The Sharp PC-G801 was a powerful little pocket pc when it debuted in 1988. Nonetheless, within the 12 months 2025, a Z80-compatible machine with simply 8 kB of RAM is hardly a lot to get enthusiastic about. [shiura] determined to take certainly one of these previous machines and improve it into one thing extra trendy and helpful.
The construct maintains the most effective components of the Sharp design — specifically, the case and the keypad. The unique circuit board has been completely ripped out, and a customized PCB was designed to interface with the membrane keypad and host the brand new internals. [shiura] landed on the Raspberry Pi Zero 2W to run the present. It’s a succesful machine that runs Linux fairly effectively and has wi-fi connectivity out of the field. It’s paired with an ESP32-S3 microcontroller that handles interfacing all the assorted components of the unique Sharp {hardware}. It additionally handles the connection to the 256×64 OLED show. The brand new setup can run in ESP32-only mode, the place it acts as a basic RPN-style calculator. Alternatively, the Pi Zero will be powered up for a full-fat computing expertise.
The results of this work is a superb little cyberdeck that appears straight out of the Nineteen Eighties, however with way more functionality. We’ve seen a number of of those previous pocket computer systems pop up earlier than, too.
