Sharp PC-E500S manual?

[toml_12953]

Does anyone have a PDF copy of the English manual for the Sharp PC-E500S? When I search with Bing or Google, all the links come up with the manual for the PC-E500 instead even if they say it's for the 500S. The 500S has a clamshell design and at least four more BASIC commands than the straight 500 and I'd like the manual for it.

[Helix]

The German manual is available here:
https://www.usersmanualguide.com/sharp/c...r/pc-e500s

It’s exactly the same as the E500 manual, but with the four additional instructions, and a description of the editor in Program mode.
Since I don’t speak German, I managed to translate most of these additional parts. See the attachment. It’s automatic translation, so it’s largely perfectible, but it’s enough to understand the descriptions.

[toml_12953]

(07-22-2023 04:50 PM)Helix Wrote:  The German manual is available here:
https://www.usersmanualguide.com/sharp/c...r/pc-e500s

It’s exactly the same as the E500 manual, but with the four additional instructions, and a description of the editor in Program mode.
Since I don’t speak German, I managed to translate most of these additional parts. See the attachment. It’s automatic translation, so it’s largely perfectible, but it’s enough to understand the descriptions.

Thanks! My Grandmother, who came from Darmstadt, was extremely disappointed at my attempts to speak German.

[rprosperi]

Thanks Jean-Charles, I've looked for this in English for years, even though I suspect there may not actually be an English manual as the E500S was not sold in the USA, Canada or UK, and Sharp rarely published a manual in a given language if none of the markets needing that language carried it, though, of course, the PC-E500 Manual is an exception to that rule of thumb.

Thanks also for the effort to translate and share the manual portions for the new structured programming commands.

[vaklaff]

(07-22-2023 09:36 PM)rprosperi Wrote:  Thanks Jean-Charles, I've looked for this in English for years, even though I suspect there may not actually be an English manual as the E500S was not sold in the USA, Canada or UK, and Sharp rarely published a manual in a given language if none of the markets needing that language carried it, though, of course, the PC-E500 Manual is an exception to that rule of thumb.

Thanks also for the effort to translate and share the manual portions for the new structured programming commands.

Sorry to revive this old thread. I found it yesterday while having the same problem as the first poster. Now I know there’s no English manual but we have a good enough workaround. And I thank you all for the responses.

But now I can’t get another question from my head: Why didn’t Sharp sell the PC-E500S in the English speaking countries? Were they just testing waters in continental Europe, with poor results? Or were the UK and NA already taken by a strong competing product? Or had Sharp already a better product in their queue? Anything else?

[rprosperi]

(06-11-2024 05:07 PM)vaklaff Wrote:  But now I can’t get another question from my head: Why didn’t Sharp sell the PC-E500S in the English speaking countries? Were they just testing waters in continental Europe, with poor results? Or were the UK and NA already taken by a strong competing product? Or had Sharp already a better product in their queue? Anything else?

I can answer for US, not sure about UK and other English-speaking areas. At the time (early 90's) Sharp Electronics Corp (SEC - the US based sales subsidiary of Sharp Corp.) was going through tremendous growth and success with retail sales of calculators, PDAs, Faxes and related office electronics, and to focus it's efforts there, basically lost all of its skills (read sales & mktg people) related to solution selling with VARs, system integrators, etc. and this product division felt the PC-E500, PC-E500s, and the later pocket computers could not sell in retail channels in the qtys. demanded by Sharp Corp. in order to bring the product to market here. The established pocket computer VARs, selling mostly financial products based on older pocket computers, e.g. PC-1270, collectively sold enough units for SEC to continue carrying them, with essentially no sales/mktg support, so these were continued until about 2000.

Bottom line is the older pocket computers sold well as platforms for 3rd parties to sell solutions on and were hardly sold in retail at all. When the focus shifted to massive retail success, the newer model pocket computers were left behind.

[vaklaff]

Thank you for your very in-depth answer. Very interesting. My understanding is that the non-presence was more accidental than anything else, that's definitely not what I expected!

[Dave Britten]

(06-12-2024 01:57 AM)rprosperi Wrote:  I can answer for US, not sure about UK and other English-speaking areas. At the time (early 90's) Sharp Electronics Corp (SEC - the US based sales subsidiary of Sharp Corp.) was going through tremendous growth and success with retail sales of calculators, PDAs, Faxes and related office electronics, and to focus it's efforts there, basically lost all of its skills (read sales & mktg people) related to solution selling with VARs, system integrators, etc. and this product division felt the PC-E500, PC-E500s, and the later pocket computers could not sell in retail channels in the qtys. demanded by Sharp Corp. in order to bring the product to market here. The established pocket computer VARs, selling mostly financial products based on older pocket computers, e.g. PC-1270, collectively sold enough units for SEC to continue carrying them, with essentially no sales/mktg support, so these were continued until about 2000.

Bottom line is the older pocket computers sold well as platforms for 3rd parties to sell solutions on and were hardly sold in retail at all. When the focus shifted to massive retail success, the newer model pocket computers were left behind.

That explains why you can find bucketloads of PC-1270s outfitted with auto-loan programs on ebay!

[rprosperi]

(06-12-2024 05:30 PM)Dave Britten Wrote:  

(06-12-2024 01:57 AM)rprosperi Wrote:  I can answer for US, not sure about UK and other English-speaking areas. At the time (early 90's) Sharp Electronics Corp (SEC - the US based sales subsidiary of Sharp Corp.) was going through tremendous growth and success with retail sales of calculators, PDAs, Faxes and related office electronics, and to focus it's efforts there, basically lost all of its skills (read sales & mktg people) related to solution selling with VARs, system integrators, etc. and this product division felt the PC-E500, PC-E500s, and the later pocket computers could not sell in retail channels in the qtys. demanded by Sharp Corp. in order to bring the product to market here. The established pocket computer VARs, selling mostly financial products based on older pocket computers, e.g. PC-1270, collectively sold enough units for SEC to continue carrying them, with essentially no sales/mktg support, so these were continued until about 2000.

Bottom line is the older pocket computers sold well as platforms for 3rd parties to sell solutions on and were hardly sold in retail at all. When the focus shifted to massive retail success, the newer model pocket computers were left behind.

That explains why you can find bucketloads of PC-1270s outfitted with auto-loan programs on ebay!

Indeed! At the time, there were 2 master VARs, plus 6-8 other companies, all selling dedicated (often customized) loan/finance calculators. Some for Real Estate, some Auto Sales, some Mortgages, some simple bank loans, etc. By the early 2000's PC's had made these dinosaurs, so all the users apparently stashed them away to sell on eBay 20 years later.