π―π΅ NEC PC-8201: Part 1 (Quick Look) [TCE #0565]
29I finally got my hands on one of these Kyocera-built machines that use the Intel 8085 processor. This is (obviously) NEC's implementation with 16KByte of RAM, running N-82 BASIC and sporting a rather fetching colour scheme. Let's have a quick look (no pully-aparty today).
00:00 ... Intro
01:12 ... Giveaway planned for my (paid) Patreon
02:40 ... The NEC PC-8201
03:50 ... Busted key caps
04:50 ... Keyboard close up [DEL BS]
05:40 ... Interface ports
09:07 ... Replacing busted key caps
12:00 ... Powering on
15:50 ... Screen & keyboard close up
17:29 ... One more thing
18:31 ... Channel thanks & Outro
I managed to get it quite cheap (via buyee.jp) as it has two busted key caps. There was, coincidentally, also an auction for a spare keyboard, although not the matching colour. So, for now, I've replaced the missing key caps with cream coloured ones ... will need to keep my eye out for a busted red PC-8201, preferably with missing keys and thus technically cheap, so I can match the colour for those two missing keys.
There's two things I want to do immediately:
[1] The machine has three banks of RAM, two of which are internal. I think they can be upgraded to 32KBytes each which will give me 64KByte of RAM. The max is 96KBytes apparently if the cartridge slot is used.
[2] Patch the ROM so that the date reads "20xx" rather than "19xx".
I got the idea for patching the century from here:
https://www.web8201.net/
Of course, plenty of other things to do ... figure out Option ROMs and which ones I should install and loading some software. It looks to use the same 8-pin DIN at the PC-8001 for the cassette (CMT port).
It also has a floppy disk port ... not sure how that works ... I'm guessing it's similar to the PC-8001 and Commodore ... the actual disk unit has some intelligence (i.e. CPU) and thus can't simply be replaced by a Gotek.
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