Slightly slow progress this year due to a number of factors, however I managed today to hook up the Sharp PC-7000 to my Raspberry Pi.  I’ve only had the Sharp for a few weeks and it’s a joy to use.  Fully functional and in lovely condition, the Sharp has a backlit screen which was pretty huge for its day and overall the machine is surprisingly light.

The specifications are:-

• Processor – 8086 @ 7.37 MHz
• RAM – Standard 320k Total 704k
• Screen – LCD 240 mm x 105 mm, 80 characters 25 lines
• Ports – 1 serial, 1 parallel.
• FDD – 2 x 5.25″, 500K unformatted
• Weight – 8.51 kg
• Dimensions – 410 mm(w) x 160 mm(d) x 215 mm(h)

If I was going to hook up the Raspberry Pi and experiment with TCPser I needed some terminal software.  The machine came with MS-DOS 2.11 but I dug out my 3.30 version disks that came with my IBM 5140 and used those instead.

I had imagined I would be able to use Kermit but it needs at minimum an 8088 based machine.  I tried it anyway but no go.  A quick hunt and I found HiTerm which runs quite happily on the Sharp.  I hooked the Raspberry Pi up with a null modem cable and the USB to serial adapter, booted both units and everything worked first time.

I had a look around for something interesting to Telnet to in order to test the connection and decided on the M.U.D. British Legends, maintained by Viktor Toth.  A simple atdt british-legends.com:27750 and I was connected.  I made a video, yay, and a gallery of images of the Sharp.