Emulator archive: home page / alternative download: emulation level: Excellent, including HD & CD ROM support and an impressive set of configuration tools.

NEC PC-88 Page last updated on 03 September 2017 The PC-88 was a line of Z80 based PCs released only in Japan by the NEC Corporation. The first one of them, the PC-8801, was launched in 1981. There were a lot of models for this line, a good and extensive summary can be found. The main OS for these machines was the BASIC (included with the PC itself), but a very primitive version of MS-DOS and CP/M (the latter supplied with the game Zork) were also available for use. EMULATORS M88: maybe the most used emulator for the PC-88. It’s open source and it’s the only emulator that supports CD emulation so far. • • • • • • • • • This unofficial build improves the original M88 in many ways, adding a lot of useful features like antialising, quick volume adjustment with mousewheel and scaling options.

Check it out. • • An upgrade to the M88 latest unofficial build.

If you want to upgrade from the previous version, it’s sufficient to replace the.exe file with the new one contained in this archive.Also, this version of the emulator supports the (click on the link to download). To enable it, edit M88.ini and add the following line: FMGenDll=mamefm.dll • An upgrade to the latest unofficial build. You need to add the ENHANCED=1 line in M88.ini file. Also, CPU speed is specified in Khz instead of Mhz. • with a preconfigured setup, addon modules, FDD seek sounds, non ASPI CD drivers, patches and utilities. • with a preconfigured setup, addon modules, FDD seek sounds, non ASPI CD drivers, patches and utilities.

• with a base preconfigured setup, FM DLL, non ASPI CD drivers. • with a base preconfigured setup and some help files in English. NEW • Contributed by Kobushi. • PC88 WIN: a very old and outdated emulator. However, it can be useful to run some games that M88 won’t run. • QUASI88: a very good, accurate and complete open source emulator with some great debug functions.It got ported on the PSP too. Unfortunately, it’s in Japanese only.

To make it work, you must put your BIOS files in the ROM folder and rename them in this way: FONT.ROM = Font rom N88.ROM = N88 Basic rom (32k) N88KNJ1.ROM = Kanji 1 rom (128k) N88KNJ2.ROM = Kanji 2 rom (128k) N88SUB.ROM = Disk rom (2k or 8k) Please note that the emulator is case sensitive. • • • • Quasi88 is being ported on the Wii by jpzm. The port is still much in the works, but you can download it and follow the progresses on the project’s GitHub. • (version at 25 August 2017: 0.1.1) J80: A Java based emulator focused on the 8001 series.It’s still in development, so check out the project’s often!

The archive contains the emulator plus all the tools listed on the site and a copy of the site’s page (in Japanese). I’ll update the archive along with the updates on the emulator’s main site. • • • 88VA Eternal Grafx: An emulator for the 88VA model.

To be able to save states, just add “Statsave=true” (minus the ” of course) somewhere in the INI file. A new option, named “Stat” will appear between “Replay” and “FDD1” • X88000: An open source emulator focused on the emulation of the old PC-80xx models. It’s tape emulation is far better than the one of M88 and it’s required to play some games. • • • • • • • • • • XM8: A new open source emulator for PC8801MA written on the basis of the ePC-8801MA emulator written. Currently runs on Linux,Windows and Android.

• • Build for all systems and architectures plus source code. Excite88: Another brand new emulator for the very first model of the PC8801, running on Windows (from 7 onwards). However, it’s still in infancy, according to the project’s page notes it runs only tape images in CM8 and T88 format and doesn’t support yet disk images, but it’s a feature that will be present in the future releases of the emulator. Check for updates often. • • PC88SR: One of the very first PC88 emulators ever written, with a lot of nifty functions, like the patch function (which ended up in a M88 unofficial build too). This one runs EXCLUSIVELY on PC98. • • Thanks to Kobushi.

MESS: Standing for “Multiple Emulator Super System”, this ambitious emulator aims to emulate properly a lot of different systems and machines, even the NEC PC88. Since it’s in constant development, i’ll just add the link to the project’s main page. • To run any of these emulator, you’ll need the BIOS files of the machine. I won’t supply them, so don’t ask.

