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NEC PC8800

pc88

The PC 8800 was a series of 16-bit and 32-bit personal computers released in 1982 by the Nippon Electric Company

Emulator Rom Folder Extension BIOS Files
Quasi88 pc88 .d88 .88d .cmt .t88 N88.ROM, N88SUB.ROM, N88N.ROM, N88EXT0.ROM, N88EXT1.ROM, N88EXT2.ROM, N88EXT3.ROM and optional (N88KNJ1.ROM, N88KNJ2.ROM, N88JISHO.ROM, FONT.ROM)
lr-quasi88 pc88 .d88 .88d .cmt .t88 .m3u n88.rom, n88_0.rom, n88_1.rom, n88_2.rom, n88_3.rom, n88n.rom, disk.rom and optional (n88knj1.rom, n88knj2.rom, n88jisho.rom)

ROMS

Place your PC-88 ROMs in: 

/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/pc88

Accepted File Extensions: .d88 (disk) .88d (disk) .cmt (tape) .t88 (tape) and .m3u (lr-quasi88 only).

BIOS

Place your BIOS files in:

  • Quasi88 
    /home/pi/RetroPie/BIOS/pc88
  • lr-quasi88 
    /home/pi/RetroPie/BIOS/quasi88

At this link you can find information on the BIOS files used by the emulator Quasi88 BIOS File Page

Both emulator use the same BIOS file. lr-quasi88 looks for the same file with an alternate name (2nd column in the list).

File Alternate name SHA1 CRC32 Size
N88.ROM - 3B31FC68FA7F47B21C1A1CB027B86B9E87AFBFFF A0FC0473 32 KB
N88SUB.ROM DISK.ROM BB7103A0818850A039C67FF666A31CE49A8D516F 2158D307 2 KB
N88N.ROM N80.ROM 5B922ED9DE07D2A729BDF1DA7B57C50DDF08809A 27E1857D 32 KB
N88EXT0.ROM N88_0.ROM D239C26AD7AC5EFAC6E947B0E9549B1534AA970D 710A63EC 8 KB
N88EXT1.ROM N88_1.ROM 8528EEF7946EDF6501A6CCB1F416B60C64EFAC7C C0BD2AA6 8 KB
N88EXT2.ROM N88_2.ROM B7C8BCEA219B77D9CC3EE0EFAFE343CC307425D1 AF2B6EFA 8 KB
N88EXT3.ROM N88_3.ROM EFCE0B51CAB9F0DA6CF68507757F1245A2867A72 7713C519 8 KB

Adding the next BIOS files allows the display of Japanese Kanji characters in menus and games:

File Alternate name SHA1 CRC32 Size
N88KNJ1.ROM KANJI1.ROM 82E11A177AF6A5091DD67F50A2F4BAFDA84D6556 6178BD43 128 KB
N88KNJ2.ROM KANJI1.ROM 7E6591CD465CBB35D6D3446C5A83B46D30FAFE95 154803CC 128 KB
N88JISHO.ROM JISYO.ROM DEEF0CC2A9734BA891A6D6C022AA70FFC66F783E
06241085FC1D62D4B2968AD9CDBDADC1E7D7990A		 BD6EB062
856459AF		 512 KB

NOTES

  • the standalone emulator (Quasi88) expects the BIOS filenames to be uppercase, while lr-quasi88 accepts both uppercase and lowercase variants.
  • DISK.ROM may clash with the fMSX's BIOS ROM with the same name, so if you're using lr-quasi88, rename it to N88SUB.ROM.

Emulator: Quasi88

Note that the emulator (and most documentation) is written in Japanese.

Controls

Quasi88 has better keyboard support.
Recommended for:

  • Working in BASIC, DOS or CP/M-86
  • Editing disks or files

By default, Quasi88 uses the keyboard for controls. To enable a game controller using the keyboard:

  • Press F12 to bring up the menu with several tabs at the top
  • Select the mouse tab
  • Click the dropdown that's labelled nomouse and Change it to joystick

Once this is done, the controller is mapped to:

  • Joystick - Number Pad
  • A Button - Z key
  • B button - X key

To exit the emulator, press 3 times F12.

Emulator: lr-quasi88

This emulator has better joystick support.
Recommended for:

  • Games

Controls

lr-quasi88 utilises Retroarch configurations.

Add custom retroarch controls to the retroarch.cfg file in 

/opt/retropie/configs/pc88/retroarch.cfg
For more information on custom RetroArch controls see RetroArch Configuration

By default, lr-quasi88 maps the RetroPad controls to the keys most often used in PC88 games:

PC88 Keyboard RetroPad input
Z B
Space Y
I Select
Enter/Return Start
Numpad Up D-Pad Up
Numpad Right D-Pad Right
Numpad Down D-Pad Down
Numpad Left D-Pad Left
X A

To fully control the mapping, the Device Type for the controller should be changed from Retro Joypad to Retro Keyboard in RetroArch's Controls menu, allowing remapping for each keyboard key. For software/games that use the full set of keyboard keys, it's recommended to use a keyboard and turn on Game Focus mode in RetroArch with the ScrolLock key.

Multiple disks (via menu)

lr-quasi88 can load multi-disk games. Start the game using the 1st disk entry from EmulationStation, then open the RetroArch's menu (with Hotkey + X/F1) and:

  • Go back to the main menu with B
  • Open the Subsystems menu, then choose Load X-Disk Game and browse for the 1st disk
  • Repeat the previous step for loading the 2nd, 3rd, etc. disk from the set
  • After loading all disks, open again Subsystems and choose Start X-Disk Game to start the game with all disks attached

Multiple disks (M3U playlist)

You can create an M3U playlist to easily start the core with multiple disks preloaded instead of using the subsystem interface. Create a text file with the extension .m3u and write the filename of each disk on a new line like in the example below:

 # Ys II (Falcom)
 Ys II (Program disk).d88
 Ys II (Disk A).d88
 Ys II (Disk B).d88
 Ys II (User disk).d88

Cycling between disks

If you've loaded multiple disks, you can hold one of the trigger buttons and use the D-Pad to change the disk that's loaded in each drive. Use L for Drive 1 and R for Drive 2. When the shoulder button is released, the chosen disk will be inserted.

Game specific settings

There are a few Core Options that may need to be changed in order to get a game running. The RetroArch Core Options page has instructions on how to access and change options.

Some notable core options for lr-quasi88:

  • Sub-CPU Mode - setting it to Allways run both CPUs will generally improve emulation speed and may be required for some games (e.g Fire Hawk)
  • CPU Clock - some games will need an increased CPU clock (e.g. Final Crisis works best with 8Mhz)

For a list of other options and how they affect the emulated system, see the Libretro Docs page for lr-quasi88.

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