Sharp is ready to make its mark on 1985 with the launch of a follow-up to the MZ700 home micro.

The MZ800, to appear at the Which Computer? Show in January, takes Sharp into the area occupied by the Commodore Plus/4 and the Sinclair QL, straddling the borderline between business and home use. But unlike both those systems it will offer CP/M.

Sharp has included MZ700-compatibility through a simple switch. But according to a software developer using the machine, not all MZ700 software will run, and joystick commands are particularly vulnerable.

But it is where the new machine advances from the MZ700 that it shows the most promise. The Basic is still loaded, but a 2.8" Quick Disk option has been added. The sound capacity is greatly enhanced, and the graphcs are said to be much better. The machiine will also support up to four 5.25" floppies.

This disk option includes Personal CP/M with extensions to permit the system to read and write various disk formats. These include IBM; the MZ800 isn't an IBM clone but Sharp offers the feature as typical of a business computer for use in the home.

The engine room, as with the MZ700, is a Z80 with 64K of RAM, 16K of video RAM, and 16K of ROM.

Sharp plans to have machines ready to demonstrate at the January show and is putting the finishing touches to applications software at the moment.

The company would not put a price on the MZ800 last week but a spokesman said that it would be possible to put together a business system with disks and monitor for well under £1,000.

Meanwhile Sharp is staying aloof from the MSX race. It has a licence but has so far shown no sign of using it. However, the Japanese micro-electronics industry is such that nobody stays completely on the sidelines - Sharp is making money out of the MSX by supplying chips to the MSX machine manufacturers.