--- title: Sharp MZ 80K categories: - Computers types: - Home Computer origins: - Japan years: - '1979' cpus: - Sharp LH-0080 params: name: MZ 80K image: /media/museum/photos/sharp_mz80k_system_1.jpg company: /companies/sharp company_name: Sharp specs: - label: NAME value: MZ 80K - label: MANUFACTURER value: Sharp - label: TYPE value: Home Computer - label: ORIGIN value: Japan - label: YEAR value: '1979' - label: BUILT IN LANGUAGE value: Sharp Basic available on tape - label: KEYBOARD value: Strange transparent square keys. 78 keys. Numeric keypad - label: CPU value: Sharp LH-0080 (Zilog Z80 A compatible) - label: SPEED value: 2 MHz - label: RAM value: |- 20 KB (up to 48 KB)\ MZ-80K2 & K2e: 32 KB - label: ROM value: 4 KB - label: TEXT MODES value: 40 x 25 (8 x 8 character matrix) - label: GRAPHIC MODES value: 80 x 50 - label: COLORS value: built-in 10'' black & white monochrome monitor - label: SOUND value: one channel - label: SIZE / WEIGHT value: 410 (W) x 470 (D) x 270 (H) mm / 13 kg - label: I/O PORTS value: Expansion bus - label: BUILT IN MEDIA value: Tape recorder - label: POWER SUPPLY value: Built-in PSU - label: PERIPHERALS value: RAM expansions, printer, Floppy drives unit, color display - label: PRICE value: |- MZ-80K: 198,000 yen (1978, japan)\ MZ-80K2: 198,000 yen (1980, japan)\ MZ-80K2e: 148,000 yen (1981, japan) tabs: - photos - hardware - software - emulators - links - videos photos: - title: MZ 80K2 subtitle: '' text: '' image: /media/museum/photos/sharp_mz80k2.jpg - title: MZ 80K2E subtitle: '' text: '' image: /media/museum/photos/sharp_mz80k2e.jpg - title: MZ 80K2E - FRONT VIEW subtitle: '' text: '' image: /media/museum/photos/sharp_mz80k2e_1.jpg - title: MZ 80K2E - PLAYING A GAME subtitle: '' text: '' image: /media/museum/photos/sharp_mz80k2e_2.jpg - title: FRONT VIEW subtitle: '' text: '' image: /media/museum/photos/sharp_mz80k_system_2.jpg - title: TOP VIEW subtitle: '' text: '' image: /media/museum/photos/sharp_mz80k_topview_1.jpg - title: 'SIDE VIEW #1' subtitle: '' text: '' image: /media/museum/photos/sharp_mz80k_leftside_1.jpg - title: 'SIDE VIEW #2' subtitle: '' text: '' image: /media/museum/photos/sharp_mz80k_rightside_1.jpg - title: KEYBOARD CLOSE-UP subtitle: '' text: |- Notice the MZ logo that will be used in all of the computers of the MZ series. About this logo, MZ 80K user manual says: From ancient times people have been fascinated by the lights from outer space.\ That's why through times people would have the lad in Greek mythology dreamt of lights spreading over the vistas of space.\ Then he sailed for the Golden Fleece, aiming at a bright future. Indeed, Argo Navis is such a constellation clearly shining over the horizon in the south. This constellation is symbolized by the ship sailing with youth; the ship representing courage, future, search and longing.\ Just like the ship of youth, the MZ 80K will sail before long. To realize your dreams in such a manner, we have created this Sharp's original mark. image: /media/museum/photos/sharp_mz80k_keybcloseup_1.jpg - title: IN USE subtitle: '' text: MZ 80K running a demo program delivered with the BASIC cassette. image: /media/museum/photos/sharp_mz80k_inuse_1.jpg - title: REAR VIEW subtitle: '' text: Except the power switch and mains plug **(1)**, only one expansion connector **(2)** was available on the MZ-80K, mainly intended for the Sharp I/O unit, although several interfaces were built by third companies. image: /media/museum/photos/sharp_mz80k_back_1.jpg - title: OPENED subtitle: '' text: |- **(1)** Tape recorder mechanism\ **(2)** Power supply and transformer\ **(3)** Video board and adjustment