【NEC】 98NOTE SX

In May 1990, NEC marketed the 98NOTE SX as a high-end version of the 98NOTE notebook computer. The 98NOTE SX came in two models: the PC-9801NS (a floppy disk model) and the PC-9801NS-20 (a hard disk model). Its main feature was that it was the first notebook computer in Japan equipped with a 32-bit microprocessor.

Features

  1. Since these machines used the 386SX (with a clock frequency of 12megahertz) for their CPU, processing speed was improved to about double that of the 98NOTE. It was also possible to run 32-bit compatible software such as Japanese-language version MS-WINDOWS/386.
  2. The hard disk model was equipped with a 2.5-inch hard disk drive with a capacity of 20 megabytes, so it was possible to process large volumes of data at high speed, and multiple software applications could be efficiently managed.
  3. Both the floppy disk model and hard disk model had one built-in 1-megabyte 3.5-inch floppy disk drive and one 1.25-megabyte RAM drive with capacity corresponding to a single floppy disk drive, so they could both be used like a model equipped with two floppy disk drives. If the RAM drive was not used, the memory for the RAM drive could be used as 1 megabyte of user memory.
  4. Significant reductions in weight were achieved to bring the floppy disk model to 2.8kilograms, and the hard disk model to 2.95 kilograms. This was done by using 4-megabit DRAM, a slim type floppy disk drive, display and keyboard, and a compact 2.5-inch hard disk drive.

  
98NOTE SX (PC-9801NS)