Merlin
By chance I bought a Sharp PC-1248 in April 2024 and when it arrived, I realised that it was originally sold as a navigation computer. A quick test showed that the navigation software was missing, so I searched the Internet and found that the program was written by Mike Pepperday. I wrote a short e-mail to Mike and learnt that he had a website, but due to various complications only a copy at archive.org survived. Unfortunately archive.org did not mirror the attached files, but Mike was so kind to attach them in his answer to me.As a collector of
Sharp Pocket Computers, I'm very interested not only to
maintain these computers and keep them in working condition,
but also in preserving the software they used to run. Mike not
only allowed me to reproduce the content from his archived
website, but even sent me the remaining files.
Mike Pepperday is
the author of the software and the text in these pages. All I
did was to edit where necessary in order to represent the
content in a usable way.
Concerning two navigation computers:
- Merlin (or M1) which was/is a programmed Sharp
EL-512 calculator, and
- Merlin II (M2) which is a programmed Sharp
PC-1248 pocket computer.
The M1 was first sold in late 1983 (I think). You will
find the program here.
The M2 was first sold in December 1988.
