Need help with buying a PC-98 computer!

[98digger]

Hello NFGgames Forum,

I'm here from http://www.shrinemaiden.org (The general Touhou forum). I'm interested in buying a PC-9821 series computer; one which is capable of running the old Touhou games properly with working YM2608 OPNA sound. I've been meaning to buy one for some time now, but I'm kind of lost in which model I should buy and how I'm actually going to set it up. This is pretty much what I know about the PC-98 series so far:

-The A-MATE, CanBe, 98MULTI, and Cereb all apparently have built-in OPNA
-PC-9801-86 is very expensive and hard to find
-The A-Mate series is expandable, the 98Multi series is not and needs Viper cards to upgrade the CPU
-The i486 in the 98Multi only runs at 22 Mhz; Touhou requires 66 Mhz according to Touhou Wiki
-A FreeDOS(98) exists, but apparently does not work with Touhou (unconfirmed)
-Yahoo Auctions has PC-98 computers priced low, but the shipping is high; the opposite is true for the ones (that rarely show up) on eBay
-The A-Mate computers rarely show up anywhere, and are expensive.

I plan to use the computer primarily for playing Touhou (Demo versions) and RPG Maker 98 games (and possibly other recent DOS games in the future), but I also would like to be able to use it for playing/making PMD (M.Kajihara's Professional Music Driver) modules.

I don't really like the CanBe and Cereb, so I'm down to choosing either a 98 Multi (Ce/2/Cs2) or A-mate (Ae/As/Ap/As2/3/Ap2/3/Af/An).

(http://hp.vector.co.jp/authors/VA004562/ray/tips.htm is where I got the info from)

SO, the questions I would like to ask the PC-98 owners here are:

1. Does FreeDOS(98) actually work on real hardware? Does it run DOS games properly?
2. Do the Touhou games actually require 66 Mhz?
3. Is there a way to upgrade the processor (to raise the Mhz) via the C-BUS?
4. Is the floppy drive compatible with IBM-formatted disks?
5. How do I get it to work (safely) in a US AC 120v power outlet?
6. I have an NEC MultiSync LCD 1880SX monitor. Will it work with a PC-98?
7. How do I write a Hard Disk Image for PC-98 to a real HDD?

I think that I also should mention that I do not pirate, so please no suggestions involving piracy.

Thanks! 

[RobIvy64]

I have a Cs2 (originally a 33 MHz 486SX) and all of the Touhou games ran fine. You'd see occasional slowdown during some of the more elaborate bombs, but nothing prohibitively bad.

I bought one of the Viper CPU cards, but that's because Flame Zapper Kotsujin is a CPU hog.