This computer was not compatible with the other MZ series. It was the succesor of MZ-3200 series
Sharp started to sell 5000 systems in Japan in November 1982 before selling it to the rest of the world where it didn't meet a large success because of its high selling price and numerous options.
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Örjan Smith adds:
My first own computer was a SHARP MZ-3541. I used it for many years.
I had both EOS and FDOS, but no other applications. I never did understand EOS, which was menu-based. FDOS meanwhile offered a machine-code editor (which I sadly lacked documentation for) and a BASIC interpreter with a typical 80's style line editor (with which I performed miracles :).
The ports on the back (RS232 etc) where all of the card-edge variety for flat cables. The second port on the front to the right of the keyboard port is the light pen port. The graphics mode required an add-in graphics board (which I did not have), and I think that was also required to get at the 8 colours mentioned (I'm not sure though, I had a monochrome monitor). Without it, you could still produce 160x50 pixel graphics by use of 16 quarter-fill characters in text mode.
We need more info about this computer ! If you designed, used, or have more info about this system,
please send us pictures or anything you might find useful.
We still have one of these that is still being used in 2012!!!
Monday 23rd April 2012
Sparky (Australia)
This was second generation from Sharp on FDOS. I recall how impressed we were with how fast our financials software now ran. We used the basic. We were a small company with dozens of customers on the old model and this model, especially when they released it with harddisc, was sold to up to 100 customers (small businesses). Some of my collagues played with the CP/M which was cool but as we all know lost out to a poorer IBM-DOS... Using diskettes for production systems was interesting. I recall getting a call from a production baker at 2 am where it was clear the dust had settled on the floppy making it read/write with erros going into a loop... Very reliable machines and excellent finish.
Saturday 5th November 2005
Ole Lunddahl ( )
In the late 1980's I worked for a company in Australiia that Gave away hundreds of the MZ-3500 in a deal that involved getting commisions from finance and insurance contracts written using our software. This computers were often still being used well into the 1990's .We also used pc-5000 & pc-7000 Sharp for the same program and deal. the software was 99.5% identical on all machines written in CBASIC from digital research and used ANSI control sequences for screen routines.
Tuesday 9th November 2004
david Underhill (Australia)
NAME
MZ-3500
MANUFACTURER
Sharp
TYPE
Professional Computer
ORIGIN
Japan
YEAR
1983
BUILT IN LANGUAGE
None
KEYBOARD
Full-stroke keyboard
CPU
2 x Zilog Z80 A
SPEED
4 MHz
RAM
128 KB (up to 256 KB)
ROM
8 KB
TEXT MODES
80 chars x 25 lines
GRAPHIC MODES
640 x 400 dots (optional)
COLORS
8
SOUND
Beeper (1 channel, 3 octaves)
SIZE / WEIGHT
47.1 (W) x 37.5 (D) x 14.5 (H) (main unit) / Total weight: 24 Kg
I/O PORTS
Centronics, RS 232c
BUILT IN MEDIA
one or two 390 KB 5.25'' disk-drives
OS
FDOS (Sharp OS), EOS 3.0 (European Operating System), CP/M or PROLOGUE
POWER SUPPLY
Built-in PSU
PERIPHERALS
2 x 1.2 MB 8'' floppy disc drives unit, Graphics card, 5 or 10 MB hard disc
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