knobs\ **(4)** Keyboard image: /media/museum/photos/sharp_mz80k_opened_1.jpg - title: MAINBOARD subtitle: '' text: |- **(1)** Video connector\ **(2)** Expansion connector\ **(3)** Tape recorder connectors\ **(4)** I/O chip. Manages video, cassette I/O and expansion bus\ **(5)** Characters generator 2 KB ROM\ **(6)** Z80A microprocesseur, a Sharp version\ **(7)** 2 KB monitor ROM\ **(8)** RAM memory area. 3 x 16 KB banks (8 x 4116 chips each) image: /media/museum/photos/sharp_mz80k_mainboard_1.jpg - title: USER MANUAL subtitle: '' text: Actually, a very pedagogic BASIC course for beginners. image: /media/museum/photos/sharp_mz80k_manual_1.jpg - title: THE BOX subtitle: '' text: Special thanks to **B. Clayton** who gave us this box... along with a MZ-80K inside image: /media/museum/photos/sharp_mz80k_box_1.jpg hardware: - title: MZ-80FB - DOUBLE 5.25" FDD subtitle: '' text: It uses 5.25" floppy disks drives (143 KB, double side, 35 tracks, 16 sectors per track, 128 bytes per sector image: /media/museum/hardware/sharp_mz80k_floppy2.jpg - title: MZ-80FB - DOUBLE 5.25" FDD - INTERNAL VIEW subtitle: '' text: '' image: /media/museum/hardware/sharp_mz80k_floppy1.jpg - title: FLOPPY DISK INTERFACE subtitle: '' text: This card is plugged into the IO Expansion box. The MZ-80FB FDD is connected to this card. image: /media/museum/hardware/sharp_mz80k_floppy_card.jpg - title: MZ 80SDF 5.25" FDD subtitle: '' text: The single FDD uses 143 KB floppy disks. image: /media/museum/hardware/sharp_mz80k_sfd143.jpg - title: 'IO EXPANSION BOX - VIEW #1' subtitle: '' text: The MZ 80K has only one bus extension. To remedy to this problem, Sharp developped the MZ80 I/O Port device. This heavy device can support up to five boards (floppy controller, EPROM programmer, Centronics, etc...). A parallel interface was developped by Sharp to use the Seikosha printers. image: /media/museum/hardware/sharp_mz80k_iobox.jpg - title: 'IO EXPANSION BOX - VIEW #2' subtitle: '' text: '' image: /media/museum/hardware/sharp_mz80k_iobox2.jpg - title: CENTRONICS INTERFACE CARD subtitle: '' text: This card is plugged into the IO Expansion box. It allows any Centronics printer (the MZ80P3 for example) to be connected onto the MZ 80K. image: /media/museum/hardware/sharp_mz80k_printer_card.jpg - title: FRENCH FDD UNIT subtitle: '' text: Instead of selling the original Sharp FDD unit, the Sharp French subsidiary (Sharp Burotype Machines) preferred to made their own unit. The case could hold up to 4 drives. The drives were Canon models. image: /media/museum/hardware/sharp_mz80b_frenchfdd_s1.jpg - title: MZ 80P3 - DOT MATRIX PRINTER subtitle: '' text: '' image: /media/museum/hardware/sharp_mz80k_printer.jpg - title: MZ-P4 PRINTER subtitle: '' text: '' image: /media/museum/hardware/sharp_printer_80b.jpg - title: MZ-P6 PRINTER subtitle: '' text: '' image: /media/museum/hardware/sharp_mz80_gp6.jpg screenshots: - title: BUG FIRE subtitle: '' text: '' image: /media/museum/software/sharp_mz80k_bugfire_1_ss.gif - title: COSMIC CRUISER 1 subtitle: '' text: '' image: /media/museum/software/sharp_mz80k_cosmic-cruiser1_ss.gif - title: CRAZY CLIMBER subtitle: '' text: '' image: /media/museum/software/sharp_mz80k_crazy-climber_ss.gif - title: CROSS RALLY subtitle: '' text: '' image: /media/museum/software/sharp_mz80k_cross-rally_ss.gif - title: RANGER SPECIAL subtitle: '' text: '' image: /media/museum/software/sharp_mz80k_ranger-special_ss.gif - title: SPACE DRIVE subtitle: '' text: '' image: /media/museum/software/sharp_mz80k_space-drive_ss.gif - title: SPACE MOUSE subtitle: '' text: '' image: /media/museum/software/sharp_mz80k_space-mouse_ss.gif - title: UFO HUNTER subtitle: '' text: '' image: /media/museum/software/sharp_mz80k_ufo-hunter_ss.gif - title: VIEW FINDER subtitle: '' text: '' image: /media/museum/software/sharp_mz80k_view-finder_ss.gif - title: WESTERN subtitle: '' text: '' image: /media/museum/software/sharp_mz80k_western_ss.gif - title: BOXING subtitle: '' text: '' image: /media/museum/software/sharp_mz80_boxing.jpg - title: ZIGZAG subtitle: '' text: '' image: /media/museum/software/sharp_mz80_zigzag.jpg - title: SPACE INVADERS subtitle: '' text: '' image: /media/museum/software/sharp_mz80_space_invaders.jpg - title: PENGUIN subtitle: '' text: This game uses the optional graphic card. image: /media/museum/software/sharp_mz80_penguin.jpg - title: STAR TREK subtitle: '' text: '' image: /media/museum/software/sharp_mz80_startrek.jpg - title: RALLYE X subtitle: '' text: '' image: /media/museum/software/sharp_mz80_rallyex.jpg - title: CUBIX MAZE subtitle: '' text: '' image: /media/museum/software/sharp_mz80_cubicmaze.jpg emulators: - title: EMUZ-2000 url: http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~object/ platform: Windows text: SHARP MZ-80B / 2000 / 2200 emulator for Windows links: - title: Sharp Games url: http://sharpgames.atspace.com text: Some homebrew games in develoment for the MZ - title: The Sharp Users Club url: http://sharpusersclub.org text: Very useful web site done by the UK Sharp Users Club - title: www.sharpmz.org url: http://www.sharpmz.org text: THE website for all MZ fans !! videos: - title: Pac-Man played on Sharp MZ-80K2 url: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJZSODc_lNg text: 'Length: 28 s' comments: - author: Chris Mottram (Swadlincote UK) date: Friday 8th March 2013 text: |- I am sitting in my office coding in .net and the like, and on my right is my Sharp MZ-80K that started it all! And it has a hi-res graphics card :-o Like others, it was my first computer. My dad bought it for me, as I was a sickly child with really bad asthma and eczema and he thought that an active life-style wouldn’t be an option (he was wrong by the way). I remember the Orange BASIC book that came with it, which I trawled through again and again to learn how to use this new machine. There was a TRON light-cycle like game in there over several pages called something like “Mr Smith and Mr Jones”, which I laboriously typed in with 1 finger. I remember being very upset when I accidentally cleared the screen and I thought I’d lost it all. That’s when I discovered the LIST command :-) - author: yowl (UK) date: Tuesday 3rd March 2009 text: |- Though it looked like a Norse ship it was in fact meant to represent the Argo and thus a voyage of discovery. If one sees the MZ80K M/C or Assembler Manuals the ship is larger and the figures on it can be seen to be Greek, also it is accompanied by a map indicating\ Okeanos\ Hippomolgen\ Hyperboreer\ Phonicien,etc oh and what''s this just beneath the Argo\ ahh THIS IS SPARTA! sorry - author: Tim Baker (London, UK) date: Saturday 6th December 2008 text: |- P.S. Did anyone work out what the whole Norse Viking ship thing was about on all the manuals and software and branding? That still puzzles me to this day....why? - author: Tim Baker (London, UK) date: Saturday 6th December 2008 text: |- Like Paul and Dean this was the first computer I used at age 9/10- at some point in the early 80''s, and started to learn BASIC on it. Early memories were trying to get Spectrum and other BASIC games to work on it (and failing). I also played Space Invaders on it! Like the Spectrum it seemed to have a good catalogue of games. - author: Paul Hooker (UK) date: Tuesday 1st January 