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

[Akuji]

Greetings from a collector of Sharp electronic organizers with the IC card slot (western series Wizard OZ/IQ & Japanese PA/PI). Is there anyone else here besides me who collects these organizers as well as IC cards & accessories for them? Unfortunately, there is no single place on the net where collectors of these adorable devices gather, so I'm looking for fellow collectors here.

Initially, I've tried starting the discussion in this topic, but no one replied, and I decided to try posting in a more 'offtopic-firendly' sub-forum .

[Dave Britten]

I do! Though my collection is rather modest: a couple of organizers, and a small handful of cards. The most significant being the OZ-707 Scientific Computer (BASIC) card, which turns the Wizard into an excellent pocket computer. The 3D Spreadsheet card is also quite good. I mainly use them in my OZ-7200, since BASIC is the 16-column version, and it looks a bit silly on the OZ-8000 models. I need to get an OZ-7600 so I can at least have the QWERTY keyboard with directly accessible punctuation.

I also have the CE-50P printer/cassette interface, which I think can actually print faster than it can save a program to tape. And it's just a plain old thermal printer not unlike the HP 82240A/B, so that should give you some idea how slowly it saves to tape.

[Akuji]

(03-25-2021 02:17 AM)Dave Britten Wrote:  I do! Though my collection is rather modest: a couple of organizers, and a small handful of cards. The most significant being the OZ-707 Scientific Computer (BASIC) card, which turns the Wizard into an excellent pocket computer. The 3D Spreadsheet card is also quite good. I mainly use them in my OZ-7200, since BASIC is the 16-column version, and it looks a bit silly on the OZ-8000 models. I need to get an OZ-7600 so I can at least have the QWERTY keyboard with directly accessible punctuation.

That's great! Could you please take a photo of your organizers and cards? I'm especially interested in serial IDs of both organizers and cards - the ID contains the production date, which helps me narrow down each specific organizer or card model's production period.

Also, since you apparently collect US staff, do you happen to have US promotional booklets that look like these?



Recently I finally managed to collect all six game cards which Sharp released in the west.



Multiple game cards were released only in Japan which have English localization and could be easily published by Sharp overseas.

(03-25-2021 02:17 AM)Dave Britten Wrote:  I also have the CE-50P printer/cassette interface, which I think can actually print faster than it can save a program to tape. And it's just a plain old thermal printer not unlike the HP 82240A/B, so that should give you some idea how slowly it saves to tape.

I have this printer too! As well as some other Japan-only peripherals like the thermo-printer CE-60P to print on surfaces and business card reader PV-BR1.



Once again, Sharp released a much broader lineup of accessories for its organizers in Japan, including 3,5" FDD.

[Hollerith]

I have a Sharp ZQ-770 (OZ-770 in US) Electronic Organizer.

Sharp produced a basic sdk. This creates a .wzd file on a PC which can be tranferred to and run on the the organizer. Not very convenient.

A 3rd party progam , basconv, witten by Eiji Kako and Tami Takamiya runs on the organizer and enables you to run basic programs entered into the memo application. The basic source size is limited to 2KB (memo limit). The basic is the same as Sharp's sdk.

[robve]

(03-25-2021 11:05 AM)Hollerith Wrote:  A 3rd party progam , basconv, witten by Eiji Kako and Tami Takamiya runs on the organizer and enables you to run basic programs entered into the memo application.

Thanks for the tip!! But Google is not cooperating with me to help locate "basconv". Do you have a link?

I have an OZ 9500 (used but like new, no IC cards alas). I wonder how to transfer files from/to a PC via USB, since the USB-RS232 adapters I tried do not work with the CE-133T that requires 7V levels or higher. The USB-RS232 adapters I tried boost the level up to 6V it appears, which is not enough. Connecting the 15 pin connector of the device to FTDI as explained here may or may not work. Ruining the device if I make a mistake with the connectors is not very appealing either. I suppose I have to dust off my abandoned Windows XP desktop machine as a last resort.

- Rob

[xerxes]

(03-25-2021 11:05 AM)Hollerith Wrote:  A 3rd party progam , basconv, witten by Eiji Kako and Tami Takamiya runs on the organizer and enables you to run basic programs entered into the memo application. The basic source size is limited to 2KB (memo limit). The basic is the same as Sharp's sdk.

Is there any speed difference between the SDK and basconv?

[Hollerith]

Xerxes wrote

Quote:Is there any speed difference between the SDK and basconv?

I have not used the sdk in years. I do not remember there being an execution speed difference. I got the impression that the ZQ-770 had the runtime builtin and that the sdk and bacon just converted source to a form that could be run.

From the bacon text file

Quote: This is the BASIC converter (from ASCII file to intermediate code
format) for Japanese Sharp Zaurus Addin-BASIC.

Since Japanese Zaurus Addin-BASIC is upper-compatible with Sharp
pocket computer PC-E500 BASIC, this software can be used for BASIC
programs written for pocket computers.

Note that bacon is free software and includes the source code (in C).

