Sharp MZ

The Sharp MZ is a series of personal computers sold in Japan and Europe (particularly Germany and Great Britain) by Sharp beginning in 1978.

Although commonly believed to stand for "Microcomputer Z80", the term MZ actually has its roots in the MZ-40K, a home computer kit produced by Sharp in 1978 which was based on Fujitsu's 4-bit MB8843 processor and provided a simple hexadecimal keypad for input. This was soon followed by the MZ-80K, K2, C, and K2E, all of which were based on 8-bit LH0080A Sharp CPU (compatible to Zilog Z80A) with an alphanumeric keyboard.

From the first Z80 processor-based model to the MZ-2200 in 1983, the MZ computers included the PC, monitor, keyboard, and tape-based recorder in a single unit, similar to Commodore's PET series. It was also notable for not including a programming language or operating system in ROM. This invited a host of third-party companies, starting with Hudson Soft, to produce many languages and OSes for the system. In an era when floppy disk drives were too expensive for most home users, the MZ's built-in tape drive was considered faster and more reliable than the drive on competing computers; however, this meant that the MZ series was relatively slow to adopt floppy drives as a standard accessory.

On 21 December 2012, SHARP published PDF files of manuals for the MZ-80 on their official Twitter page. It was promoted as a "Christmas present" to fans.

As of 27 December 2012 the manuals had been downloaded over 1,864,525 times. By 28 December 2012, both of the manual PDF's had been downloaded 3,804,756 times.

Tweets of appreciation were received and many praised the release as a wise decision.

This Project Started Takafumi Horie tweeted by May 15,201217:51 for SHARP GALAPAGOS together. Twitter sharp accounts said to "Shall you had to like together enthusiasm our in that old times".

...
Wikipedia