The NEC PC-6000 series is a series of 8-bit home computers introduced in November 1981 by

NEC Home Electronics 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 ...

. There are several models in this series, such as the PC-6001, the PC-6001 MK2 and the PC-6001 MK2 SR. There is also an American version, called the NEC TREK, or NEC PC-6001A. It was followed by the PC-6600 series. Several peripherals were available for the system in North America, including an expander with three cartridge jacks (some of the

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

s used two cartridges), a cassette-tape recorder, a 5.25" floppy disk drive, a printer, and a

touchpad A touchpad or trackpad is a pointing device featuring a tactile sensor, a specialized surface that can translate the motion and position of a user's fingers to a relative position on the operating system that is made output to the screen. Touchp ...

Development

was a subsidiary of

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 ...

and a manufacturer of consumer electronics. They started manufacturing the PC-8001 and its peripherals which were developed by the Electronic Devices Group of Nippon Electric. It was successful and grew the personal computer market in Japan. They started developing a low-cost home computer, and it became the PC-6001. At the same time, the Electronic Devices Group developed the PC-8801 for home and business, and the Information Processing Group developed the PC-9801 for business market. In 1983, New Nippon Electric changed its name to NEC Home Electronics. At that time, NEC group had four personal computer lines come out from different divisions. To avoid conflict, they decided to consolidate personal computer business into two divisions; NEC Home Electronics dealt with the 8-bit home computer line, and the Information Processing Group dealt with the 16-bit personal computer line. NEC Home Electronics discontinued development of the PC-6000 series, the PC-6600 series, and the PC-8000 series. These lines were merged to the PC-8800 series.

PC-6001

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

Zilog Z80 The Z80 is an 8-bit microprocessor introduced by Zilog as the startup company's first product. The Z80 was conceived by Federico Faggin in late 1974 and developed by him and his 11 employees starting in early 1975. The first working samples were ...

), 16 KB RAM (up to 32 KB), General Instrument AY-3-8910 3-voice sound generator, a

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

connector, a cassette tape interface, 2 x

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

port, a parallel printer connector, an RF modulator output and a

composite video Composite video is an analog video signal format that carries standard-definition video (typically at 525 lines or 625 lines) as a single channel. Video information is encoded on one channel, unlike the higher-quality S-Video (two channels) ...

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

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

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

PC-6001mkII

The PC-6001mkII has 64 KB memory, 16 KB video RAM, a 5¼-inch 2D floppy drive interface, Kanji character generator, RGB monitor out, speech synthesizer unit and a typewriter keyboard. It supports following screen modes: 40x20 characters, 80x80 pixel graphics with 15 colors, 160x200 graphics with 15 colors, and 320x200 graphics with 4 colors.

References

;Notes
NEC PC 6001
OLD-COMPUTERS.COM: The Museum
NEC PC 6001 MK 2
OLD-COMPUTERS.COM: The Museum
NEC PC 6001 MK 2 SR
OLD-COMPUTERS.COM: The Museum {{NEC computers Pc-6001 Z80-based home computers