TOOLS D88 Manager: as the name implies, a manager for D88 images. Among the functions, you can protect/unprotect disk images and split D88 files that contain multiple disk images. • D88 Slowinfo & D88 Viewer: Two D88 utilities released by Peter_J. As the name imply, they are tools for analyzing, extracting and editing data on and from.d88 disk images. Instruction and help files are inside the archive. • XDISK: another disk images manager. It supports 88VA images too.

• COLLECTIONS Here is a list of my PC-88 collections. I’ve divided it in several.txt files. Please remember that you will need to be able to read japanese characters in your text editor in order to read them properly.

• A pack containing games, softwares and a lot of documents and extras. All the file names are in western characters. • A collection of recently dumped PC-80 images. • A set of 1240 disk images.

Japanese characters only. • A set of 2220 disk images. • A set of 1840 disk images. • A set of various stuff. A lot of names are in Japanese characters, others are in western characters but with shortened names. • A huge collection of PC-80 and PC-88 games and software.

• A big collection of games that have got their names fully romanized. • The most recent TOSEC set with DAT files • A collection of PC80 stuff. • CD games that I own • A set of D88 images, each filled with old tape games. • Four more PC-88 games, some of them brought from tape to disk. • It’s the most complete PC88 catalogue so far. Japanese language. • It’s the most complete PC88 catalogue so far, collected on a single and nice CD.

Japanese language. • A list of new packs, games, utilities and other PC-80 and PC-88 related material that I’ve found across the net.

This deserves to be made so you guys can be happier! I'll tell you about how to configure the PC-98 emulators for Touhou. If you have any problems with configuring them, let me know and I'll help you out with them as best as I can.

Also please post here about this stuff so I can update this post to make things better! Before you do anything, be sure to download EditDisk, because it's very helpful for English Patches and stuff inside the.hdi files. T98-Next English: This is by far the best emulator for running these games, but it comes with a drawback, it lags like crazy and takes up a lot of RAM space, so make sure you don't have too many things running when you're using this.

Luckily, unlike Anex86, this emulator comes with the font built in so you don't have to worry about that! To work out the lag, there's just a few things to configure. It won't eliminate the lag but it will make it much better since I can't find a way to make it any faster. Go to this link to download it if you don't have it already (it is the English version): When you open it up, it looks kinda confusing. The top button on the left is the power button for the game, on or off.

The second button is some pause thing but doesn't do anything for me. The third restarts the game, the fourth collapses the configuring screen you see, the? Is for help which still doesn't do anything for me, and the last closes Next. Now to fix it up: First, go to Mother Board Setting at the top. Under CPU, Type, it should be i486DX. (This is a later CPU type so it was more recent and better) Set Clock to Auto.

Frame Rate should be at 1.00 and Memory Size at the max: 64 MB. All the Rom stuff should be unchecked I guess. Under Device Manager, choose *GDC.nhw and click Setting. Set Frame Skip to AUTO. At the bottom I also have it display as 32bit and Display at Center. Mess with the Resolution if you want to. The rest should be fine but there are a few things to can do if you want to, so they're optional: Choose @Disk.nhw.

This can be used to open up EditDisk through Next so under the EDIT Button, click browse and choose the EditDisk.exe application. Now in the Main, Disk, HD Drive where the game is, you can click Edit and open EditDisk that way. EDIT #2: What you should have running, for what works for me at the moment, in the device manager is everything but *SCSI4CD.NHW and *SCSI4CDN.NHW. Also, open up @RS232C.NHW and where it has checked Port Setting fixed, un-check that. I have Use Port set to COM1 but I don't know what that is but it's working at the moment. Just disable @RS232C.NHW altogether. It's working way better that way.

It only lags when there is a MASSIVE cluster of bullets, and Mima's final attack if you haven't continued, lags a bit. But she's easy anyway so does it matter? EDIT #1: Enable MPU98.NHW I just figured out that this is the option that lets you change the style of music like in Touhou 2.

