The sharp MZ 800 was the successor of the MZ 780. It was partially compatible with the 700 series and the old MZ 80K series as well.
It was sold under three reference numbers:
• MZ-811 without tape drive,
• MZ-821 with built-in 1200-baud tape drive,
• MZ-831 with tape drive and built-in 4-colour printer-plotter.
The Tape drive could be substituted for a Quick-disk drive unit. The Quick-Disc was a small 2.8-inch disk with sequential access.
Like the MZ 700, there was no language in ROM, it had to be loaded from tape, quick disk or floppy disk. The ROM only contained boot code, OS calls and special code to allow the user to use the 64 KB RAM as a virtual disk.
A single or double 5.25" disk drive could be connected to the MZ 800. It then worked under a special version of CP/M called P-CP/M. Some great products like Wordstar, dBase II and Multiplan were adapted to it. Under CP/M, it was possible to read multiple disk formats from the 360 KB (Sharp format) to the 720 KB (CP/M IBM PC format).
The MZ 800 was sold in Japan under the name SHARP MZ 1500. The MZ 1500 had the same characteristics except its black case, a built-in Quick-Disc drive and a slighty different graphic video management.
Please consider donating your old computer / videogame system to Old-Computers.com or one of our partners from anywhere in the world (Europe, America, Asia, etc.).
@ian forshaw (uk): Correction - this are 2.8" Magnetic-Floppies
Wednesday 1st October 2014
UmSchu (Germany)
@ian forshaw (uk): After 10 years my answer - i have 10 pieces 2,8" Disk
Friday 26th September 2014
UmSchu (Germany)
It is misunderstanding that MZ-800 and MZ-1500 are almost identical. MZ-1500 is not just a Japanese version of MZ-800. They are both based on MZ-700 architecture but differently extended. MZ-1500 does not have 640x200/320x200 bitmap screen but has 8-color PCG screen (1024 PCGs consist 320x200 screen). MZ-1500 has two SN76489 while MZ-800 has one. Etc. You would easily understand it if you look at the motherboard of them.
Thursday 30th June 2011
youkan (Japan)
NAME
MZ 800 - MZ 1500
MANUFACTURER
Sharp
TYPE
Home Computer
ORIGIN
Japan
YEAR
October 1984
BUILT IN LANGUAGE
None
KEYBOARD
Full-stroke 70 keys with 5 function keys, editing & arrow keys
CPU
Zilog Z80 A
SPEED
3.5 MHz
RAM
64 KB
VRAM
16 KB (up to 32 KB)
ROM
16 KB
TEXT MODES
40 x 25 / 80 x 25
GRAPHIC MODES
320 x 200 / 640 x 200 - Hardware vertical scrolling accelerator
COLORS
4 (320 x 200 and 16 if extended VRAM), 2 (640 x 200 and 4 if extended VRAM)
