PC Open Architecture Developers' Group: Difference between revisions

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[[File:Logo of the PC Open Architecture Developers' Group.png|thumb|Other logo]]

'''PC Open Architecture Developers' Group''' ('''OADG''', Japanese: {{lang|ja|PCオープン・アーキテクチャー推進協議会}}) is a consortium of the major Japanese personal computer manufacturers. Sponsored by [[IBM]] during the 1990s, it successfully guided Japan's [[personal computer]] manufacturing companies at that time into standardising to an [[IBM PC]]-compatible and [[open architecture]].

==History==

Before the advent of the [[IBM PC]] in 1981 in the United States, there were many different varieties and designs of personal computer. Examples from that era include the Tandy [[RadioShack]] and [[Commodore International|Commodore]]. These machines were each based upon a different computer architecture and the software programs that ran on them were compatible only with the machine they had been designed for. In Japan, except for the [[MSX]], this situation continued well into the early 1990s, because three of Japan's major electronics manufacturers (NEC, Sharp and Fujitsu) had also designed their own unique personal computers; although [[NEC]] with its [[NEC 9801PC-98]] was at that time the most successful.<ref name="Boyd_1997"/>

The American computer manufacturer [[IBM]] had entered the Japanese market with its own [[IBM 5550]] computer. Japanese-language-capable computers at the time, however, had special requirements in terms of processor capability and screen size, and IBM's [[IBM JX|JX]] project, emphasizing compatibility with the IBM PC, enjoyed limited success. The whole situation was felt by many to be hindering the healthy growth of the Japanese computer industry, particularly since domestic and overseas software vendors had to develop, test and support many different software programs to run on the many different kinds of personal computers sold in Japan.