The PC-9801, shortened to PC-98, is the 16-bit computer range launched by NEC in Japan in October 1982. Unlike the PC-88, which was a home machine, the PC-98 targeted the office first: its 640×400 display and its hardware Japanese text circuitry made it far more comfortable than Western PC compatibles when handling kanji.
The range dominated the Japanese computer market for more than ten years, at times accounting for over half of all computers sold in the country. Only in the mid-1990s, with Japanese support arriving on PC compatibles and with Windows 95, did the architecture fade away, NEC itself switching to the standard PC.
Its library is huge and very distinctive: role-playing and strategy games (Ys, Sorcerian, the Nobunaga's Ambition series), simulations, and above all a very large number of visual novels and adventure games. It is also the machine of the early Japanese indie scene, notably with the first five episodes of the Touhou series. Like the PC-88, the PC-98 was never sold outside Japan.
It is the only emulator offered for this system, and it is available on every board, from the Raspberry Pi 3 and Pi Zero 2 up to the PC. Netplay and softpatching are not available with this core, and RetroAchievements are not supported. CRT output is handled, with multi-resolution support.
A keyboard is mandatory on this system: the PC-98 boots into MS-DOS and nearly every game is driven, at least partly, from the keyboard. A pad is recommended for action games, and the mouse is useful for visual novels and strategy games.
Without its ROMs, the emulator will not start. The first five files are mandatory, the .wav samples are optional.
| File name | Description | Emulators |
|---|---|---|
np2kai/bios.rom |
Machine BIOS (mandatory) | NP2kai |
np2kai/font.rom |
Japanese font ROM (mandatory) | NP2kai |
np2kai/font.bmp |
Fallback font as a bitmap image (mandatory) | NP2kai |
np2kai/itf.rom |
ITF initialisation firmware (mandatory) | NP2kai |
np2kai/sound.rom |
Sound board ROM (mandatory) | NP2kai |
np2kai/2608_bd.wav |
YM2608 rhythm sample — bass drum (optional) | NP2kai |
np2kai/2608_sd.wav |
YM2608 rhythm sample — snare drum (optional) | NP2kai |
np2kai/2608_hh.wav |
YM2608 rhythm sample — hi-hat (optional) | NP2kai |
np2kai/2608_rim.wav |
YM2608 rhythm sample — rim shot (optional) | NP2kai |
np2kai/2608_tom.wav |
YM2608 rhythm sample — tom (optional) | NP2kai |
np2kai/2608_top.wav |
YM2608 rhythm sample — top cymbal (optional) | NP2kai |
Place your BIOS files like this:
/recalbox/share/bios/np2kai/
├── bios.rom
├── font.rom
├── font.bmp
├── itf.rom
├── sound.rom
├── 2608_bd.wav
├── 2608_sd.wav
├── 2608_hh.wav
├── 2608_rim.wav
├── 2608_tom.wav
└── 2608_top.wav
Several versions of each file are in circulation, dumped from different models of the range. Recalbox knows several MD5 values per file and does not enforce the checksum: a dump the BIOS checker does not recognise may still work fine.
The six
2608_*.wavfiles are the rhythm samples of the Yamaha YM2608 chip. Without them the machine boots and games run: only the percussion of the soundtrack is missing.
Put your games in:
/recalbox/share/roms/pc98/
Accepted extensions:
| Type | Extensions |
|---|---|
| Floppy disk | .2hd .88d .98d .bin .d88 .d98 .dcp .dcu .dd6 .dd9 .ddb .dup .fdd .fdi .fim .flp .h01 .hd4 .hd5 .hd9 .hdb .hdm .nfd .tfd .xdf |
| Hard disk | .hdd .hdi .hdn .hds .nhd .slh .thd .vhd |
| CD-ROM | .ccd .cdm .cue .img .iso .mds .nrg |
| Disk list | .m3u |
| Archive | .zip .7z |
A few pointers about these formats:
.fdi, .d88, .hdm and .xdf are the floppy formats you will meet most often;.hdi is a hard disk image, handy for games that install under MS-DOS and for compilations;.cmd extension is also accepted by the core;.zip and .7z archives run without being extracted.Most PC-98 games span two floppy disks or more. Create an
.m3ufile listing the images in order, one per line, and launch that.m3u: disk swapping is then done from the RetroArch Disk menu.