PC-8001 - MAME machine

Computer published 47 years ago:

PC-8001 © 1979 NEC Home Electronics, Ltd.

The PC-8001 was the first member of the PC-8000 series.

TRIVIA
The PC-8001 was announced on May 9, 1979 and was then released on September 28, 1979 (Friday) at a retail price of 168,000 JPY.

End sales: January 1983. 250,000 units were sold in Japan.

Development of the PC-8001 began in the summer of 1978 with a team of 10 people, including Kazuya Watanabe, head of the Microcomputer Sales Department of the Electronic Devices Sales Division at NEC, and Tomio, the main designer. The internal codename was PCX-1.

At the time, Japanese manufacturers had already released the Basic Master (Hitachi) and the MZ-80K (Sharp), but the Basic Master was primarily intended for educational use, and the MZ-80K was sold as a semi-kit for marketing reasons, and even if purchased, it required knowledge of electronics before it could be used. Plans had been made for a product incorporating the TK-80BS board computer into a case, and this was announced as the COMPO BS/80 in October 1978, but it was unsuccessful due to the limited functionality and performance of the BASIC programming language . The PC-8001 was developed as an all-in-one computer that was easy for individuals to obtain, while also being designed for light office work, and while compromising on functionality.

The main body was originally conceived with a similar color design to the COMPO BS/80 and an old JIS keyboard layout , but with the advice of Haruhisa Ishida , a chic design and a teletype keyboard layout were adopted that could also be used as a minicomputer terminal. Two versions of the programming language BASIC were developed, one created by Microsoft and one created in-house by NEC, but Microsoft's BASIC, which had already established itself as the de facto standard in the North American personal computer market , was adopted. This was a major change that would later become the de facto standard for proprietary architecture personal computers. At the time, Microsoft was aiming to enter the Japanese OEM market in earnest, so BASIC was offered to NEC at a very low price.

The main body, display, and external storage device were developed by NEC and manufactured by Shin-Nippon Electric Co., Ltd. , but NEC only had expensive printers for mainframes , so they were procured from Tokyo Electric Co., Ltd. on an OEM basis.

CONTRIBUTE
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