In this
story, I will try to briefly tell you about the situation with old computers in
Ukraine and about several interesting computers manufactured in the Soviet
Union, which I have in my collection.
So, many
years ago in the Soviet Union, computers were informally divided into home,
educational and professional computers. Home computers were console-type
computers, mostly ZX Spectrum clones, but there were also many different models,
that were not compatible with each other. Many home computers were based on
"Radio 86-RK" or "Specialist" circuits. Those circuits were
the most successful and simple, they were published at one time in the popular
magazines "Radioamateur" and "modelist-constructor". That
is why, many radio amateurs and factory cooperatives decided to repeat these
circuits in different versions, sometimes adding new extensions.
Home computers such as PC-01 Lviv or Vector 06C
stand out from all others. Vector 06C had one of the richest graphics capabilities from home Soviet computers. Another computer "Poisk"
A very simple and cheap clone of IBM PC, was very popular too, especially in Ukraine. And the Bulgarian computer “Pravets 8D” was clone of the “Oric Atmos”. They also had some popularity, among home computers in Ukraine.
Also in the USSR, there were attempts to clone the MSX architecture, but this initiative was not successful. Although several models of computers were created, they were commonly called PK8000 and they also had separate names from the manufacturers' factories: Vesta, Sura or Hobbi.
But they were not compatible with the MSX standard and only remotely remind it. The last computer in the series was called PK8002 Elf, which was more like an MSX computer, but was still not compatible with this standard.
Educational computers were used in schools and universities. Many of them were built on the PDP-11 architecture such as “elektronika ms 0511” (also known as UKNC), BK-0010 or DVK-3.
But also educational computers were based on others architectures, such as the "Korvet" computers based on the Intel 8080 processor.
Or the "Agat" computer almost an Apple II clone.
Somewhere in education process, were used Bulgarian "Pravec 8C" computers, Apple II clones.
Professional computers were used in companies for work. These are various IBM PC clones: "Neiron I9-66", "Iskra 1030", "ES-1840 /1841", Bulgarian "Pravec 16"
Other self-developed computers of the SM-1800 series based on 8080/8086 processors with a Multibus bus were also used at the companies.
Big
computers were represented by the SM and ES series, which are clones of the PDP
and IBM 360 architectures, in accordance.
Many
computers based on Intel 8080 processor, had CPU from “Pozitron” factory
(later renamed to “Rodon”). That factory was in my home- city, Ivano-Frankivsk.
The plant also produced the 8086 processor, many other microchips and different
military electronics. About 10,000 people worked there. But, at the moment, the factory no longer
exists.
Professional
computers are the rarest for several reasons. At first, they were not available
for free sale. All those computers were produced for the factories and enterprises.
State companies themselves always ordered and wanted them, so people couldn't
buy big professional computers for private use. Secondary, they were very
expensive, because they contained many expensive metals. And as a result, it
became their sword of Damocles. In the 1990s, when the Soviet Union no longer
existed, and computers needed upgrading and replacement, the presence of
precious metals played a very bad role with them.
The fact is
that state companies, and later private, couldn’t simply sold equipment with
precious metals, making the sale for all people. By the law, they should pass
this equipment to special companies for utilization. And for all that transfer they
needed special documents. In this situation, people from the street just
couldn't buy these computers. Each computer made in the USSR included
documents, where was list exact amount of expensive metals: gold, palladium and
silver. But another role was also played the documentary (residual) cost of computer
equipment at enterprises. For example, you have old computers that were broken
or can't do any tasks, because they are old. But according to the company's
documents, they getting cheaper very slowly (they lose their value, every year, in small portions).
Because they have many expensive metals, and their initial price was very high.
After many years, according to the company documents, computers stay very
expensive though not suitable for anything. And they can't just
be disposed, because their value is not a zero. In this case, people who can
solve something (directors, accountants) simply didn't risk did something and
wanted, such equipment to continue to stand in the storage and collect dust.
