Panasonic JR-200

The Panasonic JR-200^[1][2] (Panasonic Personal Computer (PPC)) was a simple, relatively early (1983), 8-bit home computer with a chiclet keyboard somewhat similar to the VTech Laser 200. It's part of the JR Series.

Made of silver grey plastic, it had a black matte area around the keyboard area. Most of the 63 rubber chiclet keys were grey, with some (the more important) keys in marine blue, and with white control and break keys. Each of the grey keys could produce any of five inputs: Upper and lower-case letters (or numbers and symbols), two graphic characters (similar to the graphic symbols of PETSCII), and a BASIC keyword. Two keys, ALPHA and GRAPH, are used to switch back and forth between character and graphics modes. Holding down the CONTROL key while pressing any grey key produced a BASIC keyword. In total the JR-200 had 253 built-in characters. 96 letters, numbers and symbols, 5 Greek letters, 63 graphical symbols, 79 Japanese (katakana) symbols and 10 music and other symbols. All symbols formed in an 8x8 pixel matrix, and the JR-200 could display 32 characters per line and 24 lines. All relevant keys would auto-repeat when pressed continuously.

The JR-200 used a very unusual 8-bit CPU, the MN1800A, which was compatible with the Motorola MC6802, a slightly improved version of the Motorola 6800. It ran at a slow 0.89 MHz (according to unconfirmed information). There is also a second processor, the 4-bit MN1544CJR,^[3] which is used for I/O and contains 128 bytes of RAM plus four kilobytes of ROM.

A version of the JR-200 called the Panasonic JR-200U was developed for the North American and European markets and was announced in January 1983.^[4]