emjej@uokvax.UUCP (09/24/84)
Noted in Sept. 1984 *Byte*, in the "Byte: Japan" column: The Fujitsu FM-77: $850 with one microfloppy drive, $980 with two. Comes with 64K RAM, expandable to 256K. That doesn't count 48K of video RAM. Various expansion cards: Z80 (for antiquarians), RS-232, higher resolution (400*?) graphics, voice input. Two 2MHz 6809s (where have we heard that before?) Runs OS-9 (level not specified; no more than one would expect from *Byte*--I'm surprised they mentioned the machine at all), and comes with Fujitsu's Logo and BASIC. (Sigh; do these run under OS-9? No way to tell from the stuff in *Byte*.) Will we see this in the US? Who knows; perhaps the Japanese have us pegged as people mainly interested in the moosehead offspring of that electronic cash register that started it all and the excuses for operating systems that run on them. (I wish that Fujitsu would bring this machine, along with the FM-7 and FM-11, over here, just to give Tandy a surprise.) I, of course, work for neither Motorola, Fujitsu, nor Microware Systems Corporation (wish wish), nor Tandy Corporation, and certainly not for *Byte*. James Jones