Hitachi Flora Prius Explained

The Hitachi Flora Prius was a range of personal computers marketed in Japan by Hitachi, Ltd. during the late 1990s.^{[1] [2] [3]}

The Flora Prius was preinstalled with both Microsoft Windows 98 as well as BeOS. It did not, however, have a dual-boot option as Microsoft reminded Hitachi of the terms of the Windows OEM license.^[4] In effect, two thirds of the hard drive was hidden from the end-user, and a series of complicated manipulations was necessary to activate the BeOS partition.^[5]

Models

FLORA Prius 330J came in three models:

• 330N40JB: Base version with no LCD Screen
• 3304ST40JB: Included a 14.1-inch super TFT color LCD Display
• 3304ST40JBT: Included a 14.1-inch super TFT color LCD Display and WinTV Video capture board

Base specifications

• CPU: Pentium II processor (400 MHz)
• RAM: 64 MB SDRAM
• Hard Drive: 6.4 GB (2 GB for Windows 98 and 4.6 GB for BeOS)
• CD-ROM Drive: 24X speed max.
• 100BASE-TX/10BASE-10

Notes and References

1. http://www.hitachi.com/New/cnews/E/1998/981111B.html Hitachi to Release New FLORA Prius 330J Model PCs with Preinstalled BeOS(TM) for the Consumer Market, November 11, 1998 News Release, Hitachi, Ltd.
2. http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Hitachi+to+Bundle+Award-Winning+BeatWare+Mail-It+with+New+FLORA+Prius...-a053591274 1999 Hitachi to Bundle Award-Winning BeatWare Mail-It with New FLORA Prius 330J PCs, The Free Library (January, 19)
3. http://www.itbusiness.ca/it/client/en/home/News.asp?id=26331 BeOS v. 4.0 products designed for interoperability, 11/30/1998, By: Craig Menefee, ITworldcanada.com
4. https://web.archive.org/web/20020821175701/http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2001/10/23/13219/110 Microsoft's Dirty OEM-Secret, By Eloquence, Oct 23, 2001, kuro5hin.org
5. http://testou.free.fr/www.beatjapan.org/mirror/www.be.com/support/guides/hitachi_boot.html Launching the BeOS on Hitachi FLORA Prius systems, The BeOS Tip Server