NEC PC-98 stuff

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MattKC
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Re: NEC PC-98 stuff

Post by MattKC »

Fantastic writeup! I didn't expect this to be so much of a rollercoaster, it practically had a three act structure to it lol. These posts are probably a great resource for anyone else trying to troubleshoot their own PC-98 too.

I'm very glad to hear it's fully fixed. This whole journey has had me fantasizing about going to Japan and picking up one of my own. One day™...
kana85hz2c wrote: Sun Jan 22, 2023 3:56 pm I also ordered a 512mb CF card, which was also unnecessarily expensive, and also compulsory in this situation as the BIOS does not support anything bigger than 540MB.
CF card pricing is very strange to me. It's odd to think that anything under 1GB would be pricey, but I guess they're probably sold so infrequently nowadays they can justify it. But I know even in the upper ranges, you seem to get way more GB per price on SD cards, and even SSDs. Not sure why that's the case, but I guess you don't have a lot of options with a 540MB limit.
kana85hz2c wrote: Wed Jan 25, 2023 2:08 pm Now time to enjoy my games and be on the lookout for any CD drives and/or 3.5" FDDs...
Are these parts are compatible with IBM PC parts? If so, hopefully it won't be too hard to procure those...
kana85hz2c wrote: Sun Jan 22, 2023 3:56 pm Also I couldn't attach videos so I'm linking relevant posts I posted on Twitter while this was all going on.
Sorry about that, video attachments should be fixed now. Feel free to repost them here if you'd like.
kana85hz2c
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Re: NEC PC-98 stuff

Post by kana85hz2c »

MattKC wrote: Thu Jan 26, 2023 4:58 pm Fantastic writeup! I didn't expect this to be so much of a rollercoaster, it practically had a three act structure to it lol. These posts are probably a great resource for anyone else trying to troubleshoot their own PC-98 too.

I'm very glad to hear it's fully fixed. This whole journey has had me fantasizing about going to Japan and picking up one of my own. One day™...
Thanks! I do hope this write up helps some poor fella who picks up a broken PC98 one day...

MattKC wrote: Thu Jan 26, 2023 4:58 pm CF card pricing is very strange to me. It's odd to think that anything under 1GB would be pricey, but I guess they're probably sold so infrequently nowadays they can justify it. But I know even in the upper ranges, you seem to get way more GB per price on SD cards, and even SSDs. Not sure why that's the case, but I guess you don't have a lot of options with a 540MB limit.
All of it was second hand stock being sold on yahoo auctions, so I guess they went ham on the pricing.
I realise I didn't actually mention how much it was: about 1000 yen for the CF card and another 2800 yen for the CF to IDE converter.
I could've gotten away with something much cheaper but I thought it was safe to pay a bit more for something that they tested to work for the PC98.
MattKC wrote: Thu Jan 26, 2023 4:58 pm Are these parts are compatible with IBM PC parts? If so, hopefully it won't be too hard to procure those...
Yesn't? The drives themselves are ATAPI or IDE, but pass through a funky proprietary controller with a slot for the bay.
It's apparently called the "Fileslot" and I found a list of all the devices that you could plug into it.
There was a CD drive for the fileslot up on yahoo auctions just today, but uhh... I'll just post a screenshot of how expensive it got.
JIEph6zped.png
MattKC wrote: Thu Jan 26, 2023 4:58 pm Sorry about that, video attachments should be fixed now. Feel free to repost them here if you'd like.
Thanks! I'll get to that tomorrow.

What I forgot to mention during my adventures were some of the codenames(?) NEC put on their chipsets.
スクリーンショット 2023-01-27 030858.png
スクリーンショット 2023-01-27 030915.png
スクリーンショット 2023-01-27 030935.png
スクリーンショット 2023-01-27 031001.png
I think MOMMY HOLY and SEARGEANT BUFS has to be my favourites out of the bunch.
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