iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Tim Holyoake @timholyoake.uk · 27/09/2026

Finally back in Devon after the #RC2014 Assembly 2.0 yesterday. Thank you to Spencer & @tnmoc.bsky.social for hosting & organising, all the speakers & exhibitors, as well as everyone I talked with. I hope you had as much fun as I did and that the #PicoMZ was of interest! #RetroComputing #RetroGaming

My table at the RC2014 Assembly 2.0 at The National Museum of Computing, Bletchley Park, Saturday 26th September 2026. On the left is the Pico MZ running the game Painful Man. In the middle is an RC2014 configuration running CP/M. On the right is a real Sharp MZ-700, also running the Painful Man game.

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Tim Holyoake @timholyoake.uk · 17/09/2026

Just finished testing my dual #PicoMZ and Sharp MZ-700 setup for the #RC2014 assembly 2.0 next weekend. All bits required are now safely boxed so that I don't forget anything (famous last words). Looking forward to it - I hope to see some of you there?

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Tim Holyoake @timholyoake.uk · 15/09/2026

Today I've been beating the #PicoMZ at Reversi and Chess 🥳 #RetroComputing #RetroGaming

A completed Reversi board. I beat the computer 55 to 9.

Checkmate. White wins against black in 16 moves after sacrificing a rook.

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Tim Holyoake @timholyoake.uk · 08/09/2026

The 2nd character set on the MZ-700 says hi ...

The 512 characters in the Sharp MZ-700 ROM.

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Tim Holyoake @timholyoake.uk · 07/08/2026

New from me: Getting the #PicoMZ ready for the #RC2014 assembly 2.0 z80.timholyoake.uk/pico-mz-at-t...

A Sharp MZ-700,. On top of it is a Pico MZ on a repurposed RC2014 RP2040 VGA Terminal card. There are also some Pico MZ 'business cards' with a QR code that takes you to the Pico MZ project pages.

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Tim Holyoake @timholyoake.uk · 05/08/2026

The HiSoft Pascal compiler is very polite 😀

A 'Hello World' program written in HiSoft Pascal for the Sharp MZ-700. The complier responds 'Pardon?' if you give it a command it doesn't understand. Very polite!

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Tim Holyoake @timholyoake.uk · 06/06/2026

This is the right size for a car. Look how easily it fits into a standard car park space.

A S5 Caterham 7 in a standard car park space.

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Tim Holyoake @timholyoake.uk · 19/05/2026

I enjoyed my trip to Brooklands Museum a couple of years ago, but presuming I want their newsletter when I've deliberately not signed up to it is definitely *not* the way to encourage me to go back.

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Tim Holyoake @timholyoake.uk · 27/04/2026

Ottery St Mary morning #Caterham #Gardening (yes, really - this is the car park at Otter Garden Centre!)

A bright yellow Caterham 7, parked at Otter Garden Centre, Ottery St Mary

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Tim Holyoake @timholyoake.uk · 27/03/2026

Ottery St Mary afternoon

Wooden bench covered in lichen in the Coleridge Medical Centre Grounds. The plaque reads: Donated to O.S.M. in memory of Princess Diana by the guiding and scouting associations

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Tim Holyoake @timholyoake.uk · 08/02/2026

More testing for my Pico MZ-700 emulator. I do like it when a computer tells me I've played the perfect game and that I'm great 😀 #RetroComputing #RetroGaming #PicoMZ700 #SharpMZ700

The end of a game of Reverse on the Pico MZ-700 emulator. The score was 59 to me, 5 to the computer.

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Tim Holyoake @timholyoake.uk · 13/01/2026

New from me: Ottery St. Mary mcl.timholyoake.uk/2026/01/13/t...

Tar barrel night, Ottery St. Mary, November 2025. A lit barrel soaked in tar is carried through crowds of people.

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Tim Holyoake @timholyoake.uk · 07/01/2026

1983 called. This keyboard is actually an entire computer etc. etc.

A Sharp MZ-700, manufactured in 1983. It's a computer in a keyboard.

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Tim Holyoake @timholyoake.uk · 07/01/2026

New from me: Building a Pico RomWBW z80.timholyoake.uk/building-a-p...

The bottom left of the image shows a Pico RomWBW computer in a brown wooden case. The output from it is shown on the screen in the background. It is just about to boot into CP/M.

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Tim Holyoake @timholyoake.uk · 30/11/2025

It's escaped! The Pico MZ-700 is finally ready. z80.timholyoake.uk/pico-mz-700-... #PicoMZ #Sharp #MZ700 #RetroComputing

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Tim Holyoake @timholyoake.uk · 26/11/2025

8253 emulation rewritten and games that use the MZ-700 joystick now work with the keyboard (I haven't got around to emulating a joystick!!) Almost there - need to re-benchmark due to the nature of the changes I've made to the 8253 and 8255 code. #RetroComputing #RetroGaming #Sharp #PicoMZ

The intro screen for ZAT SOFTs 1982 MZ-700 game "Painful Man", by Snail, running on the PicoMZ. The previous player scored 2690, the high score is 5000.

