The Sharp MZ-80B was the second computer released in the MZ-80 series, following the release of the MZ-80K in 1978 in Japan and 1979 in Europe. The MZ-80B was released in 1981 after being presented at the German Hannover Messe in April 1981.

The MZ-80B was primarily marketed for the business market. It featured the Z-80A CPU which ran at 4 MHz, an 8-inch green video display, an 1800-baud cassette deck and a 59-key keyboard with additional numeric keypad, function keys, cursor control and tape control. It was available with either 32K or 64K of RAM. It was all contained in a silver and black, rigid plastic case. Optional external single or double 5.25-inch disk drives were available. The normal character display RAM generates a screen containing 24 lines with 40 characters per line, but this can be altered through software to give 80 characters per line.

The Sharp MZ-80B was an unusual home computer in that it featured an intelligent cassette deck that was able to find and load a program anywhere in the cassette tape, and all the cassette functions were controlled by software so the were no clunky buttons to press.

Manufacturer: Sharp
Date: 1981

This exhibit has a reference ID of CH726. Please quote this reference ID in any communication with the Centre for Computing History.

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