UNICARD mk3b is an interface card for computers MZ-800 and MZ-1500**. It can be used with adapter in MZ-700* too. It allows you to simply run MZF/MZT files from a microSD card and provides emulation of standard SHARP peripherals and a VGA output, as well as other inputs/outputs (USB, RS-232C, Ethernet, PS/2, audio).
The Unicard can emulate standard SHARP peripherals, such as Quick Disk, various RAM disks (RAM, SRAM, SROM, EMM), a floppy controller with 4 floppy disk drives, a serial interface, a KANJI and dictionary card and some newly created peripherals, such as an arithmetic unit ALU, RTC and potentially more, because the firmware is still being updated. The Unicard offers several communication interfaces (Ethernet - HTTP server, USB and RS-232 - USARTShell, 8-bit API MZFRepo).
You are buying just the hardware. There will be firmware installed, but it is community developed and not part of the product and its guarantee. You can download actual firmware and ask for sources if you are able to contribute to development. Some proprietary Keil tools are required. Software configuration is done by Unicard Manager. You have to download it and place on your own microSD card. Unicard is sold without microSD card and without CR2032 battery.
Black version of Unicard is not produced currently. It is here just to sample interst and could be produced later.
* MZ-700 requires SHARP MZ-1U06 expansion or another bus adapter. The firmware support for MZ-700 is currently limited. Only older fw for European version of MZ-700 works. New fw is available for MZ-800 an MZ-1500 and will be adapted for MZ-700 later, but no promises.
** MZ-1500 has internal QD, so emulated QD is placed on different ports (0x74-0x77) to prevent collision. This requires use of updated ROM (binary available) and updated programs (BASIC available) to work with emulated QD.
Different Unicard firmware is required for different computers. Choose default firmware and you can change it anytime later by placing particular unicard.app into root of microSD card and switch the computer on.
More information at:
- www.sharpwiki.cz
- www.8bity.cz/2014/sharp-mz-800-unicard-mk3b-fdd-qd-rd-rs-rtc-lan-vga/