But in times of economic instability, this was not the case. Dishonest
employees from companies knew
which computer components were expensive and destroyed them, removing
those expensive parts, often simply biting them off with nippers. Back in the
days when your salary was around 20-30-50 dollars, you could destroy one old
computer and got this price or much more money, it was a very tempting idea. As
a result, over the years, you actually had only the computer cases itself in
the storage, and everything inside them was destroyed.
Electronics components of the Soviet period are actively being bought even now. For example, let's take the "Iskra 1030" computer.
There are 5 slots for expansion cards, but only 9 connectors. These are only
the "female" connectors on the internal basket. Let them be yellow
(i.e. contain gold) One connector has 96 pins. One contact from the connector
costs 14 euro cents. From that, only our basket for scrap metal costs 0.14*96*9 =
120 Euros. And if we also count contacts from the boards’ side, the price will be
much more.
Also, green capacitors called "KM" which very often present in Soviet computers. That series are very expensive.
They
have a palladium inside and cost about of 1,000 Euros per 1 kilogram (currently more). Of
course, the computer doesn't have a kilogram of small capacitors, but sometimes there are still a lot of them. Add to this the
gold-plated contacts of the microchips panels, the yellow microchips
themselves, and the cost of an average XT computer easily becomes 300-500 Euros.
Computers
for studying were got the same destiny like professional computers. But many
more of them were produced, so a much more survived. Some clever people were removing
expensive capacitors from computers and were putting cheap ones instead. Now
the wolf was fed and the sheep were survived. Sometimes computers were
amazingly survived, when a factory worker could take them to home for using, or
when computers were used to "pay" worker’s salary.
The first
available to people, were two personal computers.
The first -
BK-0010 (was developed in 1983
and was begun to produce in 1985). It has a 16-bit processor K1801VM1
with frequency 3 MHz, which based on the PDP-11 architecture. RAM size is
32 kilobytes. Image output was only in graphics mode - black and white mode
512 by 256 pixels. Or color mode - 4 colors, 256 by 256 pixels. The first
versions of this computer had a sensor keyboard and a built-in programming
language "Focal".
The second early personal computer in the USSR was "Agat", not a complete clone of the Apple II computer.
Agats have 96 or 128 kilobytes of RAM. Image output – There were many screen modes for displaying information on the monitor, with different resolutions. Mainly these different graphic modes and their construction methods, and different memory addressing, were the reason that Agat couldn’t run programs from Apple II. But later for “Agat”, a board called FG3.089.121.was created, popularly known as "cell 121".
This board added to “Agat” compatibility with Apple II. When you insert
this board into the computer, it doesn’t manifest itself in any way. To work
with it, you need to switch the monitor cable to this board. And boot from a
special system disk that will switch computer work to this board.
Next, in
1986 year, the popular magazine "Radio" was published a circuit of a
simple computer, which could be
assembled by all interested people. This scheme was named "Radio
86-RK".
The computer was very simple as it contained only 29 microchips. Previously, "Radio" magazine had already published schematics of home-made computers, such as the Micro-80, but this computer was based on approximately 120 microchips. So it was very difficult to create. But "Radio-86RK" became very popular, because the circuit was little and simple. It was created by many people, and it various modifications were started to produce by different factories. Often, the computers had incompatible software with each other, so programs required reprogramming. One of such computers based on the "RK86" circuit, for example, is the computer "Alfa BK" Manufactured by the "Etalon" plant in Izmail town, Ukraine.
The computer is assembled in
a heavy metal case. Radio-86RK originally had 16 kilobytes of RAM. But you
could solder another row of memory chips on top and got 32 kilobytes of RAM. The processor is 8080 with a
frequency of 2.5 MHz, but the board circuit cuts it to 2 MHz,
ROM size is 2 kb with the control program called "monitor". Programs
were loaded from a tape recorder. Image output was only text in black and white
mode. When the programs were loaded, nothing was displayed on the screen. This
is because the computer circuit is very simple.
In parallel with this, in 1985-1986 Anatoly Volkov from the Ukrainian city Kamianske (at that time, Dniprodzerzhinsk) developed the scheme of another simple computer called "Specialist".
