SHARP PC-7000
- Sharp PC-7000 - Zenith Data Systems - Model: ZF-171-42
- Logo
- End View - 5.25 Drives - Keyboard plug
- Back - ID plate
- Back View - Ports
- End View - ON/OFF Switch
- Front Open
- LOGO - Model Type
- We have life - Boot Error
- LOGO
- Front view
- End View - Left 5.25 drive bay door open, Right bay has no drive
- Model / Serial # plate
- Back view
- Back view - Part of what makes it go tickety tick, Should be a joy to work on
- End view - contrast - ON/OFF - Power adapter plug - Battery Cover
- Battery Bay
- Battery Pak- Picture not mine - Mine has no battery - Unable to test as yet
- Front Opened
- Keyboard
- Usefull functions? taped to keyboard
A couple of interesting articles I found on Zenith Data systems. The first from the San Francisco Times, and the second I believe from Obsolete Computers:
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Zenith Has Kept Its Success a Secret
COMPUTER FILE / Richard O'Reilly
April 29, 1985|RICHARD O'REILLY | Richard O'Reilly designs microcomputer applications for The Times
Unlikely as it may seem that a company could become secretly successful in the microcomputer business, Zenith Data Systems seems to have accomplished it.
You seldom see Zenith computers advertised, and none of the major computer chain stores sell them. Yet Zenith's market share has kept pace with that of other companies over the past several years, mainly on the strength of major sales to the federal government.
Zenith makes a computer that is compatible with the IBM PC yet doesn't look like a clone, isn't built like a clone and is even available in a kit from Zenith's Heathkit subsidiary, if you're not afraid of a soldering iron and want to save a few bucks. (Construction takes as little as 16 hours, and Heathkit stores have an excellent reputation for customer support.)
Part of the company's lack of identity is rooted in the confusing variety of model names it has given its PC computer. The same machine is dubbed the Z-100 PC, Z-150 PC and ZF-151 because of circumstances too detailed and boring to explain here. Sold as a kit under the Heathkit label, it is the HF-151.
Whatever you call it, it's an attractive computer, with a console 3 1/2 inches narrower than an IBM's and a nicer keyboard on which important keys like Enter, Shift, Backspace, Insert, Delete, Control and Alternate have been made larger and placed more where your fingers expect to find them.
Different Internal Design
Inside, the Zenith uses the same Intel 8088 microprocessor as the IBM PC, but its internal design is completely different from that of the IBM and its many clones. However, it runs almost all the IBM software and accepts most of the expansion circuit boards that add functions to IBM and compatibles.
Because of the different internal design, however, Zenith is expected soon to announce a new expansion card that will make its computer imitate IBM's new high-performance PC AT--and that's something that IBM can't do for its existing PCs even if it wanted to.
One reason the Zenith can be so easily modified is that it comes with a 168-watt power supply to feed those extra circuits, contrasted with the 63 watts for IBM.
At present Heath-Zenith Computer Centers are selling, at $2,279, a ZF-151 with two floppy disk drives, 320 kilobytes of random access memory (RAM), a parallel printer port and a serial modem port, a color/monochrome graphics display card, the MS-DOS operating system and Microsoft's Word and Multiplan programs. The monitor is extra. Zenith can be reached at 800-842-9000.
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Like your nice clamshell laptop? Thank Zenith, as they helped establish this design with a series of laptops. These machines signal a change away from the CP/M based luggables to DOS based laptops. Nice big screens replace the little bitty screens of the luggables. Truly portable cases replace the sewing machines. 3.5 inch drives replace 5.25. And batteries come as standard equipment. Quite an advance over the days of the luggable. These laptops are XT clones, usually with 640k. Modems were available as internal add-ons.