In 1978, after defying criticism from NEC’s Information Processing Group, Kazuya Watanabe, chief engineer Tomio Gotō, and the staff of the Semiconductor Sales Division began a secret project to create Japan’s first mass-market personal computer.

Inspired by the increasing popularity of the TK-80 single-board kit and supported by an early partnership with Microsoft for the N-BASIC programming language, the team debuted the project in 1979 as the PC-8001. The computer was an immediate success.

From then on, whether it was a student studying with the PC-6001, an animation studio using the PC-8801, or a finance corporation using the PC-9801, NEC largely controlled the PC market in Japan throughout the 80s and 90s.

At the same time, metropolitan districts such as Tokyo’s Akihabara and Osaka's Nipponbashi transformed into the destination for multi-story micom shops (マイコンショップ) filled with computers, peripherals, and software.

Four decades later, the original hardware is vulnerable to aging capacitors, corrosive batteries, non-functioning drives, and failed power supplies. Without intervention, many of these computers risk further damage or being lost entirely.

Based in Southern California, MICOM-MINMAY was founded to combine the meticulous standards of NEC engineering with the spirit of late Shōwa micom showrooms. The mission is to deliver fully overhauled and tested vintage NEC microcomputers, ensuring these historic machines remain fully operational for future generations to experience.