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Sharp PC-7000 - space for internal upgrades?

tingo

tingo

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We (our local makerspace) got a Sharp PC-7000 gifted. The machines seems to work, both drives, display, speaker and keyboard.
I'm wondering if there is any space for internal upgrades in it? Like an XT-IDE card?
I couldn't find any pictures or videos online that would settle this question one way or the other.

As the external drive add-on was supposed to sit below the machine, I'm thinking that there might not be space inside, but it would be nice to know without opening the machine.
 
hi. i also have a sharp pc-7000 that i am working on. so as far as space inside the system. that really depends on your setup. there is places for a external monitor to plug into a special video card , ( if equipted. ) and also a spot for a internal 1200 baud modem ( if fitted ) . so if your system does not have eather of these cards installed there would be places to mount the xt-ide. , mind does not come with a modem installed and that was kind of my plan, to mount a cf card reader in that space. only issue is i do not have the pin out of the external connecter on the bottom for where the expantion bay would plug into giving the system extra isa and hard drive support. so not fully sure at this time if you can mod the system to install the card. i would love to work on figuring that out but as of right now. my keyboard is not working. i would love to get some pin out readings from your system if it is curently working. i need to know what lines in the cable should be ground and 5v's to run the keyboard. any help you could offer would be great. thanks
 
ajacocks said:
I also have 2 PC-7000 series machines (7000 and 7121) and would be happy to do anything that I can to assist.

- Alex
Click to expand...
thats awsome to hear. what kind of things do you do with your pc-7000 systems. ? if you could use a muti meter and check the pin out for the keyboard cable for witch pins are ground and plus 5 volts. that would be quite helpful :D
 
I can definitely do that, when I get back home.

I mostly just play with my two. No serious projects, but I'd like to replace the failed HDD on my 7121.

- Alex
 
ajacocks said:
I can definitely do that, when I get back home.

I mostly just play with my two. No serious projects, but I'd like to replace the failed HDD on my 7121.

- Alex.
Click to expand...
oh thats awsome. thank you for being able to help out. :D

so whats the diference in the 7121 and 7000 does that one still have a hard drive expansion bay that docks on the bottom ? would love to see a few photos specialy of the insides if thats posible.
 
sadly there isn't much to upgrade outside of the special modem and video cards. The PC7000 is a dual floppy drive machine, the 7100 (and i think the 7121) has a single floppy drive and a 20 megabyte Hardcard.
The only other way to get a harddrive to function on the machine is to find one of the 2 expansion chassis that came with a 20 megabyte Seagate ST-125 harddisk. From what i've gathered from other threads in the PC and Clone segment these machines can't use roms like the xt ide bios unless the actual Sharp bios is changed.
below is the larger of the 2 expansion chassis, i found it recently after a couple of years of searching on ebay. It can take some I/O cards, but it's not like a normal XT class machine. Adlib soundcards or CGA/EGA video cards don't work. It connects to the computer using a port on the underside of the PC7000/PC7100

p2JZgZC.jpg


lz4ZwCL.jpg


I use these machines to play around with to see what works and what doesn't. Simple games, video modes and so on.

For better compatabillity with normal ISA cards there is the PC7200, a 286 machine. That one can use the XT IDE for example.
 
BlaBla1985 said:
sadly there isn't much to upgrade outside of the special modem and video cards. The PC7000 is a dual floppy drive machine, the 7100 (and i think the 7121) has a single floppy drive and a 20 megabyte Hardcard.
The only other way to get a harddrive to function on the machine is to find one of the 2 expansion chassis that came with a 20 megabyte Seagate ST-125 harddisk. From what i've gathered from other threads in the PC and Clone segment these machines can't use roms like the xt ide bios unless the actual Sharp bios is changed.
below is the larger of the 2 expansion chassis, i found it recently after a couple of years of searching on ebay. It can take some I/O cards, but it's not like a normal XT class machine. Adlib soundcards or CGA/EGA video cards don't work. It connects to the computer using a port on the underside of the PC7000/PC7100

p2JZgZC.jpg


lz4ZwCL.jpg


I use these machines to play around with to see what works and what doesn't. Simple games, video modes and so on.

For better compatabillity with normal ISA cards there is the PC7200, a 286 machine. That one can use the XT IDE for example.
Click to expand...
Hi, there is a Sharp PC-7000 restoration video in YouTube from Tech Tangents (
) where he is talking about a solution to connect a HD but there was no progress so far.
But in his video you can see the original video adapter.
Maybe he can help to get more informations about the upgrade video card.
Sharp board.JPG
 
Patrick1974 said:
where he is talking about a solution to connect a HD but there was no progress so far.
But in his video you can see the original video adapter.
Maybe he can help to get more informations about the upgrade video card.
Click to expand...

