We have to be clear about one thing: Easter is neither in September nor in #sharptember! 😀
(Super markets here have just stocked gingerbread for St. Nicholas Day, and they would certainly know!)
(Super markets here have just stocked gingerbread for St. Nicholas Day, and they would certainly know!)
September 6, 2025 at 9:32 PM
We have to be clear about one thing: Easter is neither in September nor in #sharptember! 😀
(Super markets here have just stocked gingerbread for St. Nicholas Day, and they would certainly know!)
(Super markets here have just stocked gingerbread for St. Nicholas Day, and they would certainly know!)
#Sharptember Many people may not have noticed that the popular magazines of the time, e.g. C & VG and Your Computer were covering the MZ machines quite well. Having been through many homemade tapes from eBay auctions it's clear what one of the most popular type-ins was. Defender, of course :)
September 6, 2025 at 5:55 PM
#Sharptember Many people may not have noticed that the popular magazines of the time, e.g. C & VG and Your Computer were covering the MZ machines quite well. Having been through many homemade tapes from eBay auctions it's clear what one of the most popular type-ins was. Defender, of course :)
September is now (un)officially #Sharptember 😀🙂To kick things off here is the best photo ever taken of the Sharp MZ-80A and its disk drives - courtesy of @heredragons.be
The 80A came out in 1982 as a direct successor to the MZ-80K. It is a Z80 machine running at 2MHz.
The 80A came out in 1982 as a direct successor to the MZ-80K. It is a Z80 machine running at 2MHz.
September 1, 2025 at 4:41 PM
September is now (un)officially #Sharptember 😀🙂To kick things off here is the best photo ever taken of the Sharp MZ-80A and its disk drives - courtesy of @heredragons.be
The 80A came out in 1982 as a direct successor to the MZ-80K. It is a Z80 machine running at 2MHz.
The 80A came out in 1982 as a direct successor to the MZ-80K. It is a Z80 machine running at 2MHz.
I did pick a couple of new Sharp devices in the month of #sharptember - a programmable scientific calculator, the surprisingly small EL-512, and a "faulty" PC-1251 for parts to replace the front cover on the one I damaged when replacing the LCD. Amazingly, the original LCD on the 1251 fully works!
September 25, 2025 at 5:32 PM
I did pick a couple of new Sharp devices in the month of #sharptember - a programmable scientific calculator, the surprisingly small EL-512, and a "faulty" PC-1251 for parts to replace the front cover on the one I damaged when replacing the LCD. Amazingly, the original LCD on the 1251 fully works!
#Sharptember A chance find amongst a bunch of tapes I won in an auction turned up something pretty interesting, a compilation tape of games written by Col Needham (the inventor of IMDb) and possibly his master tape from which he sold his mail order games. Here's his game "UFO Attack".
September 28, 2025 at 7:17 PM
#Sharptember A chance find amongst a bunch of tapes I won in an auction turned up something pretty interesting, a compilation tape of games written by Col Needham (the inventor of IMDb) and possibly his master tape from which he sold his mail order games. Here's his game "UFO Attack".
Day 250(8) - #sharptember - And, eventually, here's the final member of the home MZ-80 family, the MZ-80A. The differences are subtle - the display no longer flickers when the CPU is accessing the VRAM (of which there's 2K rather than 1K) and there's a socket for a 'user' ROM ... 1/2
September 8, 2025 at 4:59 PM
Day 250(8) - #sharptember - And, eventually, here's the final member of the home MZ-80 family, the MZ-80A. The differences are subtle - the display no longer flickers when the CPU is accessing the VRAM (of which there's 2K rather than 1K) and there's a socket for a 'user' ROM ... 1/2
Day 257(14) - #sharptember - The MZ-80B was replaced in June 1982 with this, the just as pretty (if not prettier) MZ-2000. Like the 80B, it's got a 4Mhz Z80, 64K of memory and a software controlled tape drive that's quite prone to failure ... 1/2
September 14, 2025 at 4:15 PM
Day 257(14) - #sharptember - The MZ-80B was replaced in June 1982 with this, the just as pretty (if not prettier) MZ-2000. Like the 80B, it's got a 4Mhz Z80, 64K of memory and a software controlled tape drive that's quite prone to failure ... 1/2
Day 263(20) - #sharptember - Although we might have met all of the 'classic' MZ machines, don't think we're done with the MZ series entirely. Oh no. There's many curious machines in their business line up - like this, the MZ-2800, half Z80B based MZ-2500 clone, half 286 PC ... or ... 1/6
September 20, 2025 at 11:20 AM
Day 263(20) - #sharptember - Although we might have met all of the 'classic' MZ machines, don't think we're done with the MZ series entirely. Oh no. There's many curious machines in their business line up - like this, the MZ-2800, half Z80B based MZ-2500 clone, half 286 PC ... or ... 1/6
Yep, it's #Sharptember and here is something which I've only seen once. In my own collection 😀 Indeed, CP/M was released for the Sharp MZ machines, even the MZ-80A. The ability for the 80A to switch out its Monitor ROM from $0000 to $C000 allows CP/M to run.
September 2, 2025 at 6:38 PM
Yep, it's #Sharptember and here is something which I've only seen once. In my own collection 😀 Indeed, CP/M was released for the Sharp MZ machines, even the MZ-80A. The ability for the 80A to switch out its Monitor ROM from $0000 to $C000 allows CP/M to run.
