Sharp electronic organizers with the IC card slot (Wizard OZ/IQ/PA/PI series)

[Akuji]

I've got a bunch of new Japanese IC cards and would like to tell you more about some of them.

Two games: PA-3C43 'Pocket Quest' (ASK Kodansha) и PA-5C05 'Kyoto Zaitech Murder Case' (Hector):



They are notable because they are the only games of their genre for Sharp organizers (at least of the officially released IC cards) - RPG and adventure, respectively. Unfortunately, both the cards I have are barebones without instructions, so I can't say much about them.

Pocket Quest is similar to the first Dragon Quest with all the related RPG attributes. As you can see from the card's photo, it offers NEC-like controls like the D-pad and two A/B buttons, as well as additional ones that show character's stats, help, and the ability to save and load progress via the alphanumeric password (the card doesn't have a battery).



'Kyoto Zaitech Murder Case' is unique as the only IC game card I know of that does not use the slot's tactile membrane to implement controls. Instead, it uses the organizer's touchscreen with virtual buttons on it.



I've also got an OEM version of the PA-7C3 card (6-language translator) for Panasonic. For those who don't know: Sharp produced OEM versions of its organizers for Panasonic, Hitachi & NTT DoCoMo in Japan, including the IC cards and accessories. Here it is compared to the other versions of this card from Sharp itself:



Finally, a quick comparison between a Japanese card and its western counterpart. First is the spreadsheet editor (the Japanese version was developed by HAL Laboratory, which, sadly, didn't produce any games for Sharp organizers. Instead, the company compensated it with different business software):



And the second one is the Basic card. Interestingly, this particular Japanese card was the first one that allowed a user to program directly on the device. Previously released cards, PA-7C18/7C19 (they were similar to the western VAR-oriented cards like OZ/IQ-770, etc.), required a PC to do this.