【NEC】 NEC System 100/58, 150/68, 150/78

In April 1984, NEC announced their NEC System 100/58, 150/68 and 150/78, which were the first office computers (*) in Japan to use 32-bit processors. (* Office computers are small business computers used in offices.)

The main features of these machines were:

1) For their central processing unit, they employed 32-bit processors with 24,000 gates (the equivalent of 87,000 transistors) realized using CMOS custom LSI. This custom LSI had a density 3 times that of the 8086, and achieved a processing speed twice that of previous processors from NEC in terms of the arithmetic speed of the processor. Furthermore, the component count of the central processing unit was reduced to one third that of previous models (1/4 in terms of the number of packages), and this improved reliability and enabled greater miniaturization.
2) At the time, there was a growing shift toward office automation (OA), and to handle the diverse range of applications in offices, these systems were designed to enable configuration of composite systems involving connection with OA devices such as OCR, telephone terminals, industrial data terminals, POS and PBX, and had many features to enable integrated systems with personal computers connected with a host computer using a local area network (LAN). More specifically, they had a virtual remote workstation function to enable use of workstations from other systems as workstations within the system, and a remote file access function to enable use of file devices of other systems as file devices within the system.

NEC System 100/58, 150/68, 150/78 Specifications
Item NEC System 100/58 NEC System 150/68 NEC System 150/78
Announced April 1984
Processor 32bit processor
Max. memory capacity 1MB 2MB 4MB
Workstation Connected units Max. 8 Max. 16 Max. 24
CRT 14inch (monochrome, color)
Alphanumeric and kana 2,000char, Japanese language 1,000char (Minchotai)
Keyboard Keyboard (JIS layout), touch-key board
Floppy disk 1MB/drive x2
Magnetic disk (8 inch) Capacity 63/125MB/unit 63/125MB/unit 125MB/unit
Connected units 2 4 8
Cartridge magnetic tape Approx. 30MB/reel
Magnetic tape 9track type
Serial printer Japanese language type 40/70char/s, Minchotai
Alphanumeric/kana type 35/100/200char/s
Japanese language printer 100line/min, Minchotai
Japanese language office printer 6sheet/min (A4, 3LPI), thermal transfer type
Line printer 200/400/600line/min
Communication capabilities Number of lines Max. 8 lines Max. 16 lines
Line types Public/Dedicated communication line
DDX line exchange/packet exchange service
Protocols NEC standard protocol, BSC protocols, JCA protocols, HDLC/SDLC protocols
Local area network C&C-NET BRANCH4670
Operating systems ITOS-4(V)
Database Relational database (ITOS-RDB)
Languages COBOL, SMART , FORTRAN
OA utilities PRISM-NWPCPRISM-GRAPHCPALET
Applications APLIKA (applications for different tasks and work types)

 
NEC System 100/58NEC System 150/78