Intelligent Mode should be checked, enable Microsoft GS Wavetable Synth in the MIDI Device thing (or whatever yours may say), Sample Rate at 44KHz and Use DirectMusic to Play should be checked. Don't check Swap to MT32. It takes out the MIDI version. EDIT #3: Under Sound86.nhw, there is something to be changed that was apparently a glitch in Next. The Sound Configuration window should have High Quality checked, Sound Buffer at 100 (this may change depending on your computer and could cause less CPU usage, so move it around and see what makes yours faster), and everything should be at 20 EXCEPT for SSG, which should be around 5 (after testing this, it may need to be lower). I have I/O Board address at 188 (but I have no idea what it does yet) and Config Level at INT 5 (don't know what this is either). Thanks to Master Bigode for this tip!

I also compared these to Hoot (now that I figured out what's going on) so this is about right, but I may change this later. EDIT #4: SSG should be at 8. If you want to know how I tested this, check the beginning of page 2 (or post 31) To load up a game, go back to Main, then DISK if it doesn't put you there automatically. Under HD DRIVE, double click the slot by the red box. Locate the Touhou game.hdi file and open it. Run the game by clicking on the first button on the left, described earlier.

And there you go! (Mine says No Information above the game when selected so ignore it) To full screen the game, start up the game (or have that full screen option check to do it for you) press F12 (which brings up this blue menu-like thing, then press F10. The same can be used to un-full screen it. Anex86 This emulator is great with performance, usually.

It doesn't require much RAM space at all, but the sound is not as good. It also has trouble with graphics often, like Sariel on Touhou 1, her bullets flash a lot. Here's how to make it better.

Download it here: Download both files (there should be two listed on the site, one for the emulator, and the other for a font because anex needs a font pic thing to read text for whatever reason) When you got both, make sure you put the ANEX86.bmp image somewhere where you can find it, I suggest the same folder anex is in. Open up ANEX86 and you get something more simple looking than T98-Next and legible. To configure it, click Config. You should get a new window with LOTS of tabs for stuff. I'll start this at Window, so click it. Under Window Fix aspect ratio doesn't need to be checked by default, unless you stretched the emulation window then maybe that would help I would think.

NEVER have Use palette animation checked. Under Window (DirectX required) DirectX should be checked. For Mode, Full screen can be checked to full screen the game when you start it up. (un-full screening the game causes this to uncheck for whatever reason). Use 32 bit color should be checked, Use 640 x 400 doesn't need to be checked since the games are already in that size. Re-initalize on switch didn't do anything for me so leave it unchecked. For Draw, have all of them checked if you can.

Older computers may have trouble with the fast parts checked so experiment for the right speed. For Palette, again NEVER have it checked. Why it's in two places, I don't know. EDIT: This just happened to me. If you're having trouble with fullscreen where it does something freaky, a good fix for this is to deselect use 640 x 400.

This worked for me. Go to Video tab. Update strategy should be set to Sync and the number set to 1. (I believe this is the frame rate).

For misc., NEVER have GDC clock 5MHz checked. I forget what this does and the palette animation does but just don't use them. Real time palette doesn't need to be checked either. Display mode (text): Force text mode doesn't need to be checked along with Display mode (graph): Force graph mode. Disable lo-res should be checked but I don't notice anything but it's good to have that checked anyway. Am I done yapping yet?

Nope, not quite. Next is the Font, so go there. For file name, click the. And find the anex86.bmp font and choose it. It's that easy. Leave the rest as is.

Important Note: There is a better font for the translated English version of Touhou 2 here: Under Timing, just leave those two unchecked and the GDC should both be at one, but I don't think it's using them so whatever. Ignore MEM SW and DIP SW. RTC: I have Refresh checked to keep real time for the emulator.

Fdd/Hdd: I have 1M under FDD interface checked but we're using HDD so you can leave it too. Sound: This one is important so don't skip it. Under type, set it to -86 and check real. For the enable part: just check all of them because it makes the music a bit more decent and adds some more instruments.

