Events and Sightings

History of Computers Exhibition at Hiroshima City Library

The Hiroshima City Library held an exhibition on the history of computers from March to May 2011 that displayed approximately 100 computers and 100 computer books (Figure 1). This was the first show in Japan to have both computers and books on computers at the same exhibition.

The exhibition was sponsored by the Hiroshima City Library and cosponsored by Hiroshima City University, in cooperation with the Information Processing Society of Japan's Special Committee for the History of Computing. Many other organizations such as museums and universities supported the exhibition and lent artifacts as well.

This was a wonderful opportunity to learn about Japanese personal computers since the exhibit included a timeline of development and showcased most major PC models. Japanese personal computers have a unique history because they had to be specially designed to handle the Japanese language. They were equipped with special ROM for processing Japanese, including kanji. Improvements in microprocessor performance made it possible to use software to handle Japanese, and a specially equipped operating system was developed for this purpose at the end of the 1980s.

The artifacts exhibited included mechanical calculators, electronic calculators, personal computers, supercomputer boards, videogames, recording media, and network equipment. Most of the exhibits were of Japanese origin, but some overseas products were also exhibited. The exhibition also incorporated a demonstration booth that gave visitors hand-on access to mechanical calculators, laptop PCs, and videogames (see Figure 2). The systems in this booth included Nintendo's Breakout and the Puyopuyo (Puyo Pop in overseas), which was developed by Compile Co. in Hiroshima in 1991, as well as Sega and Sony game machines.

The major exhibits ranged from mechanical calculators to supercomputer boards. For example, the Jido Soroban (automatic abacus), ¹ the oldest Japanese calculator manufactured by Yazu Ryoich in 1904, and four Tiger calculators manufactured in 1950s and 1960s were on display (see Figure 1c). The Tiger calculator is a typical Japanese mechanical calculator that Omoto Torajiro developed in 1923. It became so common that "Tiger" became synonymous with the mechanical calculator in Japan. The world's first 10-key electronic calculator, the Canon's Canola 130 introduced in 1964, was also showcased, along with smaller electronic calculators manufactured in 1970s by Casio and Sharp.

Additional display cases contained microcomputer board training kits, including those for the NEC TK-80 (1976), Hitachi H68/TR (1977), and Fujitsu Lkit 8 (1977) as well as 8-, 16-, and 32-bit personal computers. Hitachi launched the 8-bit personal computer Basic Master Level 1 in 1978. The exhibited models were the Basic Mater Level 2 (1980), NEC PC 8001 (1979), and Sharp MZ 700 (1982). Toshiba's Pasopia 7 and Sony's SMC 777, the first PC equipped with 3.5-inch floppy disk drives, were sold in 1983.

In 1983 ASCII and Microsoft proposed an 8-bit home-use PC standard MSX. Matsushita, Sony, and other home appliance makers subsequently sold PCs

Figure 1.

Hiroshima City Library History of Computers Exhibition. (a) The library in downtown Hiroshima, Japan, held (b) its exhibition from March to May 2011. (c) This was the first exhibit in Japan to display both computer artifacts and books on computers.

Figure 2.

Demonstration booths. The Hiroshima City Library History of Computers Exhibition included demonstrations of (a) early laptop PCs Toshiba J-3100SGT and J-3100GT-SX and (b) the videogames Puyopuyo and Nintendo's Breakout.

based on MSX standard, including the Matsushita MSX PC FS-4000 (1985) and Sony's HB-F1 XDJ (1989), which was based on the MSX2+ standard (an upgraded version of MSX).

In 1987, NEC and Fujitsu announced 32-bit desktop PCs. Fujitsu's FM-Towns announced in 1988 was the first machine in the world equipped standard with a CD-ROM drive. NEC's 98 MULTi CanBe was a multimedia PC sold in 1995.

Epson's HC-20 (HX-20 in overseas) with two 8-bit CPUs sold in 1982 and is generally considered the first handheld computer, although it was about A4 size...