But this circuit was published in free access a little later than "Radio 86-RK". It was in 1987 at another magazine "Modelist-konstruktor". The author of the scheme initially wanted to create a computer class for his college where he worked. But all this resulted to a popular computer. The computer circuit contained approximately 38 microchips. The computer was based on 8080 processor with a frequency of 2 MHz. The RAM size was 48 kilobytes. Graphics mode is initially monochrome 384 by 256 pixels. Later expanded to 5 colors, and still later with the addition of a single memory chip, the graphics can be expanded to 8 colors. One such computer in my collection is a “Pioneer” computer.
The ROM in this computer can be easily expanded from the standard 2 kilobytes to 10 kilobytes. That adding new possibilities to work and you will be able to run more programs. The computer is made quite well, but with age the rubber of the buttons becomes harder and harder, so now the buttons are very difficult to press.
The next computer is very special and interesting.
So what is special in this computer? It is built on a Z80 processor, has 128 kilobytes of RAM.Operating system of that computer is modified version of CP/M that allowed running modified programs for CP/M. But also the system has included program that can switch the computer for operating into original ZX Spectrum mode. At the same time, the computer's RAM is divided into two sections of 64 kilobytes each. Then later, you will be able exit from ZX Spectrum mode and go back to CP/M. The "reset" button on the computer case is not hardware button and reset only the ZX Spectrum mode. If you think that from the features that is all, then you are wrong. The CP/M computer operating system can be load from a standard audio cassette. But if you use the “Mayak” tape recorder models 231, 232, 233, 240 with the computer (which, by the way, were also produced in Kyiv). Then the computer itself could control this tape recorder! The CP/M operating system was formatting the cassette as a diskette, and divided it into sectors. Information could be saved in any sectors, not necessarily sequentially as on cassettes in other home computers. So you have file system on the cassette, through which the operating system can search the necessary data by itself. And it all works completely automatically. Unfortunately, no programs were released for the native operating system except for the system ones. Because the developers did not open the architecture of the computer and did not even share the circuit. When those computers were begun to sold in 1991, such developments still had a chance for life, but very quickly, less than 2 years, everyone understood that the architecture of the IBM PC finally win almost all other developments. So the Argo computer was not common and was forgotten.
Next, let's go to IBM PC. And I want to show you the "Neiron I9.66" computer.
This is the earliest clone of the IBM PC in the USSR. It was developed at the Kyiv Research Institute of Radio Measuring Equipment. Computer productions were started in the mid-1980s. The computer was made in the form of two blocks. There are Processor unit and storage unit. The development of the computer is so early, that its basket was made not by soldering, but with winding the wires onto the bus contacts.
The internal bus is modified "Multibus". In another, in software way,
the computer is a complete clone of IBM PC. The only exception was the speaker
system, which that some games have no sound. The I8251 chip also has been replaced here and some
terminal communication programs might not work. And last, the video adapter,
although of the CGA standard, is monochrome, because of this you can’t see some
colors in games. The original software was represented by the Neiron-DOS1 and
Neiron-DOS2 systems. The first is a PC DOS clone, and the second is a CP/M-86
clone.
The next computer was produced in Belarus. This is the ES-1842 computer, in some way, the maximum evolution of the IBM PC architecture in the Soviet Union.
This computer is the evolution of the popular ES-1840 and 1841 computers, which were clones of IBM PC and IBM XT in accordance.
While previous computers consisted of two units, a processor unit and a storage unit, in the ES-1842 engineers finally managed to fit the entire XT computer into one case. This computer is quite rare, not so many of them were produced (there is information that approximately 10 thousand pieces), and even fewer of them have survived to this day. Maybe that is because, if we believe to the native documents, what I have from my computer, it contains 12 grams of gold.
The computer contains an ISA bus, but only one of the slots is physically compatible with ISA, the other slots are not. The computer is actually a bit more powerful than the XT because it's based on an 8086 processor (not an 8088). And processor frequency is 10MHz. But the interesting thing here is that the computer can execute programs what have been written for 286 processors! This is possible by the patches. First is a special chip on the motherboard, and a second is a driver program, after which the computer can already execute programs for 286 (but only real-time programs, just with 286 commands).
