PC-9881

PC-9881
Made for: PC-9800 series
Manufacturer: NEC
Release Date RRP Code JP 198x

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The PC-9881 "Disk Unit" is a set of two 8-inch floppy disk drives for the PC-9801. It is the PC-9800 series equivalent of the earlier PC-8800 series PC-8881 unit (which is largely identical, save for branding).

At the time of PC-9801's launch, the PC-9881 was the only official floppy disk drive available, and it was expensive; several times the price of the computer itself. It is assumed the PC-9881 can read all 8-inch disk formats, the highest being the (double sided) single density disk ("2D"), which when formatted for the PC-9801, could store 1.2MB of data.

PC-9801 games distributed on 8-inch floppy disk are rare, as the format was displaced within the year with 5¼-inch drives, first seen in the PC-9801 F. While these initial 5¼-inch drives could only store 640KB of data, most games of the era did not require this much space, so it was worthwhile trade-off when also considering the lower manufacturing costs.

8-inch drives were never built into any PC-9800 series computers, so the PC-9881 remained the only official option for loading 8-inch floppy disks. Revisions were released as the PC-9881K and PC-9881N, though the differences are not currently known.

NEC sold PC-9881s in two configurations; one with the drives facing left, and another facing right.

References

PC-9800 series hardware
PC-9800 series Desktop hardware
PC-9801 (1982) | PC-9801 F (E) (1983) | M (1984) V30 Computers: U | VF | VM (21) | UV (21) | CV (1985-1988) 286 Computers: VX | UX | RX | EX | DX | UR | UF (1986-1991) 386 Computers: RA | RS | ES | DA | DS | CS | FS | FX | US (1988-1992) 486+ Computers: FA | BX | BA | BX2 | BS2 | BA2 | BA3 | BX3 | BX4 | BX4-P (1993-1995) Other: DO | DO+ | GS (1989-1990)
PC-9800 series Laptop hardware
V30 Computers: PC-9801 LV (1988) 286 Computers: PC-9801 LX (1989) 386 Computers: PC-9801 LS (1988) | PC-9801 T (1990-1991) V50 Computers(9801 Incompatible): PC-98LT (1986) | PC-98HA (1993) Other: PC-9801 P (1993)
PC-9800 series Notebook hardware
V30 Computers: PC-9801 N (1989) V30HL(286) Computers: PC-9801 NV (1990-1991) | PC-9801 NL/(R)(A) (1992-1994) 386 Computers: PC-9801 NC (1991) | PC-9801 NS/(E)(T)(L)(R)(A) (1990-1994) 486 Computers: PC-9801 NA/(C) (1992) | PC-9801 NX/C (1993)
PC-9800 series Workstation hardware
286 Computers: PC-98XA (1985) | PC-98XL (1986) 386 Computers: PC-98XL² (1987) | PC-98RL (1990)
PC-9800 series Peripherals
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