture Developers' Group (OADG, Japanese: ) is a consortium of the major Japanese personal computer manufacturers. Sponsored by IBM during the 1990s, it successfully guided Japan's personal computer manufacturing companies at that time into standardising to an IBM PC-compatible and open architecture. History Before the advent of the IBM PC in 1981 in the United States, there were many different varieties and designs of personal computer. Examples from that era include the Tandy RadioShack and Commodore. These machines were each based upon a different computer architecture and the software programs that ran on them were compatible only with the machine they had been designed for. In Japan, except for the MSX, this situation continued well into the early 1990s, because three of Japan's major electronics manufacturers (NEC, Sharp and Fujitsu) had also designed their own unique personal computers; although NEC with its NEC 9801 was at that time the most successful. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 technician. Unlike large, costly minicomputers and mainframes, time-sharing by many people at the same time is not used with personal computers. Primarily in the late 1970s and 1980s, the term home computer was also used. Institutional or corporate computer owners in the 1960s had to write their own programs to do any useful work with the machines. While personal computer users may develop their own applications, usually these systems run commercial software, free-of-charge software ("freeware"), which is most often proprietary, or free and open-source software, which is provided in "ready-to-run", or binary, form. Software for personal computers is typically developed and distributed independently from the hardware or operating system ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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, Washington, United States. Its best-known software products are the Windows line of operating systems, the Microsoft Office suite, and the Internet Explorer and Edge web browsers. Its flagship hardware products are the Xbox video game consoles and the Microsoft Surface lineup of touchscreen personal computers. Microsoft ranked No. 21 in the 2020 Fortune 500 rankings of the largest United States corporations by total revenue; it was the world's largest software maker by revenue as of 2019. It is one of the Big Five American information technology companies, alongside Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, and Meta. Microsoft was founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen on April 4, 1975, to develop and sell BASIC interpreters for the Altair 8800. It rose to do ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Toshiba J-3100
The Toshiba T3100 was a portable PC manufactured by Toshiba released in 1986. It featured a hard drive, 8 MHz Intel 80286 CPU and a black & orange 9.6" gas-plasma display with a resolution of 640x400 pixels. The portable had for the time a special high-resolution 640 x 400 display mode which is similar to and partially compatible with the Olivetti/AT&T 6300 graphics. The base model had 640 KB memory. There is a single proprietary expansion slot for 1200 bit/s modem, expansion chassis for 5x 8-bit ISA cards, Ethernet NIC, 2400 bit/s modem, and a 2 MB memory card (thus 2.6 MB in max total). T3100e model had 1 MB of memory, which could be upgraded to 5 MB. Toshiba T3100 was not a true portable, because it needed an external power source in all except the last version. Five versions existed: *The T3100/20 is essentially the same as the base T3100 but with a larger hard drive (20 MB instead of 10 MB). *The T3100e has a 12 MHz 80286 CPU (switchable to 6 MHz, 1 MB RA ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
FM Towns
The is a Japanese personal computer, built by Fujitsu from February 1989 to the summer of 1997. It started as a proprietary PC variant intended for multimedia applications and PC games, but later became more compatible with IBM PC compatibles. In 1993, the FM Towns Marty was released, a game console compatible with existing FM Towns games. The "FM" part of the name means "Fujitsu Micro" like their earlier products, while the "Towns" part is derived from the code name the system was assigned while in development, "Townes". This refers to Charles Townes, one of the winners of the 1964 Nobel Prize in Physics, following a custom of Fujitsu at the time to code name PC products after Nobel Prize winners. The e in "Townes" was dropped when the system went into production to make it clearer that the term was to be pronounced like the word "towns" rather than the potential "tow-nes". History Fujitsu decided to release a new home computer after the FM-7 was technologically overcome ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
NEC PC-98
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 than 18 million units had been sold. While NEC did not market these specific machines in the West, it sold the NEC APC series, 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 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 clones lacked sufficient graphics capabilities to easily handle Japan's multiple writing systems, in particular kanji with its t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 relative to Microsoft's new Windows 3.1 operating environment, the two companies severed the relationship in 1992 and OS/2 development fell to IBM exclusively. The name stands for "Operating System/2", because it was introduced as part of the same generation change release as IBM's " Personal System/2 (PS/2)" line of second-generation personal computers. The first version of OS/2 was released in December 1987 and newer versions were released until December 2001. OS/2 was intended as a protected-mode successor of PC DOS. Notably, basic system calls were modeled after MS-DOS calls; their names even started with "Dos" and it was possible to create "Family Mode" applications – text mode applications that could work on both systems. Be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