The operating system here is a MS-DOS clone called Alpha DOS. In this operation system, for example, you can refer to drives with classic letters A - B - C, and also you can use the numbers 1 - 2 - 3, too. Basically this system is a complete clone of MS-DOS. Also there is large Cyrillic support, but not in the ASCII standard, so you need special driver programs to switch code pages on the screen.
ES-1842 has 1 megabyte of RAM, a 40 megabyte
hard disk (MFM), and an EGA compatible video adapter. The bios settings program
is not built-in, and must be loaded from a disk. The CMOS battery is present on
the computer motherboard, not on the expansion boards. I found my computer
brand new in my region, it cost me the most of everything in my collection. It
was never used and was still in the original packaging. People who sold it to
me, said, that they got this computer once like a salary. When I started
computer everything were working, except for one button on the keyboard. There
was a cracked magnetic switch. The part has been replaced and everything worked
as it should.
The next computer is also compatible with the world of IBM PC computers. But it can do much more. This computer is called "SM-1810 Nyvka". Sorry for one photo.
More photos were at two picture hosting pages but when war in Ukraine started those services were closed. It is a cut-down version of the big SM-1810 computer. The SM-1810 is a large computer with the size like a refrigerator. It was built for industry, based on an 8086 processor and could have two processor boards inside!
Of course, it all was worked not under MS-DOS control,
but under the "BOS1810" operating system (Intel RMX-86 clone). Communication with the
computer was carried out through terminal. "SM-1810 Nyvka"
is an attempt to put large computer into the size of a regular PC. And this really turned out like a monster.
The system unit is approximately one and a half bigger than a full-size ATX
computer case. The weight of the computer is quite large, more than 30 kilograms.
Above, under the cover, there are 3 large coolers and that work directly from
220 volts. They give such a flow of air that they blow away 5.25 floppy
disks, which you can decide to put on top of computer case. The computer has an
i41 bus, a Multibus clone. Processor inside is 8086 and RAM size is 768 kilobytes. MFM Disk for 40 megabytes, video adapter compatible
with CGA. There is a built-in control program called "monitor". That will
be load when no operating system is available. Through this program, you can
perform simple computer diagnostics or low-level programming. This program is a
tool similar to the DOS program "debug". When I received my computer
it was almost fully functional, but I couldn’t get the hard drive to work.
Because it needs to be initialized, but with another tools than we use in IBM
XT. Since the computer is so rare, almost no one has it. So I had a lot of
trouble to finding the software. The computer was booted MS-DOS from the floppy
disk, but there was nothing else what I could do. And the saddest thing is
that, when I found the hard disk init software and understand how to do it all.
It was one evening. In the morning of the same day, before that, I broke the
disk controller. And in the evening I couldn’t longer boot from a floppy disk.
I still don’t know what happened with it. Maybe I damaged it with static. And
although all the adapter boards here are covered in varnish, maybe I damaged
the board through the connector. In general, I have another
storage controller, but it wasn't working from the beginning. With it, the
computer is simply rebutted when it comes to loading from a disk. And my second controller,
which worked before, now the system doesn't boot with it. Drives just stand
without movement and after a while time, computer displays a message that
"the controller is not ready for work". The computer is so rare that
I couldn’t find another controller yet. And attempts to repair my own
controllers have not some results to successes. So at the moment the computer
is not working and needs to repair.
Along with this computer, I want to mention the series of Soviet computers SM. Their series models were developed as minicomputers for industry (not microcomputers). The first computers of the series were SM-1800/01/02/03/04. Those computers based on the 8080 processor. Next 1810/1820 series were already 16-bit with 8086 processors, and future development was planned. I have another computer from the SM-1800 series.
In fact, the computer itself is not named here, because it was part of a whole complex. It all was called the “Kvant” photo-type-setting complex. The computer itself in the documentation was called simply "FNK apparatus" (photo-type-setting complex) So the “Kvant” complex was invented for the creation of books and magazines, for their preparation before printing. It was used in publishing and printing houses. Here you could to place photos, texts in different formats and with different fonts. How it all worked is unknown, there is very, very little information about the complex. When they were made at the end of the 80’s, organizations didn’t have a time to put them into operation. And a few years later, IBM PC computers could do all the necessary tasks. I have never seen such a complex anywhere in internet, only several times few electronic components from that computer.
