This mini forum is intended to provide a simple means of discussion about the Sharp  MZ-3500 computer. If you want to share your own experience or memories, or add relevant information about this system: post a message!

Bought new in 1980, still being used with accounting software on weekly basis

We still have one of these that is still being used in 2012!!!

This was second generation from Sharp on FDOS. I recall how impressed we were with how fast our financials software now ran. We used the basic. We were a small company with dozens of customers on the old model and this model, especially when they released it with harddisc, was sold to up to 100 customers (small businesses). Some of my collagues played with the CP/M which was cool but as we all know lost out to a poorer IBM-DOS... Using diskettes for production systems was interesting. I recall getting a call from a production baker at 2 am where it was clear the dust had settled on the floppy making it read/write with erros going into a loop... Very reliable machines and excellent finish.

In the late 1980's I worked for a company in Australiia that Gave away hundreds of the MZ-3500 in a deal that involved getting commisions from finance and insurance contracts written using our software. This computers were often still being used well into the 1990's .We also used pc-5000 & pc-7000 Sharp for the same program and deal. the software was 99.5% identical on all machines written in CBASIC from digital research and used ANSI control sequences for screen routines.