On Wed, Mar 6, 2013 at 12:30 PM, Terry Stewart <terry at webweavers.co.nz>wrote:
  Geoff,
  A thrift store here locally had a PC-8500, which
looks a bit like a Tandy
 Model 200. I passed on it and regretted it later, but someone had beat me
 to the punch when I went back to retrieve it. ;) 
 Pity, The NEC PC-8500 is a rare and beautiful machine.
 I had the additional external VDP adapter, and an
external
 floppy disk drive for mine. 
 Wow, those are uber-rare also.  I've never seen one in the wild myself.
 Terry (Tez)
 
There were two complete sets (in original boxes) of PC-8500 systems (main
machine, VDP, dual floppy drive, modem) at Aladdin's Lamp Antiques in
Bellingham, WA (USA)  about 4 months ago.  I picked up one of the sets for
$85 and poste hered about the other.  No idea if it's still there as I
haven't been back since.
One annoying thing to note about the PC-8500 is that thee screen hinge is
of an extremely poor design -- it has a hinge lock (a button on the side
that pushes in to lock) and if that lock is engaged (hint: it will be)  and
you try to open the screen you WILL break the hinge
- Josh