Year: 1985
Initial Price: $1,795, $4,322 in 2020
The PC-7000 is Sharp’s second computer targeted for sale in the US, after the PC-5000 from late 1984.
First previewed in July at the 1985 “National Office Machine Dealers Association” show in Las Vegas, the PC-7000 was available for retail three months later in October.
While the PC-7000 is not the first transportable computer by any means, it may have had the best built-in display of any – a huge 9.5 x 4.25-inch electroluminescent backlit LCD screen capable of displaying 24 lines of text, with 80 characters per line.
The computer offered IBM compatibility, dual built-in 5 1/4-inch floppy drives, and relatively light weight made the PC-7000 one of the best portable computers of the day.
Sharp always had a reputation for building technically sound but rather stange computers, ignoring ‘industry standards’. The PC-7000 broke this image.
This was a “lunchbox” portable IBM PC compatible system. It had two 5”1/4 disk-drives mounted on the right side and a nice blue tiltable screen, the world’s first backlit LCD.
The system consisted of three main parts: system unit, keyboard and optional CE-700P printer. When the system had to be carried, both the keyboard and the printer clipped into the main unit.
One year later (1986) , the PC-7100 was launched. It had a 20Mb hard-disk instead of the second built-in 5”1/4 FDD.
| NAME | PC-7000 |
| MANUFACTURER | Sharp |
| TYPE | Portable |
| ORIGIN | Japan |
| YEAR | 1985 |
| KEYBOARD | Full-stroke keyboard, numeric keypad, 10 function keys |
| CPU | Intel 8086 |
| SPEED | 7.37 or 4.77 Mhz |
| CO-PROCESSOR | optional 8087 math co-processor |
| RAM | 320k (704k max.) |
| ROM | 16k |
| TEXT MODES | 80 x 24 |
| GRAPHIC MODES | 640 x 200 |
| COLORS | Monochrome LCD display |
| SOUND | Beeper |
| SIZE / WEIGHT | 410 x 160 x 215 mm / 8,5 Kg |
| I/O PORTS | Serial port, parallel port, color CRT video output (optional) |
| BUILT IN MEDIA | 2 x 5”1/4 disk-drives (360 KB each) |
| OS | MS-DOS |
| POWER SUPPLY | External power supply (specs. unknown) |
| PRICE | $1795 |
Source: old-computers.com, oldcomputers.net
The computer is modular in terms of accessories, an 20MB external drive can be attached underneath and a thermal printer on the back. I found a picture on Reddit with the HDD but I haven’t found the printer on the web. It clearly exists as the printer is mentioned in the user manual.
I got my machine pretty dirty and it needed cleaning. Sure, some retrobrite would be great but I really like the yellow color on this particular unit. Here’s a picture with the unit disassembled and squiky clean:
I made a video with the PC-7000 that I will share soon. Some attention was needed on the dual FDD unit, the internal 3.6V battery etc.