I saw several boards and once a keyboard. According to the information I managed to collect, the basis of this complex is a computer from the SM-1803 or SM-1804 series. Because they had advanced capabilities to integrate any necessary additional devices, such as a special monitor and keyboard. As I know the first computers of the SM-1800 series worked only with terminals. Here I have a monitor and a keyboard connected to my computer.
In general, the computer was built into special large table. I had to remove it from there because I couldn't take the table. Also it was so big that I wouldn't fit it into the car. Separate to computer, remote control and a power supply switch were on the table. The system unit weighs a lot and it is very difficult to carry it alone, it weighs approximately 50 kilograms. There are two carrying handles on top. A block of disk drives with two 8-inch drives is connected to the computer. By the way, I have the original diskettes from this computer. And I hope they are still in working condition.
The heart of the computer, like in all SM-1800 series, is the 8080 processor. Unfortunately, I can't say anything about the RAM, but it seems to be 256 kilobytes. Inside the computer there is a board with firmware, with 24 chips of 2 kilobytes each. So the firmware size is 48 kilobytes.
Of course, if the complex works, then it has specific software
for text creating. But maybe the basis of all this, is one of the standard
operating systems, so it will be interesting to run it someday. Also I have a
lot of documentation from that complex including circuits and the spare boards.
At the moment I have almost everything, but briefly about museums.
Unfortunately, there are very few computer museums in Ukraine. Until recently, the only one computer exhibition was available only in the Kyiv in the museum of KPI (Kyiv Polytechnic Institute) https://museum.kpi.ua/exhibition/ The site has a contacts section where you can find the address of the museum. The computer hall is interesting because it has many valuable exhibits, such as the large SM-1810 computer which I mentioned earlier. Also there are “Promin” or “MIR-1” computers from the 1960s.
Unfortunately, as far as I know, the equipment there is not working.
Another
small computer museum is located in the Sumy city, at the Sumy
State University. But with the war, i don't know, is it working at the moment
or not. You can find contacts here: https://itmuseum.sumdu.edu.ua. As I can see on the website, they have two
different exhibitions.
The first
private computer museum was created by Dmytro Cherepanov in the Mariupol city. I
think you all know this museum from the news. Unfortunately the museum was
destroyed due Russia attacks. The owner was lucky to get out alive from the
occupied city. But he lost everything, now he works and tries to build a new
life. Museum website: https://it8bit.club
The next
museum was opened in Kharkiv, and later received representation in Kyiv. This
is "Software and Computer Museum" https://sncmuseum.org Here you can also see many
exhibits of various computing equipment. Now museum is working.
It is also
planned to open a computer museum in Lviv city, in the nearer future. On the
Lviv National University basis. Page: mct.lnu.edu.ua But unfortunately, the war interrupted the plans
for its official opening, although you can order a tour now.
Until recently, all people who interested to old computers in Ukraine and the post-Soviet space mostly visited two popular pages. One of them is fdd5-25.net. The owner of the site was a man from Belarus. There was quite large collection of old programs in public access. Everything was sorted and nicely decorated. The site itself was designed to work correctly on very old browsers from the mid-90s. There was a forum on the site, but the site's author had growing paranoia, so the number of forum users was constantly decreasing. Also the owner blocked many users. And then in one day the site has been completely disappeared. And no one knows exactly what was happened. Is the owner banal tired from everything, or did he decide to hide from someone, because the site disappeared during the last protests in Belarus and during the presidential elections. The owner was opposed to many things and believed in conspiracy theories. No one knows exactly what happened. The second popular site is sannata.org and the big forum on the page. The site was started and is supported by people from Estonia, but since the vast majority of users and administrators on the forum are from Russia, the situation there began to become worse since 2014 and at the moment users from Ukraine do not visit this site. Now, a new own Ukrainian forum has been launched: it-museum.com, where you can also register and ask all the questions what interest you.
My private blog: fb.com/retro-pc.net
