website/content/museum/fujitsu-fm-16-beta.md

title, categories, types, origins, years, cpus, params

title	categories	types	origins	years	cpus	params
Fujitsu FM 16 Beta	Computers	Home Computer	Japan	1983	Intel 8086 &amp	name company company_name specs oc_id source FM 16 Beta /companies/fujitsu Fujitsu label value NAME FM 16 Beta label value MANUFACTURER Fujitsu label value TYPE Home Computer label value ORIGIN Japan label value YEAR 1983 label value KEYBOARD Full-stroke keyboard label value CPU Intel 8086 & Zilog Z80A label value SPEED 8 Mhz label value RAM up to 2 MB label value VRAM Unknown label value ROM Unknown label value TEXT MODES Unknown label value GRAPHIC MODES 640x400 label value COLORS 16 label value SOUND Unknown label value SIZE / WEIGHT Unknown label value I/O PORTS Unknown label value BUILT IN MEDIA 2 x 5.25'' disk drives label value OS CP/M 86. optional: CP/M 2.2, MS-DOS 1.1 (proprietary version), Concurrent CP/M 86,, PICK label value POWER SUPPLY Built-in PSU label value PERIPHERALS Monochrome or colour monitor, 1 to 2 MB expansion RAM card (about $1,000/MB), SCSI 13 MB hard disk ($1300) label value PRICE About $3,300 with colour monitor, 128 KB RAM and two DS/DD 5.25'' floppy drives 382 url date https://web.archive.org/web/20230605124638/http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=382 2023-06-05

The model number was FM-16s, and it was sold in the USA from about 1983 to around 1985.

It had dual processors on daughter boards, one with a Zilog Z-80a and the other with an i8086 on a true 16-bit bus. Hard drives were external, connecting through a SCSI host adapter. The machine could have up to 2MB of RAM on a proprietary expansion card, and ran at 8MHz. It had a 640x480 16 color display and 104 keys keyboard.

CP/M-86, WordStar, SuperCalc and the C/PM-86 operating system were bundled with the basic purchase; but the FM-16 could also run CP/M 2.2, a proprietary version of MS-DOS 1.0, Concurrent CP/M-86 and PICK. If all were installed in partitions on the hard drive, you had a choice of OS at boot time.

Ron Edelstein adds:
Actually, the FM-16s had a video of 640x400 (not 480). It was a double-scanned format using 16 colours. Much better and sharper than the later IBM EGA standard, even though IBM used 480 lines. Using a proprietary version of MS-DOS, it could run any software not requiring graphics (i.e. text mode). The difference in video prevented it from displaying IBM graphics displays unless they were specifically recompiled for the FM-16s, as were SuperCalc and WordStar.

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