Sharp MZ-80P3 Dot Printer

The MZ-80P3 was a dot matrix printer produced by Sharp for the MZ-80 computer series. It needed the MZ-80 I/O Interface Unit to connect to the computer. The MZ-80P3 is a tractor-fed dot-matrix printer capable of handling paper widths from four to 10 inches. The normal characters are printed in a six-by-seven dot format, with no descenders on lower-case letters. The printer produces double-width characters in a 12-by-seven format and the print-head is driven across the paper by a peg in a slotted drum. This results in the printer head having to complete a full line's travel however short the line printed is. The print-head prints in one direction only and produces 80 characters per line on 10-inch paper. The printer accepts parallel eight-bit ASCII data and will produce 255 ASCII and graphics characters.

The other dot matrix printers made by Sharp included the MZ80P4 which ran on both computers and is a 160 column version of the P3, and the MZ80P5 which was the standard MZ80B printer which had the added advantage of user-definable characters.

The MZ80-P3 cost £431.00 in October 1980.

Thanks to Old-computers.com for the picture.