After a little inspection it turned out to be an 1984 Sharp Personal Word Processor device. What does this mean? Well.. it's like an electronic typewriter with added functionality. It can either type from the keyboard directly on the paper with a ribbon tape printing system or it can be used as a word processor through it's 80x16 character display.
It looked to be in quite working conditions so after removing the old style power plug i gave it a try to see if it will power up and.. ta daa! It works! The display is graphical LCD with blue writing on white background. I was writing and printing a document in no time. The ribbon was as expected dried and very fainted but still visible. Letter "e" is missing from the letters wheel, but other than that all seems to be working fine. I can't test the floppy disk functionality as i don't have anymore those old type 3.5'' disks.
Next to the unit I also found the original manual in english. Surprisingly on the first page it stated "30 DAYS WARRANTY", i would have definitely expected more from something like this.I love when i stumble ancient electronic stuff like this and I always end up to pretty much the same conclusion: things were done better in the past, before all this consumerism era.
We had one of these. It was steep learning curve to climb after only using a manual typewriter. It also had some key information on a floppy? disk, which we promptly formatted and lost the information. We also lost the manual. It was great machine, especially with the ability to edit much as you do now before you printed. I see people are searching online for printing tape suppliers, so there must be a few still going.
ReplyDeleteI love old tech like this too, I came here to find out what media it uses to save files, (if any), as I saw one on Facebook Marketplace complete with user manual *and spare ribbon*.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the info.
However, I have to disagree with your general conclusion, things weren't always done better in the past, a more modern machine a few years later allowed you to swap whole pages of text around, and few people would prefer a manual typewriter even to this one.
Also, there was plenty of consumerism already around in 1984. A 30-day warranty on this expensive machine clearly says "We do not repair these machines, and we don't expect them to last, either".
I'd love to know exactly what they cost when new.
Hi Yuck,
ReplyDeleteI have the same SHARP PA W1410 WORD PROCESSOR but no manual. Can help me out and photocopy it to me?
kitchengod12@hotmail.com