MZ-700 emulator =============== The MZ-700 emulator is a program that brings the old Sharp MZ-700 home computer back to life on your PC. You can run all your favorite MZ-700 programs without having to wipe the dust from your old machine. The MZ-700 emulator was written by Ruud Helderman. The program is freeware, which means you may freely copy and distribute it, just as long as you do not make modifications to the program and do not try to make profit out of it. The rest of this file should help you getting started. As yet there is no user's manual, but you may find some useful things in TECHDOC.TXT. System requirements ------------------- Let's just say the MZ-700 emulator runs on any PC with MS-DOS, unless it is REALLY old. Ok, in more detail, you need: - an IBM-PC compatible computer, - MS-DOS 3.3 or higher, - at least 256k of free conventional memory, - EGA or VGA video card with at least 256k of memory. To see your Sharp programs running at a reasonable pace, you need at least a 486 or a Pentium. The emulator runs best in pure DOS mode. Windows 95 users can run the emulator in a DOS box, as long as they keep it full-screen. Switching back and forth to the Windows desktop will mess up the emulator's character set and colors (I blame Microsoft for this). To refresh the emulator screen, try pressing then . Installation ------------ Simple. Just create a new directory on your hard drive, for example C:\MZ700, and copy all necessary files to the new directory. You need at least the following files: MZ700EMU.EXE MZ700.MON MZ700.FNT ADLIB.SND NOFILE.BAT PLOTTER.BAT PLOTTER.EXE To be able to load the BASIC interpreter, you also need any of the following files: S_BASIC (the S-BASIC as included on tape with the Sharp MZ-700) SBASBMPK (S-BASIC with BasMod extensions and printer routines) UNIGG700 (UNI-GG-BASIC 700, made by the HCC Sharp MZ-gg) More MZ-700 software is stored in .ARJ files. You will need the archive utility ARJ.EXE to extract the software from these files. For example, to install the 10 games (as included on tape with the Sharp MZ-700), you copy the file TENGAMES.ARJ to your hard drive, and type the following command at the DOS prompt: ARJ E TENGAMES.ARJ Type DIR and you will see that there are now 10 more files: BATTLEGA.OBJ CIRCUSST.OBJ LANDESCA.OBJ MANHUNT.OBJ MOVSEARC.OBJ PAINFULM.OBJ ROUNDSHT.OBJ SEND1.OBJ SNAKE.OBJ SUPERPUC.OBJ The next section explains how to run these programs on the emulator. Running OBJ programs on the emulator ------------------------------------ OBJ programs are machine code programs, they do not need the BASIC interpreter to run. As an example, we will show how to run the program MANHUNT.OBJ. Follow these steps. (1) At the DOS prompt, type MZ700EMU. This starts up the MZ-700 emulator. (2) Press key . A prompt "Enter name of tape file" appears. (3) Type MANHUNT.OBJ and press . You should be getting "Ok" as a response. If you get any other message than that, then this can mean any one of two things: - You made a typing error. Try again from step 3. - File MANHUNT.OBJ is either damaged or entirely missing. Leave the emulator (step 7) to fix it. (4) Press key . You should now see the familiair blue screen with the message "** MONITOR 1Z-013A **". If the screen turns all blue or black but you do not see the message, then there might be something wrong with MZ700.MON or MZ700.FNT. Leave the emulator (step 7) and check if both files are present in the same directory as MZ700EMU.EXE. (5) Press followed by as you used to on the real Sharp. In a few seconds the message "LOADING MANHUNT" should appear. Note: the key on the PC keyboard represents the key on the keyboard of the original Sharp. (6) When the program stops loading, you can start playing! (7) Any time you want to leave the emulator, press followed by . Running BASIC programs on the emulator -------------------------------------- To run a BASIC program, you must first load the BASIC interpreter. Basically a BASIC interpreter is nothing more than an OBJ program, so we can follow the same steps in loading it. (1) At the DOS prompt, type MZ700EMU. (2) Press key . A prompt "Enter name of tape file" appears. (3) Type the name of your favorite BASIC interpreter (either S_BASIC, SBASBMPK or UNIGG700) and press . (4) Press . (5) Press then and wait for the BASIC interpreter to load. As soon as the BASIC interpreter has loaded, you can try to load a BASIC program. (6) Type LOAD and press . The screen will change back to its `normal' state, like it was before step 4. (7) Press key . A prompt "Enter name of tape file" appears. (8) Enter the name of the BASIC program you want to load. (9) Press . If you succesfully selected a file in step 8, then a "LOADING" message will appear in seconds. If not, then you can abort the LOAD command by simultaneously pressing and the grey <*> key on the numeric keypad (which corresponds to on the Sharp). (10) When loading has finished, enter RUN to run the program. (11) When the program has finished, you can load another one by repeating the same steps, starting from 6. (12) Again, you can leave any time by pressing then .