24 Facts About PC-98

PC-9800 series, commonly shortened to PC-98 or 98, is a lineup of Japanese 16-bit and 32-bit personal computers manufactured by NEC from 1982 to 2000.

PC-98 was initially released as a business-oriented personal computer which had backward compatibility with the successful PC-8800 series.

The PC-98 is a non-IBM compatible x86-based computer, thus it can run a localized version of MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows.

However, spreading Windows, software developers no longer had to dedicate to the specific platform, and the PC-98 was regarded as one of the Windows-based machines like other IBM clones.

The PC-98 adopted non-proprietary parts developed for IBM clones to reduce manufacturing costs.

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In 1997, NEC abandoned compatibility with the PC-98 and released the PC98-NX series based on the PC System Design Guide.

NEC understood, despite difficulties, that the PC-98 needed a new custom chipset to make the motherboard smaller.

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.

The PC-9821Xf introduced in 1994 shipped with C-bus slots and PCI slots on the motherboard, replacing the proprietary local bus slot.

The PC-9821Af introduced in 1993 shipped with standard 72-pin SIMMs, broke the 14.

Standard PC-98 has two µPD7220 display controllers with 12 KB and 256 KB of video RAMs respectively.

In 1993, NEC introduced a 2D Windows accelerator card for PC-98, called the Window Accelerator Board, which employed a S3 86C928.

Roland released a music production starter kit for PC-98, which combines the MT-32 synthesizer module, a MIDI interface card and a MIDI editing software.

PC-98 was primarily used for businesses and industry in Japan from 1980s to mid-1990s.

Ichitaro, a Japanese word processor for the PC-98 and considered one of its killer applications, was released in 1985 and ported to other machines in 1987.

PC-98 had many game titles designed for it, many of which made creative use of the system's limitations to great commercial success.

Yoshihiko Hyodo, a programmer who developed the text editor VZ Editor, said two advantages that the PC-98 had were its kanji character memory and non-interlaced monitor.

Shunzo Hamada of NEC thought the biggest reason for the success of PC-98 was that NEC could get software companies to cooperate.

The basic hardware of PC-98 was similar to the IBM PC, though it was not IBM compatible.

PC-98 felt the PC-98 was an "ordinary" 16-bit personal computer, but it had plenty of games because it did not deny the playability.

PC-98 theorized that Fujitsu did not consider the 16-bit personal computer as a game platform, and considered IBM JX handling games to be of minor importance, which made personal computers less attractive.

PC-98 concluded that the actual value of personal computers must be found by not sellers but consumers.

Software companies that developed games for the PC-98 immediately expanded the video game business on the Famicom platform.

PC-98 believed most programmers learned computer programming on the PC-98 at that time.