[Dave Britten]

This is most of what I've got for software cards. Not pictured are the spare copy of the spreadsheet, and the finance program on an EPROM card that appears to have bit rot.

https://i.imgur.com/UP5UPUP.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/6jAH8rO.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/lVp4hBf.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/jaHyLjH.jpg

Nothing special as far as organizer hardware, just a couple spare OZ-7000s, and some OZ-8000 varieties.

[Akuji]

(03-26-2021 01:23 AM)Dave Britten Wrote:  This is most of what I've got for software cards.

Oh, I've remembered your cards! We've already discussed them in this reddit post: https://www.reddit.com/r/retrobattlestat...card_slot/

[Dave Britten]

(03-26-2021 07:45 AM)Akuji Wrote:  

(03-26-2021 01:23 AM)Dave Britten Wrote:  This is most of what I've got for software cards.

Oh, I've remembered your cards! We've already discussed them in this reddit post: https://www.reddit.com/r/retrobattlestat...card_slot/

Yup! Same photos, as I haven't found any more cool stuff since then.

[Akuji]

Yesterday I received Nikon AC-1E card and MC-27 cable. They are used to connect certain Nikon DSLRs to Sharp organizers and offer the following features:
- Change various camera settings directly through the organizer.
- Save them as presets.
- Store all picture-taking information.
- Transfer it to PC.
The cards also contain an instruction manual for the camera.

[blackjetrock]

I also have some of these organisers. I think I have 4 or 5 organisers, two of which don't work.
I have the scientific calculator card, the 3D spreadsheet, bilingual translater cards and a 32KB memory card.
I have a CE50 printer as well. I'm wondering if I could build an adapter card so that I can use the PC-G850VS gadget I made with these organisers. That would give SD card storage and attachment to a receipt printer, with a bit of code.

Andrew

[blackjetrock]

I had a look for the cards this morning, but they weren't in the boxes. They are probably in a project bag from when I was looking at making the cards. I do have two cards though.

Andrew

[Akuji]

Thanks for the photos!

(03-27-2021 10:32 AM)blackjetrock Wrote:  I had a look for the cards this morning, but they weren't in the boxes.

Actually, serial id is also usually listed on the box in addition to the card itself.

[hp41cx]

Sharp IQ reference

[Akuji]

(03-27-2021 10:09 PM)hp41cx Wrote:  Sharp IQ reference

It's a great resource even though it's not complete. For example, there are at least 10 western retail IC cards published by Sharp which aren't listed there, for example:

[Joe Horn]

(03-28-2021 12:08 AM)Akuji Wrote:  

(03-27-2021 10:09 PM)hp41cx Wrote:  Sharp IQ reference

It's a great resource even though it's not complete. For example, there are at least 10 western retail IC cards published by Sharp which aren't listed there...

It's also missing:
IQ-775 -- "EPROM Card 64" -- 64K bytes EPROM and 32K bytes RAM with battery
OZ-8C01 -- "Holy Bible 16/40" -- King James Version with search engine

My IQ-775 is a prototype of the BASIC card. Its PEEK command let you extract the organizer's password. The released versions of the BASIC card can't do that.

[rprosperi]

(03-28-2021 12:32 PM)Joe Horn Wrote:  

(03-28-2021 12:08 AM)Akuji Wrote:  It's a great resource even though it's not complete. For example, there are at least 10 western retail IC cards published by Sharp which aren't listed there...

It's also missing:
IQ-775 -- "EPROM Card 64" -- 64K bytes EPROM and 32K bytes RAM with battery
OZ-8C01 -- "Holy Bible 16/40" -- King James Version with search engine

My IQ-775 is a prototype of the BASIC card. Its PEEK command let you extract the organizer's password. The released versions of the BASIC card can't do that.

Whether you consider that a good thing or a bad thing, it's my fault. After sending the beta BASIC card to Joe to explore, and within about a day he figured out that PEEK could reveal the password, I reported that to the Engineers in Japan, and it was changed just in time for production (rumors circulated that the initial production lot could still do this, though I never found one that could)

So, it's my fault...

The FBI was not happy with this as they were hoping to use it to access contents of machines seized in criminal cases. Seems Wizards (or IQ organizers for ROW) were the go-to technology for the high profile bad guys at the time. That contact list no doubt contained some gold for the good guys.

[Dave Britten]

(03-28-2021 02:48 PM)rprosperi Wrote:  Seems Wizards (or IQ organizers for ROW) were the go-to technology for the high profile bad guys at the time.

And Atari Portfolios for the low-profile bad guys, at least according to Terminator 2.

[Akuji]

(03-28-2021 12:32 PM)Joe Horn Wrote:  My IQ-775 is a prototype of the BASIC card.

Does it look different from the retail card? If yes, can you take a photo, please?

(03-28-2021 02:48 PM)rprosperi Wrote:  Seems Wizards (or IQ organizers for ROW)

Do you know the reason why Sharp organizers were labeled as (Wizard) 'OZ' in the US, but 'IQ' in the rest of the western world? Why not using the same branding?

Also, I'd like to hear the story of how Sharp expanded its organizers to the west.

PA-7000 was released in Japan in January 1987, but it took Sharp almost two years to release OZ-7000 in the US in October 1988, which coincided with the release of PA-8500 in Japan. I've heard that the OZ line was initially pitched to the Japanese headquarters by the US branch, but more details are always welcome.