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A Brief History of Sharps 
written by Maurice Hawes / SUC/UK 
Source: SUC-magazine November 1999, Volume 19 Number 3, p. 5  
A Brief History of Sharp Z80-Based MZ-Computers


The diagram below, first reproduced in Vol. 18 No. 1, is of Japanese origin and shows the development of Sharp MZ-computers over the period 1978 - 1985. lt therefore includes the MZ-5500 and MZ-5600 but those two machines have been omitted from this review because they are not Z80-based machines. All other machines on the diagram are covered in the following pages.

Development of Sharp Computers in Japan 1978 - 1985

If a machine was imported into the U.K. for sale to the public, I have given its date of introduction into the U.K. and, where possible, the date it was reviewed in PCW. I have also included other historical and technical information and, where applicable, I have described the causes and remedies of any minor hardware problems that are commonly encountered. I have also given my own personal assessment of its ‘collectability‘ today.

If a machine was not imported into the U.K. for sale to the public I have had to rely mainly on bits of data gleaned from the collection of Japanese Sharp brochures given to the SUC in 1986, by Martin Winbow, a member who had visited Japan several times as an airline pilot. Anyone interested in more detail on these machines should read the article Martin wrote for us at that time ( Vol. 5 No.3 pp. 6 - 10 ).

However, during the last 5 years we have been fortunate enough to acquire working examples of two of these ‘Japanese‘ MZ-machines i.e. the MZ-2500 and the X1; so in those two cases I have been able to give more detail than for the other ‘Japanese‘ machines, the MZ-2000 and MZ-2200, which we have never seen in the flesh.


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last updated September 16, 2002
SUC / UK: Maurice Hawes

Development of Sharp Computers in Japan 1978 - 1985 ( All except the MZ-5500 and MZ-5600 are Z80 Based ) Direct Development X1 TURBO X1 TURBO MODEL 40 Business and Hobby Oriented Computers MZ-3500 PC-3200 PC-3100 MZ-40K MZ-80C MZ-80K MZ-80K, E MZ-1200 ( MZ-80A in U.K. ) MZ-80B MZ-2000 X1 X1 C / D X1 Ck / Cs X1 F MZ-2200 MZ-1500 ( MZ-800 in U.K. ) Hobby Oriented Computers MZ-700 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 Business Oriented Computers Computer Performance Influential Development MZ-6500 ( MZ-5600 in U.K. ) MZ-5500 SUPER-MZ MZ-2500 X1 TURBO II / III 1985

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