In 1983, the PC-8001 still had great success in Japanese market. However, a lot of competitive PCs were released by other companies.
PC-8001 had a tough race in business market because of poor graphics feature that cannot display KANJI characters.
NEC had to solve 3 difficult problems simultaneously:
1. high-resolution graphics for business users,
2. Middle-level (suitable for CPU power) Color graphics for hobby users,
3. Hardware/Software compatibility with the PC-8001.
The PC-8001mkII was the answer. This machine was born with expectation and attention. The PC-hobby magazine publishers delayed printing to write detailed information of this machine. However, the expectaition of people changed to disappointment. Most competitive machine already had 640x200 8 color graphics but the PC-8001mkII only had black&white. A lot of hobby-users started to put money aside for the PC-8801 instead of purchasing the PC-8001mkII.
This machine met a limited success, even though NEC had 40,000 back-orders. The PC-8001 was sold over 120,000 within 2 years.
Thanks to Nomura Hisayuki for this information.
We need more info about this computer ! If you designed, used, or have more info about this system,
please send us pictures or anything you might find useful.
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