A new graphics board allowed for 640x400 with 16 colors out of a palette of 4096, once again edging out IBM's then-current EGA standard, which only offered 640x350 with 16 colors from a palette of 64. The CPU was upgraded to NEC's V30 chip running at 10MHz. The PC-9801 took its first big step forward as a game platform with the release of the PC-9801VF/VM models in late 1985.

The PC-9801 received a steady drip of games right from the beginning, but most of these early titles were straight ports from 8-bit computers. But businessmen tend to take their work home with them, and over time, the PC-9801 gradually became a fixture in many households. Even NEC's own PC-100, a fascinating and forward-thinking machine designed by the Electronic Devices Business Group, was cast aside in the wake of the PC-9801's success.įor the PC-9801, games were only an afterthought. But it got the job done, and that meant the PC-9801 worked its way into not only every white-collar office in Japan, but also onto factory floors and into science labs.

Whereas NEC's earlier computers were aimed at electronics tinkerers, young students, and even families, the PC-9801 was all business. The Big Blue threat was averted, and within a few short years, the PC-9801 became the standard business computer in Japan. Besides having special hardware to handle the complexities of Japanese text, the PC-9801 boasted several improvements over the IBM 5150, such as a true 16-bit data bus, and graphics output at a resolution of 640x400 with 8 fixed colors, significantly better than the IBM PC's CGA standard. So the Information Processing Business Group got to work, and in just over a year they unveiled their answer: the PC-9801, a 16-bit computer powered by NEC's in-house version of the Intel 8086 processor. They also recognized that unless they delivered a personal computing solution of their own, Japanese businesses would turn to Big Blue. They recognized that the future of business computing would be personal: an entire computer for each worker.

NEC knew exactly what the 5150 represented. On the 12th of August, 1981, IBM released the first IBM Personal Computer, the 5150. Even though this group had been successfully selling mainframes and minicomputers to large corporations for nearly a decade, all of that was about to change. This strategy had been spearheaded by the Electronic Devices Business Group within the company, and they were enjoying the fruits of their success.īut there were no such happy times in another NEC division called the Information Processing Business Group. By 1982, NEC was already a veteran of the personal computer business, having released three different computer series (the PC-8001, the PC-6001, and the PC-8801) to cater to different types of consumers.

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