What is the best BASIC Pocket Computer

[Dave Britten]

(07-07-2020 10:03 AM)ZQ8000_dude Wrote:  I'm really sorry to dig up an old thread, but this one has mention of the Sharp ZR/IQ-8x00 computers and I am on an HP forum! So at risk of starting a new off-topic thread, I'd thought more people would appreciate this.

I saw several users Katie Wasserman and rprosperi mention the old IQ-8100 Pocket Organiser/PC with BASIC cards. I'm trying to get hold of a BASIC card for mine, do you have any spare or does anyone on here know how to acquire one?

Edit: I'll equally take a BASIC ROM burned onto the EPROM card.

Ebay seems to be devoid of any of the BASIC cards, although the money manager, various translators and odd games seem to be available, none of which interest me - at least not at the price offered.

I'm also really intrigued by programming in BASIC to POKE/PEEK on the organiser functions and extend them. Is it recorded how this works anywhere unofficially?

There's one on ebay right now (not my listing), though it's about $80. It appears to be in like-new condition with the manual, at least. The part number is OZ-707 if you have any trouble finding it.

I was just tinkering with mine yesterday, adapting the program mentioned here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/retrobattlestat...sps_tunes/

Surprisingly, very little had to be changed to get it working.

I have one of the Sharp EEPROM cards (64 KB ROM/32 KB RAM) which was originally Commission Plus from Integration Systems - some sort of finance software for mortgage brokers, based on the labeling - but it seems the bits have rotted away. It just displays "PROGRAM" when I try to run the card. No clue how to burn a fresh image to it!

EDIT: Correction, it's an EPROM, not EEPROM. There's a small sticker on the back to expose the chip for blasting it with UV.