Any Sharp MZ-80b users here?

[Arnuphis]

Hello. Just seeing if any Sharp MZ-80b owners/users are here. I know its a rarer machine but I finally got one. No mean feat here in the US.

 

I first saw one back in late 1981 when I was a boy in the UK. My mother used to get those big home shopping catalogues. They had clothing, kitchen items, toys and in this particular year, computers in them. I remember looking though it so see if there was anything for my VIC-20 when I saw the MZ-80b in there. My mouth fell open at the sight of it. What a beautiful machine. It looked like a real computer and super powerful. Of course it was expensive. Too much to even think about getting it on payments. Remember the Zx81/Spectrum and Vic-20 with cassette drives were the weapon of choice for the price range of your average family.

 

Regardless, I wanted one and always wanted one and over the years wished I could get one. Obviously not many were sold and I never saw them for sale on Ebay until recently when I finally got one.

 

Now it sits on my desk looking every bit as cool as it did then. Just reaching out to see if there are other users out there to converse with and maybe point me at software etc.

 

Thanks in advance.

[Krebizfan]

Have you tried sharpmz.org ? That has a good amount of information. Note, a lot of the information is held in the older "original" website done before the change in ownership. There is a link to it on the front page but easy to miss. It also provides a forum that replaces the forum that used to be run by the Sharp Users Club, much smaller and less active but at least something. I relied on that the last time I helped someone through Sharp MZ issues. 

[doctor_x]

5 hours ago, Arnuphis said:

Hello. Just seeing if any Sharp MZ-80b owners/users are here. I know its a rarer machine but I finally got one. No mean feat here in the US.

 

I first saw one back in late 1981 when I was a boy in the UK. My mother used to get those big home shopping catalogues. They had clothing, kitchen items, toys and in this particular year, computers in them. I remember looking though it so see if there was anything for my VIC-20 when I saw the MZ-80b in there. My mouth fell open at the sight of it. What a beautiful machine. It looked like a real computer and super powerful. Of course it was expensive. Too much to even think about getting it on payments. Remember the Zx81/Spectrum and Vic-20 with cassette drives were the weapon of choice for the price range of your average family.

 

Regardless, I wanted one and always wanted one and over the years wished I could get one. Obviously not many were sold and I never saw them for sale on Ebay until recently when I finally got one.

 

Now it sits on my desk looking every bit as cool as it did then. Just reaching out to see if there are other users out there to converse with and maybe point me at software etc.

 

Thanks in advance.

I dont think I’ve seen one of those in my entire LIFE.. are they all monochrome or was there a color option?

[Arnuphis]

3 hours ago, Krebizfan said:

Have you tried sharpmz.org ? That has a good amount of information. Note, a lot of the information is held in the older "original" website done before the change in ownership. There is a link to it on the front page but easy to miss. It also provides a forum that replaces the forum that used to be run by the Sharp Users Club, much smaller and less active but at least something. I relied on that the last time I helped someone through Sharp MZ issues. 

Yes. I posted over there. It's pretty quiet. Tying to see if there is much interest over here as this is the best site for 'orphan' computers.

 

38 minutes ago, doctor_x said:

I dont think I’ve seen one of those in my entire LIFE.. are they all monochrome or was there a color option?

There are pretty much unheard of in the USA. The MZ-80 series (K,A,B) all had built in green screen monitors. Kind of like PETs or TRS-80 III/IV. There were lower cost successors in the form the of MZ-700/800 computers. Those plugged into TVs or External monitors and offered color. All are really interesting Z80 based machines.