The , commonly shortened to PC-88, are a brand of Zilog Z80-based 8-bit home computers released by

Nippon Electric Company 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 ...

(NEC) in 1981 and primarily sold in

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

. The PC-8800 series sold extremely well and became one of the three major Japanese home computers of the 1980s, along with the Fujitsu FM-7 and

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 c ...

. It was later eclipsed by NEC's 16-bit PC-9800 series, although it still maintained strong sales up until the early 90s. NEC's American subsidiary, NEC Home Electronics (USA), marketed variations of the PC-8800 in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

and

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

History

Nippon Electric's Microcomputer Sales Section of the Electronic Device Sales Division launched the

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

in September 1979, and by 1981 it consisted of 40% of the Japanese personal computer market. In April 1981, Nippon Electric decided to expand personal computer lines into three groups: New Nippon Electric, Information Processing Group and Electronic Devices Group, with each specializing in a particular series. The Microcomputer Sales Section was reformed to the Microcomputer and Application Division in June 1980, and was renamed to the Personal Computer Division in April 1981. At that time, Japanese personal computers were mostly used by hobbyists. The division introduced the PC-8801 in November 1981 and intended to expand the personal computer market into the business world. The PC-8801 was capable of displaying

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 ...

characters via an optional Kanji

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 * R ...

board. Various companies released 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. Word processor (electronic device), Early word processors were stand-alone devices ded ...

software for the machine, such as , , and . NEC themselves released which was a rebranded version of Yukara, but it was not a success. In addition to office software, companies like

Enix was a Japanese video game publisher that produced video games, anime and manga. Enix is known for publishing the ''Dragon Quest'' series of role-playing video games. The company was founded by Yasuhiro Fukushima on September 22, 1975, as . Th ...

and

Koei Koei Co., Ltd. was a Japanese video game publisher, developer, and distributor founded in 1978. The company is known for its ''Dynasty Warriors'' games based on the novel ''Romance of the Three Kingdoms'', as well as simulation games based on p ...

released many popular games for the system, establishing the PC-8801 as a strong gaming platform. By November 1983, the PC-8801 had shipped 170,000 units. The PC-8801's direct successor, the PC-8801mkII, came with a JIS level 1 kanji font ROM, a smaller case and keyboard, and, in the models 20 and 30, one or two internal 5-inch 2D

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

drives. This set of PC-8800 computers sold more units than the PC-9800 series at that time. By December 1983, NEC had multiple personal computer lines coming out from different divisions. NEC's Information Processing group had the PC-9800 series, and NEC Home Electronics had the PC-6000 series. To avoid competing with itself, NEC decided to consolidate their personal computer business into two divisions; the NEC Home Electronics division dealt with the 8-bit home computer line, and the Information Processing group dealt with the 16-bit personal computer line. The Electronic Device Sales division spun off personal computer business into NEC Home Electronics. In March 1985, NEC Home Electronics introduced the PC-8801mkIISR, which had improved graphics and sound capabilities. A cost reduced version, the PC-8801mkIIFR, shipped 60,000 units for half a year. Although the PC-9801VM shipments surpassed it, the PC-8800 series was still popular as a Japanese PC game platform until the early 1990s.

Hardware

Graphics

Throughout the lifetime of the PC-8800, there were four different graphics modes. They are as follows: *N mode: PC-8000 series compatible graphic mode *V1 mode: 640 × 200 8 colors, 640 × 400 2 colors *V2 mode: 640 × 200 8 out of 512 colors, 640 × 400 2 out of 512 colors *V3 mode: 640 × 200: 65536 colors, 640 × 400: 256 out of 65536 colors, 320 × 200: 65536 colors, 320 × 400: 64 out of 65536 colors No entry in the PC-8800 series was capable of displaying all four modes.

Sound

The early computers in the PC-8800 series use a simple internal speaker, like the

Apple II The Apple II (stylized as ) is an 8-bit home computer and one of the world's first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products. It was designed primarily by Steve Wozniak; Jerry Manock developed the design of Apple II's foam-m ...

and

IBM PC The IBM Personal Computer (model 5150, commonly known as the IBM PC) is the first microcomputer released in the IBM PC model line and the basis for the IBM PC compatible de facto standard. Released on August 12, 1981, it was created by a team ...

, capable of generating beeps and clicks. Later models added FM-synthesis chips for much more elaborate audio.

Software

Companies that produced exclusive software for the NEC PC-8801 included

, Square,

Sega is a Japanese multinational corporation, multinational video game and entertainment company headquartered in Shinagawa, Tokyo. Its international branches, Sega of America and Sega Europe, are headquartered in Irvine, California and London, r ...

