This is the first release of Pico MZ in 2026. It fixes a number of problems that I've found since the 3.0 release last November and introduces the ability to read and write multi-block BSD (BASIC sequential data) files. For ease of use (and code maintenance) it combines the MZ-80K,A…
I'm making decent progress with adding MZ-700 emulation to the Pico MZ. As far as I can tell I have functionally correct code and I haven't broken the MZ-80K and MZ-80A emulations. I've even managed to update the documentation! I've limited testing to the Pico for the moment, as my…
I was recently sent a copy of Knight's WEE FORTRAN by Sharpworks who had rescued it from a tape belonging to HereBeDragons. There are a couple of references to it in issues 3 and 4 of the Knight's International Sharp User Group newsletters. In 1981 it retailed for £30+VAT and…
I've been working through a number of ideas to produce a Monster Chase / Robots hybrid for Sharp MZ series computers. I've been using my Pico MZ-80K/A emulator in K mode as the development machine. It's working well, except when I forget to save my work to SD card before…
Monster Chase is a 48 line BASIC program from "Stimulating Simulations", published in 1977. The book is 64 pages and is available from the Internet Archive. This program (the second in the book) attracted me as it reminded me a little of an old BSD game (Robots) that I used…
I'm writing this the day before Easter Sunday 2025. In AD 325 at the Council of Nicaea, Easter Sunday was decided to be the first Sunday following the first full moon on or after the spring equinox - March 21st. However, the Julian calendar had a year that was too…
I used my Pico MZ-80K emulator to create a version of the ECLIP program from Celestial BASIC by Eric Burgess. The code correctly predicts that the next lunar eclipse is due on 14th March 2025. I've tidied the output somewhat and there are clearly other optimisations that could be made.
I've been working on a way of displaying Sharp MZ BASIC programs from a digital tape file (mzf/mzt/m12 formats) on a modern computer. I've used a Raspberry Pi 5 as my daily driver for some time and it would be ideal (for me) to be able to look at, print…