There's a block graphics blue and yellow snail in the bottom left corner.

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Tim Holyoake @timholyoake.uk · 23/11/2025

Desire path, Ottery St Mary.

A muddy desire path going straight on, where the actual path bends to the left around a tree.

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Tim Holyoake @timholyoake.uk · 20/11/2025

Getting there (if only I could find my soldering iron). New blog post from me - Pico MZ-700 progress. z80.timholyoake.uk/pico-mz-700-... #RetroComputing #Sharp #Pico

A game of space invaders being played on the Pico MZ (MZ-700). The aliens are a mixture of yellow and cyan. The score is 0 with a high score of 0. 3 bases are left.

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Tim Holyoake @timholyoake.uk · 17/11/2025

The #MZ700 emulation for the #Pico MZ is nearly finished! Documentation to write and update, plus testing on #RC2014 cards and #Pico2 hardware left to do. Hoping to have version 3.0.0 released by the end of the month. #RetroComputing

Knight's Space Invaders for the MZ-700 running on the development version of the Pico MZ.

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Tim Holyoake @timholyoake.uk · 02/11/2025

Running the emulator at 200MHz is a definite improvement - it's only 2 seconds slower than the real thing for the primes up to 10,000. #RetroComputing #Sharp #MZ700 #PicoMZ

Emulator output on the left - 8m 36s for the primes below 10,000. Real machine output on the right- 8m 34s for the same task.

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Tim Holyoake @timholyoake.uk · 02/11/2025

Sunday afternoon benchmarking session. A real MZ-700 vs my emulator. The emulator is currently 20% or so too fast when running on a 220MHz Pi Pico. Should be easy enough to slow down!! #RetroComputing #PicoMZ #Sharp #MZ700

The screen for the Pico MZ-700 is on the left, above the real MZ-700. The output for the real machine is on the right. They're both running endless prime number calculations using the same BASIC program. The emulator is currently too fast!

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Tim Holyoake @timholyoake.uk · 01/11/2025

I seem to be getting close to having a reasonable #M700 #emulator running. There are some oddities that I need to look into (e.g. keyboard handling for monitor in ROM seems different to monitor in RAM) and I need to retrieve my real MZ-700 to check various timings. #RetroComputing

Pico MZ-700 emulator running my version of Moonlander. The spacecraft is just about to crash on Pluto and make a big crater.

Pico MZ-700 emulator generating the prime numbers between 1 and 400 in 8 seconds. Allegedly.

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Tim Holyoake @timholyoake.uk · 29/10/2025

Sorted out the display of the upper 256 characters today. Took longer to figure out than it should have ... #RetroComputing #SharpMZ700 #Emulation

The upper 255 characters of the Sharp MZ700. Blue characters on a yellow background.

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Tim Holyoake @timholyoake.uk · 22/10/2025

Looking forward to witnessing this madness for the first time!

Souvenir program for the Ottery St Mary tar barrels 2025. The cover shows a man engulfed in flames from carrying a lit tar barrel through the streets of the town.

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Tim Holyoake @timholyoake.uk · 21/10/2025

New from me: A Pico MZ-700 ? z80.timholyoake.uk/a-pico-mz-700/ #RetroComputing #Sharp #MZ700

The Pico MZ emulator showing the boot screen. It is white text on a blue background and reads MONITOR 1Z-013A, followed by a flashing block cursor

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Tim Holyoake @timholyoake.uk · 19/10/2025

It's a start! Hacked the monitor into my mz80k/a code and it runs up. Now comes the painstaking stuff - keyboard mappings, colour, clock accuracy etc etc etc ... #RetroComputing #Sharp #MZ700

Sharp MZ700 monitor announces itself for the first time on my Pico mz platform. Colours are wrong, as is everything else, but it's a start.

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Tim Holyoake @timholyoake.uk · 25/09/2025

Weasels King Henry morning

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Tim Holyoake @timholyoake.uk · 21/09/2025

A photo from yesterday, of the MZ-80K at the National Museum of Computing @tnmoc.bsky.social. The cursor keys are green. On mine (and every other MZ-80K I've seen) they're yellow. I wonder why this one is so odd? The blue keys are also closer to turquoise. Left in the sunlight too long? #Sharptember

Sharp MZ-80K with green cursor / space bar / carriage return keys.

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Tim Holyoake @timholyoake.uk · 21/09/2025

Damn. I'm going to have to dig out the 1985 source code of my unfinished Pegasus emulator and finish it. #RetroComputing

The Pegasus display at the national museum of computing. There's a picture of the Pegasus when it was running at the science museum, a card noting that neither of the surviving examples are operational, 3 boards from a Pegasus and the book of the history of the machine.

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