In March 1984, NEC entered the personal word processor market, by announcing the NEC personal Japanese Language word processor PWP-100, employing the M System keyboard.
This product aimed to simplify the input method and improve input speed for text with a mix of kanji (Chinese characters) and kana (Japanese phonetic letters) -- a key issue for Japanese language word processors at the time. The PWP-100 employed a new input system (the M System keyboard) developed in March 1983 by Morita Masasuke, a special consultant to NEC. It was an integrated, dedicated machine which incorporated a 12-inch CRT display, a 3.5-inch floppy disk drive, and a dot-matrix printer in a single console. The sale price for the whole system was 349,800 yen, and the price without a printer was 252,500yen. This was the first time in Japan that a dedicated machine with a CRT display achieved a price at the 300,000 level. This in turn was due to the reduced size and cost of components, such as electronic devices like 1-megabit mask ROM and the micro floppy disk.
| Main unit | Input system | New Japanese language input system (M System) |
|---|---|---|
| Display capabilities | 12inch (non-glare type CRT tube) Number of displayed characters: 80char. (40char. x 20lines) Character configuration: 16x16dot |
|
| Memory capacity | 3.5-inch micro floppy disk drive Floppy for documents: Max. 32 documents Capacity per document: 252lines (When using 50% kanji and 60% of each line) |
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| Dictionary function | Number of words: Approx. 35,000 Number of user stored brevity codes: Max. 128 |
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| External dimensions (Units: mm) | Main unit:370(W)x301(H)x366(D) Keyboard:392(W)x58(H)x208(D) |
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| Weight | Approx. 9.9kg, Keyboard: Approx. 1.4kg | |
| Power consumption | Approx. 45W | |
| Printer PC-PR103 |
printing system | Dot-matrix system |
| Dot configuration | 16x16dot (printing using bit image) | |
| Print speed | 92characters/s (HS Pica characters) | |
| Printed characters per line | 80characters/line (HS Pica characters) | |
| Paper width | 4.5-10inchs | |
| Interface | Conformed to Centronix specifications | |
| External dimensions (mm) | 352(W)x87(H)x255(D) | |
| Weight | 6kg | |
| Power consumption | Standby: 15W; During operation: Max. 59W |
