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NEC PC-8800

The NEC PC-8800 (a.k.a. PC-88) line is a series of computers developed by NEC between 1981 and 1989. It has a fairly long model list.

The PC-8800 series sold extremely well and became one of the three major Japanese home computers of the 1980s.

This system scrapes metadata for the “pc88” group and loads the pc88 set from the currently selected theme, if available.

Quick reference

BIOS

MD5 checksum Share file path Description
4f984e04a99d56c4cfe36115415d6eb8 bios/quasi88/N88.ROM
793f86784e5608352a5d7f03f03e0858 bios/quasi88/N88SUB.ROM
2ff07b8769367321128e03924af668a0 bios/quasi88/N88N.ROM
d675a2ca186c6efcd6277b835de4c7e5 bios/quasi88/N88EXT0.ROM
e844534dfe5744b381444dbe61ef1b66 bios/quasi88/N88EXT1.ROM
6548fa45061274dee1ea8ae1e9e93910 bios/quasi88/N88EXT2.ROM
fc4b76a402ba501e6ba6de4b3e8b4273 bios/quasi88/N88EXT3.ROM

ROMs

Place your NEC PC-8800 ROMs in /userdata/roms/pc88.

Emulators

RetroArch

RetroArch (formerly SSNES), is a ubiquitous frontend that can run multiple “cores”, which are essentially the emulators themselves. The most common cores use the libretro API, so that's why cores run in RetroArch in Batocera are referred to as “libretro: (core name)”. RetroArch aims to unify the feature set of all libretro cores and offer a universal, familiar interface independent of platform.

RetroArch configuration

RetroArch offers a Quick Menu accessed by pressing [HOTKEY] + South button (B SNES) which can be used to alter various things like RetroArch and core options, and controller mapping. Most RetroArch related settings can be altered from Batocera's EmulationStation.

Standardized features available to all libretro cores: pc88.videomode, pc88.ratio, pc88.smooth, pc88.shaders, pc88.pixel_perfect, pc88.decoration, pc88.game_translation

ES setting name batocera.conf_key Description ⇒ ES option key_value
Settings that apply to all cores of this emulator
GRAPHICS API pc88.gfxbackend Choose which graphics API library to use. Vulkan is better, when supported.
⇒ OpenGL opengl, Vulkan vulkan.
AUDIO LATENCY pc88.audio_latency In milliseconds. Can reduce crackling/cutting out.
⇒ 256 256, 192 192, 128 128, 64 64, 32 32, 16 16, 8 8.
THREADED VIDEO pc88.video_threaded Improves performance at the cost of latency and more video stuttering.
⇒ On true, Off false.

libretro: QUASI88

QUASI88 は、UNIX + X Window System ないし UNIX + SDL の環境で動作する PC-8801 エミュレータです。 (it is in Japanese, understandably)

QUASI88 is a PC-8801 emulator by Showzoh Fukunaga licensed under the BSD 3-Clause license.

This is the libretro port of it.

It is a WIP port with the following issues:

  • No tape loading support yet.
  • Can't load BIOS files from multiple possible filenames.
  • Some keys are not mapped to the libretro keyboard.
libretro: quasi88 configuration
ES setting name batocera.conf_key Description ⇒ ES option key_value
Settings that apply to all systems this core supports
PC MODEL global.q88_basic_mode
⇒ N88 BASIC V2 N88 V2, N88 BASIC V1H N88 V1H, N88 BASIC V1S N88 V1S, N BASIC N.
CPU CLOCK global.q88_cpu_clock Slow down or speed up games as appropriate.
⇒ 1 MHz (Underclock) 1, 2 MHz (Underclock) 2, 4 MHz (NEC uPD780) 4, 8 MHz (NEC uPID7008) 8, 16 MHz (Overclock) 16, 32 MHz (Overclock) 32, 64 MHz (Overclock) 64.
EMULATE PCG-8100 global.q88_pcg-8100 Required for some games.
⇒ Off disabled, On enabled.

Controls

Here are the default NEC PC-8800's controls shown on a Batocera RetroPad:

Troubleshooting

Further troubleshooting

For further troubleshooting, refer to the generic support pages.

  • systems/pc88.txt
  • Last modified: 16 months ago
  • by atari