Category Archives: The Family

The swiss adventure : Lukas ZELLER

As you understand my research to tell the story of the PC-1500 does not have borders.
I have many things from Germany. And my previous donor, Xavier Fojud brought me a link between France, Germany and Switzerland. In the latter I already had some contacts but the documents he had generously offered allowed me to connect some names.

Last week I received a gift of Lukas ZELLER.
He has been active Swiss side of the PC-1500 with his diary “Tips & Knife” and his assembler ZASM-S.
So here is his generous gift:

– PC-1500 Expanded to 28KB of RAM + switch to activate a 4Mhz quartz.
– PC-1600 the first version with integrated memory expansion to reach 96Kb.
– CE-150 Printer
– Sharp software modules CE-510A, 502A and 505A
– CE-155 modules whose components were removed to tinker extension of PC-1600
– CE-162E interface
– PC-1500 Technical reference manual
– PC-1600 Service Manual version SME1
– 3 user manuals for software that I’m trying to get.
– 2 prototype cards for male connector.
– ZAMS-S user manual developed by Lukas.

These PC-1500 and PC-1600 contain something not trivial that I will reveal later here in the series of articles on Lukas Zeller.

A huge thank you to Lukas!

Are you sure ?

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Can you tell me which model this picture belongs to ?

But are you sure ?

Your Sharp CE-150 needs repair ?

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The main problem on CE-150 is the battery pack.
This item needs to be kept in charge.
But after years in your attic…

The battery pack leaks and can damage the electronic board.
Sharp did a mistake when designing the CE-150.
Without battery pack the printer is unusable except for tape operations.

Do you want to repair it ?

Look at this video tutorial offered by Kai :
http://www.kaibader.de/sharp-ce-150-printer-pc-1500-vintage-hardware-repair/

And bookmark his very interesting website !

IWS Video adapter for the Sharp PC-1500 (Part 1)

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Many of us have dreamed of this device!
But his selling price was 800DM did not make him accessible to all budgets.

It was designed by “Ingenieurbüro Walter Speidel” and sold a few hundred copies. To my knowledge the IWS is the only video interface for Sharp PC-1500.

So the mysterious listing we had:

This peripheral offers the following features:
– Playback on TV with the resolution of 25×40 or 25×80 characters.
– Input / Output cassette
– Speaker Output

The save/load with the tape are faster than Sharp instructions.

It is accompanied by a user manual in A5 size.
All is correctly described, the new Basic instructions, the memory organization, except the schematics.

DOWNLOAD the user manual

And there exist a 3 page correction to it :

DOWNLOAD the correction

It can connect directly to the PC-1500 but needs it’s only power adapter.

And to the printer :

Next time we will talk about hardware considerations…

The PC-2 and the Radio Shack catalogs

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The Tandy PC-2 was exclusively sold by Radio Shack, in shops or catalogs.
A big thanks to Mike from www.RadioShackCatalogs.com for allowing me to publish here some pages with the PC-2 !

First we have the General catalogs for 1983 and 1984.
It’s strange but there wasn’t any PC-2 in the 1982 one.
The start price was $279.95 for the pocket and $239.95 for the printer.
The printer’s carrying case was sold apart at $29.95

1983 :

1984 :

And we have the Computer catalogs for 1983 and 1984 too.
Nothing after 1984… definitely replaced by the PC-3 !

Uh, do you see the PC-2 color page 39 ? It’s light brown, like PC-1500…
Printing problem or does it really exist a non grey version ?

1983 RSC 08 page 38:	1983 RSC 08 page 39:
1983 RSC 09 page 116:	1983 RSC 09 page 117:
1984 RSC 10 page 57:	1984 RSC 11 page 61:

And here are the Additional catalogs from 1982 to 1984.
Yes ! 1982, this the first time on catalog for the PC-2.
But at the last catalog its price was $99.95 only !

Sale 1982 n°358:	Sale 1983 n°369:
Sale 1983 n°370:	Sale 1983 n°371:
Sale 1984 n°376:	Sale 1984 n°379:

You can visit Mike’s website for more informations of Radio Shack’s story and to see these pictures in high resolution.

Tandy TRS-80 PC-2 : rare version of the user manual

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Here is it, the rare version of the user manual :

If you want to get it run to Gary’s auction on eBay : (Sold)
Auction for this rare manual + a mint PC-2

Gary, thanks for the picture !

PC-1500, the family portrait

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With the advent of small 8th and 9th so I have to redo the family photo.
So this is a total of 9 different versions of our favorite pocket computer.

Come on, I made you presentations!
From left to right and from top to bottom:

– Sharp PC-1500 Europe and North America.
– Sharp PC-1500A Europe and North America.
– Sharp PC-1500 Japan.
– Sharp PC-1501 Japan.
– Sharp PC-1500 Japan blue.
– Sharp PC-1500 RP2 Brazil
– Hiradastechnika PTA-4000 Hungary
– Hiradastechnika PTA-4000 + 16 Hungary
– Tandy / Radio Shack PC-2

What makes us 4 beautiful colors!

Few more pictures :

Before you go on your Internet browser to try to find those missing in your collection here is the order of rarity (the rarest to most common)
– Sharp PC-1500 Japan blue.
– Sharp PC-1500 RP2 Brazil
– Hiradastechnika PTA-4000 Hungary
– Hiradastechnika PTA-4000 + 16 Hungary
– Sharp PC-1501 Japan.
– Sharp PC-1500 Japan.
– Tandy / Radio Shack PC-2
– Sharp PC-1500A Europe and North America.
– Sharp PC-1500 Europe and North America.

I wish you good looking …

The blue brother : Sharp PC-1500D

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Hello, don’t i promised great news ’till end of the year?
Well, here’s the first news: Blue brother arrived with his printer, in a nice briefcase.

That’s a long time since I was looking for and patience paid off.
Here are some pictures from all angles:

On Japanese sites it has the reference Sharp PC-1500D.
But, to my knowledge, there is nothing to give this name.
Its serial number is very interesting because it puts to the latest PC-1500 manufactured and before the PC-1500A.

Internally it is a version A04 identical to the other PC-1500 A04.

No, the only thing that distinguishes it is blue.
Nay, superb blue !!!

This is the ninth of the family.

Sharp Technical Reference Manual

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The blue bible, well known as the TRM !
It was the graal for users in the 80’s.
Here is it, as a PDF file (OCR) with a separate file for the schematics.

All manuals are scanned from my own materials.
If you have some of the missing manuals (or not in this list) to offer (or sell) please tell me.
If you download something, please feel free to write a little comment.

Download

Download schematics

Sharp and Tandy service manuals

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Do you know the Sharp and Tandy Service Manuals ?
Here are they, modified to have one PDF file (OCR) per item.

Download	Download
CE-151 4Kb MISSING	CE-152 Tape MISSING
Download	CE-154 Wallet Not exist
Download	CE-156 Soft tape Not exist
CE-157 ROM 4Kb MISSING	Download
Download	CE-160 7,8Kb MISSING
Download	Download
CE-163 32Kb MISSING	CE-165 Writer for CE-160 MISSING
Download	Download
Download	Download schematics