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NEC PC-9800 series

2,173 bytes added, 13:51, 11 December 2022
Emulators
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===Keyboard and mouse===
PC-98 keyboard layout presents keys that aren't available on IBM PC keyboards. Most of the emulators will map them to other keys on IBM PC keyboards, but only Anex86 and SL9821 support manually remapping these keys.
Just like IBM PC keyboards, the Later PC-98 keyboard also introduced Windows and Context keys alongside the introduction of Windows 95. Only Neko Project II, Neko Project 21/W, and Dosbox-x support emulation of Windows and Context key.
There are also other keyboard layouts for PC-98, such as PC-9801-114 (for PC-PTOS), PC-9801-116 (IBM PC layout for PC-98), and PC-9801-98-S02 (for using with some kind of word processor). These keyboards are rarely supported even on actual PC-98 and no emulator supports emulating these layouts yet.
Some late models of PC-98 come with USB keyboard and mouse (and surprisingly, they are still supported by modern versions of Windows), but no emulator supports emulation of USB bus yet.
 
===CD-ROM===
Neko Project 21/W, Neko Project II, SL9821, and Dosbox-x support emulation of CD-ROM drive attached to IDE bus. SL9821 also supports using a physical optical drive.
 
Just like IBM PCs, MSCDEX is required to access CD-ROM under MS-DOS.
 
===ROM-BASIC===
PC-98 series have N88-BASIC interpreter built into the system ROM, despite not many programs being written in BASIC or bare-metal assembly running under N88-BASIC.
 
Neko Project 21/W, Neko Project II, SL9821, and ePC-9801 supports ROM-BASIC. Specifically, Neko Project 21/W and Neko Project II require an extra BIOS.rom file in order to enter ROM-BASIC.
 
Simply remove all HDD and FDDs then power on to enter ROM-BASIC.
 
===Networking===
Neko Project 21/W supports the emulation of the Buffalo LGY-98 LAN adapter. A TAP virtual network adapter driver is required to be installed on the host machine in order to connect the emulator to the host machine in host-only mode by default. Bridged and NAT-enabled Internet access is also available by setting up the TAP virtual network adapter on the host machine.
 
It's unknown whether the emulation of the Novell NE2000 adapter provided by Dosbox-x works under PC-98 mode.
 
===Cassette===
It's possible to add a cassette interface (PC-9801-13) to some early models of PC-98 and use it in ROM-BASIC, despite this cassette interface is rarely used.
 
Only ePC-9801 supports emulation of cassette interface.
==Usage==
No emulator specifically emulates this model, and it's unknown whether APC-III software could be run on regular PC-98 hardware, or otherwise.
 
===PC-9801FC===
A PC-9801F with Chinese character ROM replaced its Japanese Kanji ROM and addressed in a different scheme, targeted at the Chinese market.
Despite no emulators specifically emulating this model, PC-9801FC software could run on regular PC-98, hence it's possible to run them with regular PC-98 emulators, but all non-ASCII text strings will become gibberish as their character ROMs are encoded in different schemes, unless feeding in the character ROM of PC-9801FC either as ROM file or character mapping image into the emulator, which is not yet in public.
===PC-9801LT===
NEC's first attempt at mobilizing PC-98 which is not so successful, ending ended up with a machine with 3.8kg of weight and not fully compatible with the regular PC-98 series.
Only MAME and ePC-98LT provide emulation of this model and both are in preliminary stages.
No emulators provide emulation of N5200 yet.
 
===iNHERITOR II-A===
iNHERITOR II-A is an emulation box manufactured by ZUKEN ELMIC, which the purpose is to replace PC-98s used in industrial devices in order to keep them running long after the demise of PC-98 series.
 
iNHERITOR II-A is an IBM PC powered by Intel Core i7 processor, running Windows Embedded 2009 and a customized PC-98 emulator (which seems to be a fork of Neko Project II judging from its menu bar), and equipped with a special PCI card and C-bus breakout board that could redirect actual PC-98 floppy drive, serial port and C-bus devices to the emulator, which makes it possible to control industrial devices relying on PC-98 via IBM PCs.
 
There is little to no information about the technical details of its customized PC-98 emulator and related hardware.
==Resources==
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