Sharp IQ-7100M

In 1994, I bought a Sharp IQ-8300M Electronic Organizer to keep track of appointments and phone numbers. These were the ancients of modern smartphones, in a manner of speaking. I extended it with the IQ-8B03 BASIC card, so I could also use it as scientific calculator, and write small BASIC programs.

Unfortunately the synthetic leather exterior is starting to deteriorate after a few decades. I accidentally accelerated the process by storing the device in a box that seemed to exude plasticizers. When I took it out again some day, the entire outer shell had softened and was sticky like honey, rendering the device useless. I decided to dispose it. What I kept was the BASIC card.

Later I found this IQ-7100M for a good price at an online auction house, so I bought this one as a replacement. The exterior is still intact, and thanks to the experience I made, I now store it in a dark and dry cardboard box.

Configuration

  • Unknown build date, first half of the 1990s
  • 96 x 64 pixel dot matrix monochrome LCD
  • 32KB RAM
  • IQ-8B03 "Scientific Computer Card BASIC" with extended math operations and separate 32KB BASIC RAM

Restauration Works

  • None, except of a bit of careful cleaning.

Fun Facts

  • The Wizard organizer series was called IQ in Europe, but OZ in the USA.

  • The BASIC also offers PEEK and POKE commands, with access to the entire ROM and RAM area. (If I remember correctly, I could even read protected records that way, without having to give the password.) I never found a command for jumping to a memory address, and also found no documentation about the instruction set of the proprietary Sharp CPU. Otherwise it would have even been possible to program the organizer in assembler.