2008 text: One of the first computers I worked with, earnt me a fortune, with pre programmed letters I wrote in basic and pascal! I also doubled the tape speed of the cassette drive by halving the circumference of the drive wheel and also double the cpu clock speed with a switch at the back!! Those were the days!!! :-) - author: Denis Cleyet-Merle (France) date: Thursday 11th December 2003 text: 'This was my first computer, bought in France, in the year 1983 (I think...). I was 17-year old at that time. I learned the basic and soon, the Z-80 assembly language : I needed speed for the plateform games I was trying to devellop. The tape was... so slow that I could spend hours trying to get something out of the ''Z-80 Machine language Reference Manual'', while it was loading. \*very\* funny, as you can think ;)' - author: Chris Peel (UK) date: Tuesday 22nd April 2003 text: Like Dean, the MZ80K was the first computer I ever used (I was probably about 8 at the time). I used to play "Block Kuzushi" and Space Invaders to death! Does anyone know if these games are available to download anywhere? I've still got the machine but it's not in full working order any more... - author: Dean Adams (London, UK) date: Monday 19th August 2002 text: The MZ80k was my first computer in 1981 at the tender age of 11yrs old! I started writing games on it and at the age of 13, I sold my first commercial piece of software, the rest is history, thank you Sharp! - author: Karl-Heinz (Germany) date: Wednesday 17th July 2002 text: |- Hello, does anyone know how I can copy my MZ-80K-disk into the PC ? I tried CPDREAD, but it cannot. May be it is unable to read a sector size lower than 256 bytes ? Best wishes\ Karl-Heinz related: - /museum/sharp-mz-2000 - /museum/sharp-mz-2200 - /museum/sharp-mz-2500 - /museum/sharp-mz-2800 - /museum/sharp-mz-3500 - /museum/sharp-mz-5500-5600 - /museum/sharp-mz-700 - /museum/sharp-mz-800-mz-1500 - /museum/sharp-mz-80a-mz-1200 - /museum/sharp-mz-80b - /museum/sharp-mz-80c oc_id: 174 source: url: https://web.archive.org/web/20230608163530/http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=174 date: '2023-06-08' --- The MZ-80K was, alongside the [Apple II](/museum/apple-ii/), the [Commodore PET](/museum/commodore-pet-2001/) and the [Tandy TRS 80](/museum/tandy-radio-shack-color-computer/)’s one of the best known computer in the early 80's. Its name stands for "M" from MICRO and Z-80 from the computer it uses. It has no language in ROM, and BASIC has to be loaded from tape. Sharp called this "clean design", as you could choose what you wanted to put in your computer, the MZ-80K being delivered clean... Though a 5.25" floppy disk unit was later available, most people never used anything else than the built-in tape recorder (1200 bps). There is no colour, no high resolution and characters sets can't be redefined. But the pre-defined characters set was very complete offering a lot of different graphical symbols, and people (mainly japanese) created great games, overcoming the main flaw of the MZ-80 serie... A graphic card was later designed for this computer, allowing to redefine the characters set resulting in a virtual "high resolution" of 320 x 192 pixels. The MZ-80K is equiped with a real clock and a built-in speaker. First MZ-80K were sold in Japan as assembly kits (1978). In 1980, Sharp released the **MZ-80K2** which is basicaly a MZ-80K with 32 KB RAM, a non-reflective keyboard and and a volume control at the rear of the system. One year later, a cost reduced version, the **MZ-80K2e**, was marketed as an anniversay model when MZ serie sales reached one hundred thousand machines.