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PC-5000

The PC-5000 is the Sharps's first attempt to produce a laptop computer, and was one of the first clamshell style portable computer with the Grid Compass and the Gavilan.

So it is a clamshell style portable computer : when you open the PC-5000, the LCD screen (8 x 80) is lifted to reach its ''in-use'' position, and when you close the computer the screen tilts until it covers the keyboard.

There is an optional printer which can be mounted into the case of the PC-5000 (see picture).

The type of memory used here is quite special, it's magnetic bubble memories. The advantage is that it's quite fast and you can change the memory cartridges (64k or 128k each) in the computer. Thus you can reach 256k RAM, or you can insert applications stored on ROM modules. But the main drawback of theses memories, is that there are very expensive !

The PC-5000 uses MS-DOS but is not really PC compatible, although Sharp tried to sell it by focusing on this point.

Some good software was available for the PC-5000, including Easy-Writer II (wordprocessor), Easy-Comm (communications)and Easy-Planner (spreadsheet). There were sold together as the EasyPac (some sources say that Easy-Report was included).
EasyMenu was the menu-interface built-in the PC-5000.