, Nihon Falcom,

Bandai is a Japanese multinational toy manufacturer and distributor headquartered in Taitō, Tokyo. Its international branches, Bandai Namco Toys & Collectables America and Bandai UK, are respectively headquartered in Irvine, California and Richmond ...

HAL Laboratory formerly shortened as HALKEN (derived from its native name), is a Japanese video game developer founded on 21 February 1980. While independent, it has been closely tied with Nintendo throughout its history, and is often referred to as a secon ...

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 of ...

Pony Canyon , also known by the shorthand form , is a Japanese mass media publishing company founded on October 1, 1966. The company publishes mainly physical home media on compact discs, including music, films and TV shows and video games. It is affiliate ...

Technology and Entertainment Software was a Japanese-based video game developer founded in 1982. Although they have made games with a wide variety of genres, they are primarily known in the U.S. for their golf and puzzle video games. The original company exists today under the name ...

, Wolf Team, Dempa, Champion Soft, Starcraft, Micro Cabin, PSK, and Bothtec. Certain games produced for the PC-8801 had a shared release with the

MSX MSX is a standardized home computer architecture, announced by Microsoft and ASCII Corporation on June 16, 1983. It was initially conceived by Microsoft as a product for the Eastern sector, and jointly marketed by Kazuhiko Nishi, then vice-p ...

, such as those produced by Game Arts, ELF Corporation, and

Konami , is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational video game company, video game and entertainment company headquartered in Chūō, Tokyo, Chūō, Tokyo, it also produces and distributes trading cards, anime, tokusatsu, pachinko machin ...

. Many popular series first appeared on the NEC PC-8801, including '' Snatcher'', ''

Thexder is a run-and-gun platform game from Game Arts, originally released for the NEC PC-8801 in 1985. It was subsequently ported to many other systems, including the Famicom. Gameplay In ''Thexder'', the player controls a fighter robot that is a ...

'', ''

Dragon Slayer A dragonslayer is a person or being that slays dragons. Dragonslayers and the creatures they hunt have been popular in traditional stories from around the world: they are a type of story classified as type 300 in the Aarne–Thompson classifica ...

'', '' RPG Maker'', '' Sokoban'', and '' Ys''.

Nintendo is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational video game company headquartered in Kyoto, Japan. It develops video games and video game consoles. Nintendo was founded in 1889 as by craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi and originally produce ...

licensed

Hudson Soft was a Japanese video game company that released numerous games for video game consoles, home computers and mobile phones, mainly from the 1980s to the 2000s. It was headquartered in the Midtown Tower in Tokyo Midtown, Akasaka, Minato, Tokyo ...

to port some of Nintendo's Family Computer games for the platform, including ''

Excitebike is a motocross racing video game developed and published by Nintendo. In Japan, it was released for the Famicom in 1984 and then ported to arcades as ''Vs. Excitebike'' for the Nintendo Vs. System later that year. In North America, it was ini ...

'', ''

Balloon Fight is an action video game developed by Nintendo and HAL Laboratory and published by Nintendo. The original arcade version was released for the Nintendo VS. System internationally as ''Vs. Balloon Fight'', while its Nintendo Entertainment Syst ...

'', ''

Tennis Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent ( singles) or between two teams of two players each ( doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball ...

'', ''

Golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping wi ...

'', and '' Ice Climber'', as well as new editions of '' Mario Bros.'' called ''

Mario Bros. Special is a 1983 arcade game developed and published for arcade game, arcades by Nintendo. It was designed by Shigeru Miyamoto and Gunpei Yokoi, Nintendo's chief engineer. Italians, Italian twin brother plumbers Mario and Luigi exterminate creatu ...

'' and '' Punch Ball Mario Bros.'', a semi-sequel to '' Donkey Kong 3'' titled ''Donkey Kong 3: Dai Gyakushū.'' The computer also had its own

BASIC BASIC (Beginners' All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) is a family of general-purpose, high-level programming languages designed for ease of use. The original version was created by John G. Kemeny and Thomas E. Kurtz at Dartmouth College ...

dialect, N88-BASIC.

Model list

References

External links

Translated

emulation site for retro Japanese computers
OLD-COMPUTERS.COM: The Museum: NEC PC-8801NEC PC-8801 info page
popular games, tags and developers at uvlist.net
NEC PC-8801 MK II commercial on YouTubeNEC PC-8801MA FA commercial on YouTubeA list of downloadable PC88 emulators
{{NEC computers NEC personal computers Computer-related introductions in 1981 Home computers Z80-based home computers

History

Hardware

Graphics

Sound

Software

Model list

References

Further reading

External links