How Sony’s Forgotten Computers Helped Shape the PlayStation

The UNIX machine that pushed Sony into unexpected territory

In 1985, a small team of Sony engineers came together to launch one of the most daring and unconventional chapters in the company’s computing history. It had nothing to do with music, movies, or gaming at the time. But the decisions made during this quiet internal effort would ripple through Sony’s future, shaping the mindset, architecture, and engineering approach that would eventually help make the PlayStation possible.

In the early 1980s, Japan was investing heavily in its technological future through a series of national initiatives designed to advance computing. The most ambitious of these was the Fifth Generation Computer Systems (FGCS) project, which aimed to develop machines using parallel processing and logic programming to support scientific research and industrial innovation. Major players like Fujitsu, NEC, and Hitachi aligned themselves closely with this government-backed vision. Sony, however, stood somewhat apart. Unlike those companies, which had deep roots in computing…