I have one of those video cards aswell. Sadly, i have yet to find any documentation on it. The service manual for the PC7100s CGA card is out there but is completly different and uses a large single chip instead. I had the idea to draw out the schematic from the card but I don't have time for it.

I have made a board that works the same as the expansion chassis (minus the MFM harddrive options as it uses a special card and specific hard drive). It can use several ISA cards though, including the ISA to USB card used by Tech Tangents aswell. This would give the machine a flashdrive to use as a hard disk. This combo could even fit in the hard card area of the PC7100.

you can find that board here. including all files to make them.
https://forum.vcfed.org/index.php?threads/sharp-pc7000-7100-expansion-chassis-recreation.1239278/
 
I've been wanting to connect an external display to my pc7000 for a long time, I don't have the cga card and the integrated display looks very poor, has anyone got the cga card schematics or a way to force monochrome video output from the motherboard? Greetings!
 
BlaBla1985 said:
I have one of those video cards aswell. Sadly, i have yet to find any documentation on it. The service manual for the PC7100s CGA card is out there but is completly different and uses a large single chip instead. I had the idea to draw out the schematic from the card but I don't have time for it.

I have made a board that works the same as the expansion chassis (minus the MFM harddrive options as it uses a special card and specific hard drive). It can use several ISA cards though, including the ISA to USB card used by Tech Tangents aswell. This would give the machine a flashdrive to use as a hard disk. This combo could even fit in the hard card area of the PC7100.

you can find that board here. including all files to make them.
https://forum.vcfed.org/index.php?threads/sharp-pc7000-7100-expansion-chassis-recreation.1239278/
Click to expand...
Please share a photo of your PC7000 video card. Best regards and thank you
 
Patojanet said:
Oh!!! Thank you, this will help me a lot. I will wait for your photo. Likewise, if you decide to sell it on eBay, I'll stay tuned. Best regards and thank you.
Click to expand...
Here are some pictures. I'm unlikely to sell it as these are not easy to find, I don't think I've ever seen one for sale on it's own. Although on rare occasions a PC7000 is sold with one installed. I've never seen a PC7100 a CGA card for sale (kind of a holy grail item for me by now).

Front1.jpg

Front2.jpg

Back.jpg
 
BlaBla1985 said:
Here are some pictures. I'm unlikely to sell it as these are not easy to find, I don't think I've ever seen one for sale on it's own. Although on rare occasions a PC7000 is sold with one installed. I've never seen a PC7100 a CGA card for sale (kind of a holy grail item for me by now).

View attachment 1265618

View attachment 1265619

View attachment 1265620
Click to expand...
Thank you! I understand you perfectly, and I will also say that these are the only such clear photographs of this electronic board. Just if you can, do you know if the ROM chip you see has copies somewhere on the Internet? Kind regards
 
Patojanet said:
Thank you! I understand you perfectly, and I will also say that these are the only such clear photographs of this electronic board. Just if you can, do you know if the ROM chip you see has copies somewhere on the Internet? Kind regards
Click to expand...
Hmm, I may have dumped it back when I got the machine. I'll have to look, I don't think they are online... If not I could make a dumb of the ROM if you'd like.
 
If you can, upload the dump of the rom to archive.org so that others can use it to either repair their boards or maybe someday someone can reverse engineer a board. Thanks for sharing the pictures and information. It's invaluable!
 
I had been looking throught some folders on my second PC that has a lot of random stuff stored on it, I could have sworn I had dumped that ROM already. But all I could find were the BIOS dumps and the ROMs from the hard card in the 7100.

Yes... I should look into Archive.org for what is there already and what I might be able to add to it, don't really have the time for it currently. I should have some time off in the winter, might be a good idea to reserve a day for some research on that.

Patojanet said:
Thank you! I understand you perfectly, and I will also say that these are the only such clear photographs of this electronic board. Just if you can, do you know if the ROM chip you see has copies somewhere on the Internet? Kind regards
Click to expand...

In the mean time, I have the ROM dumped now. It's a Fujitsu chip, MBM2731A (although I guess it's just a generic 2732 to be honest). I've added this photo in the zip file with the .BIN file from the ROM.

CGA-ROM-chip.jpg
 

Attachments

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