The PC-6601SR makes two major changes from the PC-6601 - it adds FM sound generation, and it comes as a desktop unit with detachable keyboard. Those are nice features, but I wasn't looking for a PC-6601SR, and if I were to have selected one, I would have preferred the red one, but we all know red is three times more expensive. I got this because it was part of a big lot. There was a lot of stuff not pictured here. A looot of stuff. It was pretty unbelievable, but I've let most of the other stuff go already. The system is a bit scratched up, and the plastic they used for the case is among the cheapest I've seen NEC use, but it does have some cool points to it, for sure. I was relieved as always to see it powered up and the floppy drive worked.

Let's look at some of the software. It has some on ROM, and it came with a system disk as well. If you boot into the ROM software, you are presented with a colorful and uniquely laid-out menu, showing what you can do on the system without a floppy disk.

The PC-6601SR has been described by people other than me as a cheap copy of the Sharp X1. Well, I see their point. It is focused on TV integration, as the X1 is. The dedicated monitor is called a PC-TV151. And like the X1, part of the on-ROM software is a TV timer menu where you can tell it to turn on the TV automatically at the registered times. Much more practically, it also has an on-ROM PC-6601SR (non-disk) BASIC. It is a good way to play around with the talk and play BASIC commands if you're not looking to do anything too serious (or if you are doing something serious, you're planning to save to tape instead of floppy).

If you boot from floppy disk, you are presented with a somewhat familiar menu (very similar to the one on the PC-6001mkIISR). As the PC-6001mkIISR had the menu on ROM and had a fixed number of items that could fit on a single screen, they added a paging feature to the PC-6601SR because it is floppy-based and can potentially have more menu items. The PC-6601SR system diskette comes with a variety of BASICs for backward compatibility, format/backup/conversion utilities, a music editor, a terrible, terrible demo of different animal noises, and hey, a real game! David's Midnight Magic, a pinball game. Not bad.

As I mentioned, it's a bit banged up, but it works, and the photographs minimize some of the surface-level blemishes, so it works okay for the blog! Here are some various views of the machine.

This is the only PC-6000 series computer with a detachable keyboard. It has some unique features - it attaches to the computer by phone receiver cable (I think? RJ-11 maybe?), so if it gets lost or ratty, it can be replaced with an item still commercially available, so that's cool! But it also has and IR port, so if you put batteries in it, you can use it wirelessly. And there are two special buttons - power and a TV/PC switch. The power is so you don't have to lean over the additional 15cm to turn off the main power, and the TV/PC switch is for controlling the display. To control the display, you need to have the purpose-built PC-TV151 display and the TV control cable connected from the PC to the display.

My PC-6601 was thirsty for games, so while I won't hold onto the PC-6601SR forever, I will happily add three of these disks to my collection (I've never been too keen on Volgard).