TETRIS for Sharp Electronic Notebook (1989)

Sharp’s Denshi Techō (電子手帳) were a range of electronic notebooks or organisers, marketed as Bware in Japan and Wizard or IQ elsewhere. In Japan they won a prestigious G-mark Good Design Award in 1988 and in the USA an episode of Seinfeld was the prize.

As well as being home to some of the earliest emoji these devices could run software from IC cards (solid state storage). There were about 30 games released in this format, everything from classics like Sokoban, Shanghai, Lode Runner, Puzznic, Fortress, to everygreen games like Golf, Baseball, Mahjong, Shogi, Othello, Solitaire, President (card game), exclusive games like Yamamura Misa Suspense – The Kyoto Zai-tech Murder Case, and some contemporary titles like Hatris.

And perhaps most importantly: a version of Tetris, released in December 1989. Tetris-mania was in full effect and the Game Boy had recently received its version of Tetris in April 1989.

There’s not much about these devices online, particularly in English, but two notable places are: HP Museum forum (for devices and IC cards) and Insert Credit forum (for games). The devices are common on Japanese auction and selling websites, but the games are becoming more difficult to find.

This was, as far as I am aware, the second ever handheld version of Tetris. At the time of its release Japan was in the “bubble era” period of economic boom, which lasted 1986–1991. There was so much money floating around they didn’t know what to do with it, so much of it was ploughed into research and development of crazy things in the fields of consumer electronics, computers, engine technology, vehicle design, book design, software distribution, etc.

Without this device there would be no Apple Newton (which was co-produced by Sharp), without Newton there would be no iPhone, and without iPhone there would be no Android. Evolution is necessary for technological progress.

Thanks to Akuji, the collector from whom I bought my Sharp PA-8500 and manual, who is a fountain of knowledge regarding IC-capable devices from a range of manufacturers.

TETRIS IC card

Here it is running on my PA-8500:

Analysis

This version of the game is documented only briefly on Tetris.wiki and even less on Hard Drop Tetris Wiki, so let’s see what we can do to fill in a bit more information.

The device boots straight into the game, but you can switch to calendar, memo, calculator, or other organiser functions whilst it is running. Switching back to the game causes it to reboot, so games cannot be resumed. You cannot skip the BPS logo, but you can skip the credits.

The credits and game area are in the left (or top) half of the display because it can also run on devices with a smaller screen of half the size of the one shown.

There is a touch screen surface on top of where the card slots in and the print on the IC card itself shows the user where to press for each button or function. We can see that the shape of each buttons lines up with the grid of dots of the touch surface. We see the following buttons:

• left
• right
• rotate (only counter-clockwise)
• soft drop
• start (hi-speed)
• start (low-speed)
• pause on/off
• sound on/off

Scoring, line-clearing, leveling-up are somewhat odd and non-standard. Tetris.wiki has those covered. Notably, the play area reduces in size by the bottom lines filling in as you level-up, gradually becoming less tall and more cramped.

The game seems to have been programmed by BPS (Bullet-Proof Software), though I’m yet to see the manual, but there are no separate programming credits.

Credits

As seen in the video:

™ and © 1987 Elorg.
TETRIS licensed to B.P.S.
© 1989 B.P.S. All Rights Reserved.
Original concept by Alexey Pazhitnov.
Original design and program by Vadim Gerasimov.