Matsushita Electric Industrial Co has started marketing the Panacom Pro-note V IBM-compatible notebook computer. The Pro-note V is the first IBM-compatible machine that Matsushita has offered on the Japanese market – until now it has manufactured and sold only personal computers compatible with Fujitsu Ltd’s FMR series – all the leading brands run incompatible versions of Japanese MS-DOS – indicating a major change in strategy as IBM-compatible machines become more acceptable in Japan with the advent of the DOS/V bilingual operating system. The notebooks incorporate an 80386SL chip and a thin film transistor colour screen, and are available at $5,840.
