OZ V4.6, a continuation of the actual operating system of the Z88, has been released.
This web space has been created by and for the ‘die-hard’ users of the Cambridge Z88, the iPad of the 80’s, launched in September 1987 at the PCW computer show in London. The company behind it was Cambridge Computer, a spring-off company of Sinclair Research, founded by Clive Sinclair.
The object of this project is to streamline the operating system, OZ and to build new applications by replacing the built-in ROM with a larger device. All the software and documents here, is provided for free, ready to be downloaded in source code, or as ready-made binaries – all GPL V2 licensed.
Incredibly impressive project.
What about TI89 or 92 ? Or HP with ARM cpu ?
Does it have an active community? If so – it could happen. The Z88 is more than a calculator though.
I used to play with one my parents bought for my much younger sibling. I was impressed how much it was similar to C-64’s Basic syntax, not quite as sophisticated as QBasic. Fun to toy around with.
The Z88’s BASIC was a version of BBC BASIC, familiar to most school children in the UK of that era as it was built into the BBC Micro.
As for it’s similarities with other BASICs, I’d like to note that it was a far more sophisticated BASIC than the C64 had, in that it had much better support for structured programming, including named procedures. It’s features were more similar to those found in QBASIC.
The manual was awfully weak in documentation. I’ve seen wrist watches with longer instructions.