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| Manufacturer | Fujitsu |
|---|---|
| Type | Personal Computer |
| Release date | November 1982; 42 years ago (1982-11) |
| Introductory price | ¥126,000 ($500) |
| Discontinued | April 1984 (1984-04) (original model)[1] |
| Units sold | 220,000 (original model)[1] |
| Media | Cassette tape, 51⁄4-inchfloppy disk |
| Operating system | Fujitsu Disk Basic,OS-9,FLEX |
| CPU | 2×MBL 68B09 clocked at 2MHz |
| Memory | 64KBRAM, 48KBVRAM, 48KBROM |
| Display | 8 colours at 640 × 200 pixel resolution |
| Graphics | MBL 68B09 |
| Sound | AY-3-8910, YM2203 (FM77AV onwards) |
| Input | Keyboard,joystick |
| Dimensions | 43.2 × 28.5 × 10.2 |
| Weight | 4.5 kg |
| Predecessor | FM-8 |
| Successor | FM Towns |
TheFM-7 ("Fujitsu Micro 7") is ahome computer created byFujitsu.[2][3] It was first released in 1982 and was sold inJapan andSpain.[4] It is a stripped-down version of Fujitsu's earlierFM-8 computer,[2] and during development it was referred to as the "FM-8 Jr.".
Although it was designed to be a cut-down version of the FM-8 (with the FM-7 costing 126,000yen, compared to 218,000 yen for the FM-8[2][5]), most notably removing the (expensive)bubble memory technology, the FM-7 was given a more advancedAY-3-8910 sound chip capable of three voice sound synthesis, leading to a strong uptake among the hobbyist computer market in Japan and making it a more popular system than the FM-8.
The FM-7 primarily competed with theNEC PC-8801 andSharp X1 series of computers in the early 1980s. It was succeeded by the FM-77 series of computers in 1984, which featured backwards compatibility with the FM-7. The FM-77 series was later succeeded by the 32-bitFM Towns in 1989.
The FM-7 is based around the6809 chip, which was also used in home computers such as theTRS-80 Color Computer andDragon 32/64, as well as severalarcade games.
The included "F-BASIC" is an enhanced version of theColor BASIC language used on the TRS-80 Color Computer. Changes include a different character set that includeskatakana and a fewkanji, the ability to have graphics appear on the default text screen, and several new commands such asBEEP,CONNECT,MON,SYMBOL,INTERVAL,MERGE,RANDOMIZE,SWAP, andTERM. There are also strings forTIME$ andDATE$, which access a temporary built-in internal clock, though if the power is turned off, the time and date are lost.
While F-Basic has commands that Color BASIC does not, most commands featured in both versions of the language operate in exactly the same fashion.
While the BASICEDIT command works the same as on Color BASIC, the cursor position is important on the FM-7: there is a small keypad on the upper-right of the FM-7 with cursor-control keys (arrows, INSERT & DELETE), and wherever the user decides to position the cursor, it will move it there and affect whatever is underneath it.
Both Microsoft and Fujitsu share the copyright on theBASIC.
The FM-7 was sold in Spain as theSecoinsa FM-7. Secoinsa was a electronics supplier toTelefonica, the main Spanish telecom, and was eventually transformed into Fujitsu Spain. It retained an independent R&D department until Fujitsu's 1990 acquisition ofICL.[8] Secoinsa adapted the FM-7 for the Spanish market and specifically for the Spanish government's push towards computers in school, the "Athena Project".[9]
There were several models of the computer:
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