they devoted all their energies to the project. In January 1979, Goto submitted the first mass production request to New Nippon Electric. They were sure the product would sell, but planned to educate and increase dealers little by little. Success in Japan The PC-8001 was introduced on May 9, 1979, and its prototype went to the public at the held from May 16 to 19 at the Tokyo Ryūtsū Center. Soon after the exposition, NEC received thousands of orders. It took half a year to ship about 10,000 backorders after shipment began on September 20, 1979. By 1981, it dominated 40% of the Japanese personal computer market. About 250,000 units were shipped until production stopped in January 1983. NEC also succeeded in expanding their personal computer chain in Japan. The chain owned 7 stores in 1979, 15 stores in 1980, more than 100 stores in 1981, and reached 200 stores by 1983. The PC-8001 sold well in the educational market because NEC advertised that the PC-8001 used the industrial standard of Microsoft BASIC. Kanagawa Prefectural Chigasaki Nishihama High School was the first futsu-ka school (upper secondary schools with a focus on a common course) to purchase PC-8001 computers (buying 17 units) and started teaching programming as an elective subject in 1981. In April 1982, NHK Educational TV started the television program "" using the PC-8001. Its textbook "" sold 700,000 copies. PC-8001mkII A higher-performance, more graphically capable revision of the PC-8001, the Mark II debuted in March 1983 for a price of 123,000 yen. While its most obvious improvement was in its graphical capabilities, the Mark II also included an internal 5.25" floppy disk interface as well as two internal expansion slots, doing away with the need for an "expansion box" to permit upgrades. The internal BASIC was changed as well, from the 24KB N-BASIC to a 32KB "N80-BASIC" that added new conditional statements as well as graphics commands. While the price of the PC-8001mkII was comparable with other 8-bit computer offerings at the time, its graphics were notably worse than its competitors (most likely an attempt on NEC's part to avoid competing with their own, higher-powered PC-8800 series). This led to a relative dearth of software produced for it, particularly games. PC-8001mkIISR A games-oriented revision of the PC-8001mkII with significantly better graphics and sound, making its debut in January 1985 for 108,000 yen. The mkIISR increased the frame-buffer memory