Sharp Advert - October 1980

This advert from Sharp continues the company's long-running theme which implies some sort of extra-terrestrial origin for its computer.

This particular micro, which was first launched in Japan as a kit and which had been around in the UK - fully assembled - since October 1979, where it had been launched at the Birmingham International Business Show^[1], was Zilog Z80-based and had about 32K of available memory.

Unusually, if you wanted to program in anything other than Assembler or machine code, you had to load your program of choice - BASIC, Fortran, etc - from tape.

The MZ-80K's built-in cassette deck used a pulse-width modulation technique not unlike that used by Commodore for its PET and VIC-20 datasettes.

Although this gave it a 1200 bits per second data transfer rate which Practical Computing reckoned was "impressive", it still took around 1½ minutes to load the 14K of Sharp's BASIC from tape.

It also had an awkward non-standard keyboard with a grid-like layout like Commodore's original PET 2001 of 1977 and, also like the PET, could only natively draw in-built characters^[2].

Practical Computing reckoned that any word-processing software for the machine would "appear to be a wasted effort", and that the machine would be out of place where "typists switch from a normal typewriter to the computer and back again".

However, in its review of the machine in the May 1981 edition, it still concluded that:

"The MZ-80K is machanically and electrically well designed and constructed with the exception of the keyboard. Particularly at discount prices, the machine offers an impressive specification^[3]".

By the end of 1981, it was retailing for £530 - about £2,940 in 2026 terms, with the basic model featuring only 20K RAM available for only £380.

Sharp was particularly strict about the dealers it would allow to resell its machine, in an era which was somewhat notorious for the "sell and forget" sort of attitude where after-sales support was often non-existant.

Writing in the December 1979 issue of Personal Computer World, Guy Kewney mentioned letters from suppliers referring to rivals who outright refuse to provide service, others who would lie about competitors' service charges, or even that competitors would not be able to provide any sort of after-sales service or support^[4]. Sharp's Paul Streeter said that:

"we feel that a lot of the problems in this industry in the last 18 months have been due to suppliers who have appointed distributors without checking their ability to back up the equipment".

Sharp was also said to be insisting on software back-up skills as well as hardware maintenance ability.

Another advert for the MZ-80K, from Personal Computer World, February 1982

By the end of 1979, having turned down several applications, Sharp had only appointed one dealer - HB Computers of Kettering in Northamptonshire^[5].

The MZ-80K was still going in at least 1982, where it had been slightly enhanced and re-branded as the MZ-80A, following the launch of MZ-80B business version.

It was considered as a successful machine, having sold around 100,000 units in its lifetime^[6].