Personally I''m surprised that this system was not released outside of Asia because it was very powerful in its later years with FM sound and full colour graphics and if it was released it would have probably buried the IBM PC

I was in the Air Force stationed in Japan (Misawa Air Base), and I bought the PC-8801n in Aomori, Japan with my reenlistment bonus in April 1982. The manuals were all in Japanese, so I hadn''t really been able to use it to its full potential. I used it for the next five years until I bought a Dell System 25, but the PC-8801 (now my secondary computer) lasted for about 12 years (until 1994) when it became inoperable due to the post office damaging the 8" dual drive when I shipped it from one duty station (Key West) to the next (Hawaii).

The NEC PC8801 was the followup from the NEC PC8001. It was distributed in west Europe by NEC Neuss Germany. These even manufactured computer furniture to be bought by complete systems. In the U.K. this was also a well know model in the marked of office equipment. The PC8801 had 2 basic interpretors in ROM, at first the bill gates written N-basic from Microsoft and second the very special Microsoft N-88 basic with extended commands for graphics etc.
You could load CP/M operating system by discette. At first the CP/M from the PC8001 computer, and later also CP/M in PC8801 mode.
In GB was at last also availble separate double DS/DD 8 inch discette station. The discettes had 1,2 Mb capacity in this format. Also was available a harddisk station from Japan for these computers. It''s brand was Anritsu, and the capacity was 10 Mb.

In America was another development going, also selden sold in Europe, the famous APC computer.
This was a more IBM compatible model, with build in
2 x 51/4 inch discette stations. The APC was the counterpart for the Northstar pc''s.

only link for available software
http://www.frimu.nl/bu/nec.htm