I have the main unit, Sharp P70 printer, Sharp expansion unit MZ-80AEU and
Sharp disk unit.
type computer
country Japan
year 1982
os CP/M, Basic
cpu Zilog Z80A
speed 2 MHz
ram 48 KB
rom 4 KB
tape recorder
graphic 9″ CRT, 40 x 25 and 80 x 50
colors mono
sound 1 channel
ports expansion bus, centronics
The Sharp MZ-80A — Japan’s Clean Machine
The Sharp MZ-80A, released in 1981, was part of Sharp’s MZ series of personal computers — machines known in Japan as ”clean computers” because they came with no software in ROM. Where most computers of the era included BASIC in ROM (allowing immediate use from power-on), the MZ series required software to be loaded from cassette or disk before anything could be run. This design philosophy, while seemingly inconvenient, gave the MZ remarkable flexibility — any programming language or operating system could be loaded, making the machine genuinely universal rather than tied to a specific BASIC dialect.
The ”Clean Computer” Philosophy
Sharp’s decision to produce ”clean computers” without ROM-based software was a deliberate design choice that reflected a different philosophy from Western manufacturers. By keeping the ROM minimal (containing only a monitor program and self-test routines), Sharp allowed the MZ-80A to run CP/M, various BASIC dialects, Pascal, FORTRAN, and other languages equally well without any software pre-empting valuable memory. This made the MZ particularly attractive to educational institutions and professional users who wanted flexibility rather than the convenience of instant-on BASIC.
Japanese Computing Heritage
The Sharp MZ series was one of the most important Japanese home and business computer lines of the late 1970s and early 1980s. In Japan, where NEC, Sharp, Fujitsu, and Hitachi competed in a domestic market largely separate from Western computing trends, the MZ machines achieved significant commercial success and developed a loyal following. The MZ-80A’s combination of quality construction, clean design aesthetic, and flexibility made it a respected platform in Japanese professional and educational computing throughout the early 1980s.