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.
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He.....I was Nec PC8001 $ PC 8088 computer dealer in the Netherlands. I have sold about 50 complete systems in total, with 8031 $ 8031-2W double discdrive units, NEC PC8023 super reliable dot matrix printer $ Nec 8043 highres color monitors with super picture. The PC8001 had the most riliable keyboard good for real fast tekst editing. The PC8001 is nor produced by NEC but produced in the Kyocera factories. In the Netherlands was a Nec usergroup and we did met each other one time pro month. With the discdrive stations included there was also the CP/M operating system included. To use that there was the memory extensionboc 8011 available. Nec had in Germany a distributor also which delivered complete tables and consoles to use these computers in offices. We did get all computers from NEC London in the U.K. English software I have still available and I can send you a list. We never had a MK2 but we sold later the 8088 system after the 8001 systems.
Sofar...greatings from Netherlands...
Saturday 23rd November 2019
Frits Meuris (Netherlands Europe)
NAME
PC 8001 MK 2
MANUFACTURER
NEC
TYPE
Home Computer
ORIGIN
Japan
YEAR
1982
END OF PRODUCTION
Unknown
BUILT IN LANGUAGE
NEC N-80 Basic v1.0 (enhanced)
KEYBOARD
Full-stroke keyboard with separated numeric keypad
