NEC PC-98 stuff
Posted: Tue Dec 13, 2022 3:45 pm
Hey guys, I'm a guy from Japan who recently got hooked super hard on retro hardware.
It seems retro stuff in general just seems to be booming here nowadays, with OG gameboys reaching pretty absurd prices, even the junk second hand stuff.
Basically, while there seems to be a huge demand for the nintendos and segas and playstations and what not, PC98s haven't seen a ton of spotlight just yet.
For those of you who have never heard of a PC98, they're basically one of a bunch of Japanese only DOS-era PCs that were born because the western stuff didn't have support for Kanji.
Some of these japanese only PCs include the PC88, X68000, FM Towns, MSX etc.
They are kinda well known for having a huge library of hentai games, but there's a bunch of games that have made it big that have their roots on the PC98, such as Touhou project, the Y's series, and the company Compile in general.
These PC98 games have an aesthetic you can't really find anywhere else. I'd call it the vaporwave nerd's wet dream. Audio-wise they also have a Yamaha chip that sounds pretty damn awesome.
You can still pick up (somewhat) working PC98s for pretty cheap, and there's a fair bit of documentation in Japanese for the niche market it has here.
Even the broken ones seem to be a few leaky capacitors away from perfect working conditions. Huge surprise.
The hardest part of getting one of these systems is the keyboard and mouse setup, because they use proprietary plugs and a USB converter will set you back quite a bit. I've seen a keyboard with missing keys for pretty cheap at our favourite Hard Off so maybe that's something to go off of.
I've been considering picking one up myself to play around with, and maybe translate some of the Japanese info into English so hopefully it can gather some attention overseas.
My biggest concern is that since these PCs were only produced domestically, it'd be rather difficult for non-Japanese speakers to really enjoy what it has to offer.
I could definitely translate the games into English, and that would be a pretty cool project but since I work as a designer my programming skills are limited to basically nothing, so all this DOS stuff is greek to me and I'm not even sure what other kind of cool stuff you could pull off with these computers.
There's an emulator you can use to see what it's like for yourself, but it's kind of a nightmare to setup because you need the actual BIOS from one of these machines and they aren't really lying around on the internet either.
Is anyone here interested in these computers at all? Would be nice to be able to discuss these super old PCs and what kind of ideas people had for them.
It seems retro stuff in general just seems to be booming here nowadays, with OG gameboys reaching pretty absurd prices, even the junk second hand stuff.
Basically, while there seems to be a huge demand for the nintendos and segas and playstations and what not, PC98s haven't seen a ton of spotlight just yet.
For those of you who have never heard of a PC98, they're basically one of a bunch of Japanese only DOS-era PCs that were born because the western stuff didn't have support for Kanji.
Some of these japanese only PCs include the PC88, X68000, FM Towns, MSX etc.
They are kinda well known for having a huge library of hentai games, but there's a bunch of games that have made it big that have their roots on the PC98, such as Touhou project, the Y's series, and the company Compile in general.
These PC98 games have an aesthetic you can't really find anywhere else. I'd call it the vaporwave nerd's wet dream. Audio-wise they also have a Yamaha chip that sounds pretty damn awesome.
You can still pick up (somewhat) working PC98s for pretty cheap, and there's a fair bit of documentation in Japanese for the niche market it has here.
Even the broken ones seem to be a few leaky capacitors away from perfect working conditions. Huge surprise.
The hardest part of getting one of these systems is the keyboard and mouse setup, because they use proprietary plugs and a USB converter will set you back quite a bit. I've seen a keyboard with missing keys for pretty cheap at our favourite Hard Off so maybe that's something to go off of.
I've been considering picking one up myself to play around with, and maybe translate some of the Japanese info into English so hopefully it can gather some attention overseas.
My biggest concern is that since these PCs were only produced domestically, it'd be rather difficult for non-Japanese speakers to really enjoy what it has to offer.
I could definitely translate the games into English, and that would be a pretty cool project but since I work as a designer my programming skills are limited to basically nothing, so all this DOS stuff is greek to me and I'm not even sure what other kind of cool stuff you could pull off with these computers.
There's an emulator you can use to see what it's like for yourself, but it's kind of a nightmare to setup because you need the actual BIOS from one of these machines and they aren't really lying around on the internet either.
Is anyone here interested in these computers at all? Would be nice to be able to discuss these super old PCs and what kind of ideas people had for them.