 It is a stripped-down version of Fujitsu's earlier FM-8 computer, and during development it was referred to as the "FM-8 Jr.".Although it was designed to be a cut-down version of the FM-8, most notably removing the (expensive) bubble memory technology, the FM-7 was given a more advanced AY-3-8910 sound chip capable of three voice sound synthesis, leading to a strong uptake among the hobbyist computer market in Japan and making it a more popular system than the FM-8.The FM-7 primarily competed with the NEC PC-8801 and Sharp X1 series of computers in the early 1980s.