History Platform / FMTowns

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/fm_towns_marty_console_set.png]]
[[caption-width-right:350:The FM Towns Marty]]

The Japanese electronics and telecommunications company Fujitsu first entered the personal computer market in 1981, but their impact on the 1980s Japanese computer market was fairly small, despite the marginal success of their 8-bit home computer Platform/FM7. In 1989, Fujitsu introduced the '''FM Towns''', a state-of-the-art 32-bit computer which took its name from Nobel Prize winner Charles Hard Townes.[[note]]("Townes" was the unit's [[WorkingTitle code name while under development]]. The "e" was dropped to make the pronunciation clear.)[[/note]] The FM Towns was one of the most powerful PC platforms released up until then, rivaled only by the UsefulNotes/SharpX68000 (which had better graphics, but weaker audio and multimedia capabilities).

Advertised as a "hypermedia personal computer," the Towns retained compatibility with Fujitsu's FMR series of MS-DOS business computers, but offered many more features, including a 32-bit Intel CPU, 32,768 simultaneous colors (like the Sharp X68000, but unlike the more popular UsefulNotes/PC98) out of a 16.78 million color palette, and a built-in CD-ROM drive. Indeed, the system's graphical operating system, [=TownsOS=], booted straight from a CD. The FM Towns, being more expensive than the PC-98, was marketed to high-income households and educational institutions, and thus its market niche in early-1990s Japan became somewhat similar to that occupied by the UsefulNotes/AppleMacintosh in Western countries.

The FM Towns was ultimately discontinued in 1997. In a reverse of what happened with the UsefulNotes/PC98 where the platform folded back into the main UsefulNotes/IBMPersonalComputer platform, the FM Towns machines gradually lost their uniqueness as PC hardware caught up and Fujitsu gradually co-opted PC standard hardware while throwing out their unique graphic and sound chipset under the bus (compatiblity is still maintained for older software, but developers were encouraged to develop for Windows 95 in general instead. Indeed, on the last FM Towns machines, the dedicated sound and video chipset was compressed into a single PCI card, meaning anyone with access to said card can theoretically turn any PC into a FM Towns machine). FM Towns machines too ran Windows 95 by the time they were discontinued.

The Japanese electronics and telecommunications company Fujitsu first entered the personal computer market in 1981, but their impact on the 1980s Japanese computer market was fairly small, despite the marginal success of their 8-bit home computer UsefulNotes/FM7. In 1989, Fujitsu introduced the '''FM Towns''', a state-of-the-art 32-bit computer which took its name from Nobel Prize winner Charles Hard Townes.[[note]]("Townes" was the unit's [[WorkingTitle code name while under development]]. The "e" was dropped to make the pronunciation clear.)[[/note]] The FM Towns was one of the most powerful PC platforms released up until then, rivaled only by the UsefulNotes/SharpX68000 (which had better graphics, but weaker audio and multimedia capabilities).

The FM Towns was ultimately discontinued in 1997. In a reverse of what happened with the UsefulNotes/PC98 where the platform folded back into the main UsefulNotes/IBMPersonalComputer platform, the FM Towns machines gradually lost their uniqueness as PC hardware caught up and Fujitsu gradually co-opted PC standard hardware while throwing out their unique graphic and sound chipset under the bus (compatiblity is still maintained for older software, but developers were encouraged to develop for Windows 95 in general instead). FM Towns machines too ran Windows 95 by the time they were discontinued.