This NEC laptop (1983) was donated by Jim Cottrell of North Kingstown Rhode Island.

The first member of the PC-8000 series, the PC-8001 was first introduced on May 9, 1979, and went on sale in September 1979. Its design combines the keyboard and the mainboard into a single unit. At a time when most microcomputers were sold as "semi-kits" requiring end user assembly, the fully assembled PC-8001 was a rarity in the market. Peripherals included a printer, a cassette tape storage unit, and a CRT interface. Although it is often believed to be the first domestically produced personal computer for the Japanese market, it was preceded by both the Hitachi Basic Master and the Sharp MZ-80K.

The 8201's 32 KB ROM contained the operating system, Microsoft BASIC interpreter, a simple text-editing program and a telecommunication program. It could display the full 128 ASCII character set as well as Japanese Katakana characters and 61 user-definable characters.