Ok, I'll stop being silly now. #sharptember
September 9, 2025 at 9:24 AM
Ok, I'll stop being silly now. #sharptember
#Sharptember One of the more popular assembler environments on the MZ was Avalon's program Zen. It's a simple line editor and here I show a few of the commands. E to enter lines of code. P which prints x number of lines of the program and T to target a line of the program. /1
September 17, 2025 at 4:40 PM
#Sharptember One of the more popular assembler environments on the MZ was Avalon's program Zen. It's a simple line editor and here I show a few of the commands. E to enter lines of code. P which prints x number of lines of the program and T to target a line of the program. /1
Yay, it's Sharptember!!!
September is now (un)officially #Sharptember 😀🙂To kick things off here is the best photo ever taken of the Sharp MZ-80A and its disk drives - courtesy of @heredragons.be
The 80A came out in 1982 as a direct successor to the MZ-80K. It is a Z80 machine running at 2MHz.
The 80A came out in 1982 as a direct successor to the MZ-80K. It is a Z80 machine running at 2MHz.
September 1, 2025 at 5:40 PM
Yay, it's Sharptember!!!
I approve this message #Sharptember
September is now (un)officially #Sharptember 😀🙂To kick things off here is the best photo ever taken of the Sharp MZ-80A and its disk drives - courtesy of @heredragons.be
The 80A came out in 1982 as a direct successor to the MZ-80K. It is a Z80 machine running at 2MHz.
The 80A came out in 1982 as a direct successor to the MZ-80K. It is a Z80 machine running at 2MHz.
September 2, 2025 at 12:04 PM
I approve this message #Sharptember
Okay, so it's #Sharptember :)
How about this spooky "screenshot" from my game Minesnake, played on a Sharp MZ-80A in the dark?
How about this spooky "screenshot" from my game Minesnake, played on a Sharp MZ-80A in the dark?
September 1, 2025 at 5:52 PM
Okay, so it's #Sharptember :)
How about this spooky "screenshot" from my game Minesnake, played on a Sharp MZ-80A in the dark?
How about this spooky "screenshot" from my game Minesnake, played on a Sharp MZ-80A in the dark?
Yeah, it's #Sharptember. And the one I have looks as... Sharp... as ever.
September 1, 2025 at 10:51 PM
Yeah, it's #Sharptember. And the one I have looks as... Sharp... as ever.
Day 264(21) - #sharptember - I thought I'd leave the first MZ to last because it's not really a computer in the traditional sense - but it's so bizarre I couldn't ignore it completely. Ladies and gentlemen, meet the Sharp MZ-40K ... 1/3
September 21, 2025 at 4:45 PM
Day 264(21) - #sharptember - I thought I'd leave the first MZ to last because it's not really a computer in the traditional sense - but it's so bizarre I couldn't ignore it completely. Ladies and gentlemen, meet the Sharp MZ-40K ... 1/3
It's #Sharptember everyone. Good thing I'm already working on a bunch of Sharp systems for #VCFMW.
September 1, 2025 at 5:41 PM
It's #Sharptember everyone. Good thing I'm already working on a bunch of Sharp systems for #VCFMW.
I got around to testing the DOUBLE D on the 3 games can use it on X68000 today. All work as intended just like Libble Rabble for FM Towns.
Closing out #Sharptember in style.
Closing out #Sharptember in style.
September 28, 2025 at 8:56 PM
I got around to testing the DOUBLE D on the 3 games can use it on X68000 today. All work as intended just like Libble Rabble for FM Towns.
Closing out #Sharptember in style.
Closing out #Sharptember in style.
#Sharptember The popular "Greedy Gremlins" game, this time for the MZ-80A. I recently rescued this from an official Knights tape - I don't think I realised there was an MZ-80A version until now! It makes use of the 80A's inverse display quite a lot.
September 25, 2025 at 4:57 PM
#Sharptember The popular "Greedy Gremlins" game, this time for the MZ-80A. I recently rescued this from an official Knights tape - I don't think I realised there was an MZ-80A version until now! It makes use of the 80A's inverse display quite a lot.
#Sharptember There is a small but brilliant demo scene on the Sharp MZ. More accurately on the MZ-700 so far. A number of demos exist but this one, "Futuro MZ" is one of my favourites. On a fixed character set machine there's some really amazing effects here and a hi-res picture at the end!
[Demo] "Futuro MZ" for the Sharp MZ-700
YouTube video by MZ Sharpworks
www.youtube.com
September 3, 2025 at 7:04 PM
#Sharptember There is a small but brilliant demo scene on the Sharp MZ. More accurately on the MZ-700 so far. A number of demos exist but this one, "Futuro MZ" is one of my favourites. On a fixed character set machine there's some really amazing effects here and a hi-res picture at the end!
A #sharptember bonus post of the gang all together before I put them back in their crates!
September 20, 2025 at 11:57 AM
A #sharptember bonus post of the gang all together before I put them back in their crates!
The Sharp MZ-80A can only use character graphics, but fortunately there are a few characters dedicated to pseudopixels. So I made a picture. #sharptember
September 20, 2025 at 8:57 PM
The Sharp MZ-80A can only use character graphics, but fortunately there are a few characters dedicated to pseudopixels. So I made a picture. #sharptember
The Sharp MZ-2000 is pretty uncommon outside of Japan. A nice looking machine indeed!
#Sharptember
#Sharptember
September 1, 2025 at 5:23 PM
The Sharp MZ-2000 is pretty uncommon outside of Japan. A nice looking machine indeed!
#Sharptember
#Sharptember