AX Consortium
AX (Architecture eXtended) was a Japanese computing initiative starting in around 1986 to allow PCs to handle Double-byte character set, double-byte (DBCS) Japanese text via special hardware chips, whilst allowing compatibility with software written for foreign IBM PCs. The idea was conceived by Kazuhiko Nishi before he resigned his position as vice president of Microsoft. Microsoft Japan took over the project, and in July 1987 the Preparatory Committee of the AX Consortium started developing its specification. The AX Consortium officially started in October 1987, including ASCII Corporation, Sony, Hitachi, Sharp Corporation, Sharp, Oki Electric Industry, Oki, Casio, Canon Inc., Canon, Kyocera, Sanyo, Mitsubishi Electric, etc., but notably excluding Toshiba and Fujitsu (who were hence the 'opposition'). At that time, NEC PC-9801 was the dominant PC architecture in the Japanese PC market because IBM PC/AT and its clone PCs could not display Japanese text. However, NEC did not tolera ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Panasonic Corporation
formerly between 1935 and 2008 and the first incarnation of between 2008 and 2022, is a major Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation, headquartered in Kadoma, Osaka. It was founded by Kōnosuke Matsushita in 1918 as a lightbulb socket manufacturer. In addition to consumer electronics, of which it was the world's largest maker in the late 20th century, Panasonic offers a wide range of products and services, including rechargeable batteries, automotive and avionic systems, industrial systems, as well as home renovation and construction. Panasonic has a primary listing on the Tokyo Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the Nikkei 225 and TOPIX 100 indices. It has a secondary listing on the Nagoya Stock Exchange. Corporate name From 1935 to October 1, 2008, the company's corporate name was "Matsushita Electric Industrial Co." (MEI). On January 10, 2008, the company announced that it would change its name to "Panasonic Corporation", in effect on October 1, 2008, to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fujitsu
is a Japanese multinational information and communications technology equipment and services corporation, established in 1935 and headquartered in Tokyo. Fujitsu is the world's sixth-largest IT services provider by annual revenue, and the largest in Japan, in 2021. The hardware offerings from Fujitsu are mainly of personal and enterprise computing products, including x86, SPARC and mainframe compatible server products, although the corporation and its subsidiaries also offer a diversity of products and services in the areas of data storage, telecommunications, advanced microelectronics, and air conditioning. It has approximately 126,400 employees and its products and services are available in approximately 180 countries. Fujitsu is listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange and Nagoya Stock Exchange; its Tokyo listing is a constituent of the Nikkei 225 and TOPIX 100 indices. History 1935 to 2000 Fujitsu was established on June 20, 1935, which makes it one of the oldest operating ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Toshiba Corporation
, 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, elevators and escalators, electronic components, semiconductors, hard disk drives (HDD), printers, batteries, lighting, as well as IT solutions such as quantum cryptography which has been in development at Cambridge Research Laboratory, Toshiba Europe, located in the United Kingdom, now being commercialised. It was one of the biggest manufacturers of personal computers, consumer electronics, home appliances, and medical equipment. As a semiconductor company and the inventor of flash memory, Toshiba had been one of the top 10 in the chip industry until its flash memory unit was spun off as Toshiba Memory, later Kioxia, in the late 2010s. The Toshiba name is derived from its former name, Tokyo Shibaura Denki K.K. (Tokyo Shibaura Electric ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sony Corporation
, commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professional electronic products, the largest video game console company and the largest video game publisher. Through Sony Entertainment Inc, it is one of the largest music companies (largest music publisher and second largest record label) and the third largest film studio, making it one of the most comprehensive media companies. It is the largest technology and media conglomerate in Japan. It is also recognized as the most cash-rich Japanese company, with net cash reserves of ¥2 trillion. Sony, with its 55 percent market share in the image sensor market, is the largest manufacturer of image sensors, the second largest camera manufacturer, and is among the semiconductor sales leaders. It is the world's largest player in the premium TV market for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sharp Corporation
is a Japanese multinational corporation that designs and manufactures electronic products, headquartered in Sakai-ku, Sakai, Osaka Prefecture. Since 2016 it has been majority owned by the Taiwan-based Foxconn Group. Sharp employs more than 50,000 people worldwide. The company was founded in September 1912 in Tokyo and takes its name from one of its founder's first Ever-Sharp mechanical pencil, which was invented by Tokuji Hayakawa in 1915. History Early years 1912–1945 In 1912, Tokuji Hayakawa founded a metal workshop in Tokyo. The first of his many inventions was a snap buckle named 'Tokubijo'. Another of his inventions was the Ever-Ready Sharp mechanical pencil in 1915. The product became one of the first internationally available mechanical pencils (while concurrent US design replaced it soon and became a modern type), and due to this big success the Sharp Corporation derived its name from it. After the pencil business was destroyed by the 1923 Great Kantō earthquak ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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