Wave: Set Rate/Buffer to the max, 55KHz and set buffer to 16. You may have to move that number around (lower for me makes the music almost not play at all, just bits of it, but see what your computer can handle) What this fixes is Anex's terrible sound delay. Also, have Use wave out checked. The scrollers should all be in the middle, which is fine for me. Under Manager, I don't have anything checked so ignore it. System: Under Machine, check Ext-RAM and it should be at 1,024.

The Processor should be normal and so should be Emulator Priority. I used to have the Speed min checked at 100,000 but I don't need it now (it helps speed it up if the game is running slow) NEVER have Speed max checked under any setting because for some random reason, it drastically makes the game run slow. Keyboard: I have Use Windows's layout and Use DirectX and convert scan code checked. Everything else is unchecked. Mouse: Check Use DirectX. The Capture for Full screen and Windowed make the mouse disappear when in that mode. (when windowed, it only disappears when it's over the game) The Speed for me is at the middle since you don't use the mouse for these games to my knowledge.

JoyStick: use if you've got a joystick, obviously. It's self explanatory but if you've got problems with it, try asking here and someone may be able to help you.

That should be it. Now to run the game, click the. Button by HDD1 back on the small screen you started with and choose your.hdi file, then click Start. Also, don't have either of the check boxes here checked.

To full screen, hold Alt, then press Enter. Same can be used to un-full screen. So there ya go! Again, comment about how it works for you here and what problems you have. There is one more emulator if I recall but I never had any luck with it before so I'll post it in here later if you're actually using it.

It was Neko Project II. I'm not going to, as you can read below, because Touhou doesn't run on it. This was pretty much already covered, even though the thread doesn't have a clear title.

But it's good to have an all-inclusive Howto. Anyway, the buttons on the right side of T98-Next are Power, Sleep/Resume, Reset, Toggle hardware settings, Help, and Quit.

The Sleep/Resume switch is only used for the PC98 version of Windows, it's probably not going to be supported under DOS games. The PC98 had support for, generally used for serial port mice, and a SCSI controller for adding a CDROM or other SCSI devices. These are emulated by the RS232C.NHW and SCSI4CD.NHW/SCSI4CDN.NHW drivers, respectively.

The games don't use these at all. The machines also had (MIDI) ports along with it's standard sound synthesis hardware, so you could plug in an external MIDI synthesizer.

T98-Next emulates this by outputting to whatever MIDI synths are set up in Windows (generally it's built-in software synth) or Timidity++ under Linux, via the MIDI port driver (MPU98.NHW). About the PC98 sound hardware, the -26 and -86 options actually refer to different sound cards available to the PC98. The first uses a FM synth chip, which only has 3 FM channels and 3 SSG (square wave PSG) channels.

The second uses a, which has 6 FM channels, 3 SSG channels, a freely-useable ADPCM channel, and six 'RSG' percussion channels with one preset percussion sound each. IIRC the first two PC98 Touhou games only support the first-generation sound card, so you won't get any changes with -86, but the later games do, and the difference is dramatic. Also, the Anex86 implementation of the -86 sound card lacks the RSG channels, they only seem to work in T98-Next. As far as Anex86 goes, it has a lot of problems working under Wine/Linux so I personally don't use it at all. It also seems to have a lot of odd glitches here and there so I generally don't recommend it for use. An aside, about Anex86, the RTC option is the, which I don't think is necessary for any of the Touhou games.

But a lot of these options are generally just mapping existing hardware in your computer so I don't think it's consuming any real 'resources', as far as being an emulator goes. Ok, I figured out what I was doing wrong with remapping keys in anex86: On keyboard tab, start fresh by pressing Reset, this will reset the options to enable just Window's Layout and Convert Scan Code.

Then press Reset Layout to reset any previous mappings you have on the keyboard below. The default keys are: Player 1 Directionals RTY FGH VBN Actions shot - z bomb - X Player 2 Directionals 789 456 123 Actions shot - left arrow bomb - right arrow esc - pause To correctly remap these keys: First press the key in the anex86 window that you want to move.

