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

[Akuji]

Here are all the spreadsheet cards released in the West. Previously, I already covered the 706 and 8B01/8B04M, but this time, I want to concentrate on the much more interesting OZ/IQ-9B01 “PenCell Spreadsheet.”



One of the last retail IC cards released for the platform, it reached the stores in 1994 and had a pretty limited print run, which makes it quite rare nowadays.

Unlike the previous spreadsheet cards by PCSG/Lucid, OZ/IQ-9B01 was developed by PenWare specifically for the OZ-9000 and IQ-8900/9000 series of organizers.





Both the cards have identical front; the back specifies the model number and the amount of RAM



Interestingly, OZ-9B01 contains twice the RAM compared to IQ-9B01 and provides more storage available to a user. Initially, I assumed that the smaller memory size was due to the need to store multiple localizations like in IQ-8B04M. However, this is not true - IQ-9B01's interface is available only in English.



OZ-9B01 (left), IQ-9B01 (right)

Since OZ-95x0/IQ-89x0 have a smaller screen resolution than OZ-9600 (II)/IQ-9x00, the amount of information displayed is also limited.



9B01 card on the IQ-8900 screen



9B01 card on the OZ-9600 II screen

The versions of IQ-9B01 released in the UK (?) and continental Europe have different user manuals, the latter of which is additionally translated into German and French.



When Sharp released the Zaurus ZR-5000 PDA, it promised to make the native version of “PenCell Spreadsheet” available for the new platform. However, the promise never materialized, which upset many ZR-5000 owners. Eventually, Sharp incorporated the application into the firmware of the newer models—ZR-5700, 5800, and 3500X (seen in the photo below).