Follow this by pressing the physical key on your keyboard where you want to move it. For instance, I want to remap A to S, I would click the A in anex86, then hit the S key on my keyboard. Now if someone could tell me how to do this in T98-next, I would be very grateful. I can remap keys in autohotkey as a last resort, but the emulator should be able to do it. So it's pretty sad they never added such basic functionality. I did see that key setting though, not sure what it does it's all characters that make no sense to me. On another note, even anex86 is buggy with remapping keys.

For instance, I can remap player 2's shot to the B key (because B was never used for anything) and it works fine. But if I go and remap player 1's controls to the arrow keys, it doesn't work. Fe Practice Test With Complete Solutions Montrose. It seems like you can only remap buttons that weren't used before. If anybody figured out anything on being able to do this, please let me know. I see what you mean. I've only tested Touhou 1.

It does the starting animation of the blue circles, then goes back to DOS screen and shows: A>op then sits there indefinitely, no matter what or where I change the settings on it. It sucks, cause I've heard from looking on Google that Neko is a good emulator, when it works. Edit: Well, it looks like all the touhou games do different things.

Touhou 2 shows the above message along with the dreaded red lettered japanese text with STOP in it. 3 Displays the STOP text in WITH the dos screen for running the game, 4 has Himem test extended memory '.done.'

, then sits there, 5 shows only the STOP message. This makes me very sad. The groups that made the emulators should have finished them, not leave them as a work in progress. It just makes me, one day when I'm a programmer, to get together a group and actually finish an emulator for these games (or at least for touhou). I've actually been thinking about this for a long time.

And, while browsing google, I found. I guess I missed that thread the first time through. Quote Hello DOSBox crew! I actually have something to ask of you. I was wondering if you would be able to implement the PC-98 series into DOSBox. The PC-98 is an older, japanese computer, which is very similar to the DOS platform. The PC-98 had only a few extensions added to it to make if run.

The reason I'm asking this is because of the current emulators for PC-98. The one's we have right now will run the game, but not too well. There are three emulators right now for this series. Neko Project II is one of them, but is limited to very old games, so it's kinda useless. Anex86 is a popular emulator in that it maintains the fps decently well, but the music, sound effects, and graphics are very bad.

T98-Next is the emulator that play the music well, and the graphics are good too, but the problem is that it takes up all of the computer's CPU usage, and in turn, slows down the game and the computer. That is why I'm asking you guys if you would like to include PC-98 into the DOSBox platform.

If you are able, that would be great, since we've all had to deal with these problems. Well, we meaning the people that like these games for the emulators. There would be only a few things to modify, since I heard someone was able to run some PC-98 thing in DOSBox and it ran fine. Contact me back, and thanks for listening! Quote Don't think there is much interest within my crew to add it. We tend to add things to dosbox that we like to add and we have no japanese people in our crew so little exposure to the PC98.

I checked the wiki page you linked and it had a link to ROMs and things like that. That is something we don't like very much either. DOSBox is usuable as such, without the need to download a ROM or something like that. The name ROM could be misleading though. One of the problems of the approach of dosbox is that we emulate each instruction at the exact same speed. So games relying on timing using the cpu instructions.

(which I suspect most PC98 are, given the hardware was fixed and not as diverse as the regular PCs) will not run very well inside dosbox. You might indeed have luck by loading a DOS based pc98 emulator inside dosbox if they are already very similar. However on the wikipage: The PC98 is different from the IBM PC in many ways; for instance, it uses its own 16 bit C-Bus instead of the ISA bus; BIOS, I/O port addressing, memory management, and graphics output are also different.

Given that we emulate all those things (aside from the ISA bus), I guess it is not as simple as it appears at first glance. Anyone who tried T98 Next has probably noticed that the bass instruments are way too loud. To fix this, run T98, go to the Device Manager tab and then highlight Sound86.nhw and click on 'Setting'. There, change the volume of the SSG channel to 5. Doing so makes it sound nearly as good as FMDMD, as well as making the music from HRtP sound good. I also recommend increasing the sound buffer value a little, as this decreases the CPU/RAM usage. On T98 Next vs Anex86: T98 is definitely the best emulator for PC-98 touhou games.