Lviv PC-01

[Zelya]

A long time ago in a country far, far away....
At the beginning of 80th soviet clone of famous CPU i8080 arrived to the city of Lviv. There wasn’t any documentation, any examples or instructions about this wonderful black box. But this magic attracted a lot of people from universities. On these images you can see i8080 usage evolution:

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[url]http://lvovpc.ho.ua/files/pk_img2/pk-8-1_2.jpg[/url]
[url]http://lvovpc.ho.ua/files/pk_img/pk_2-1_1.jpg[/url]
[url]http://lvovpc.ho.ua/files/pk_img/pk_7-2_1.jpg[/url]
[url]http://lvovpc.ho.ua/files/pk_img2/pk-7-1_2.jpg[/url]
[url]http://lvovpc.ho.ua/files/pk_img2/pk-6-1_2.jpg[/url]
[url]http://retro-pc.net/musei/comp/pk_lviv/foto1.jpg[/url]

The last picture is the widely–known in narrow circles computer PC-01 Lviv. Its developing was almost finished in 1985. But you know, Soviet government, bureaucracy… So, the production started several years later. It was even difficult to defend name “Lviv” in Moscow. “What? Lviv? No-no! This is nationalism!” But “Gorbachev”, “perestroika” and other fresh winds help to leave original name.
At the end of 1987 or a little bit later computer appeared in shops. It cost about 650-750 rub. 150 rub. per month was not so bad salary. If you are cool and experienced engineer you can get about 300 rub. Good price for 8 bit computer at the end of 80th, isn’t it? But usually PC-01 was sold as soon as it came to warehouse. To understand this crazy situation you should know what else soviet people can by in that period. So, you can made computer “Micro-80” by your hands or buy it about twice cheaper that PC-01. “Micro-80” also has i8080 clone, but it hasn’t no graphic, no color, no sound. I told “you can buy”, but really you can’t. This computer also never was stored for a long time. What else… BK-0010 has the powerful PDP-11 clone and the same price as PC-01. It can be great home computer, but 16 KB of RAM and only 4 predefined colors was the sad soviet legacy. Other computers cost more than 1000 rub. and weren’t present at shops.

[youtube]sOawyP8ubr0[/youtube]
(Beautiful story about love between soviet computer and student girl. 1987)

So, what you’ll have for this money. You’ll have i8080 clone, 48 KB RAM, 16 RB ROM, 16 KB video, 256x256 resolution, 4 colors palette from 8 possible. You should buy tape-recorder, and modify your TV set for custom RGB port. One cassette with two or three programs and several small instructions were present in box. And… nothing else. You can’t go to the shop and buy new game. You can’t order joystick or book for this computer. This is soviet reality. “We produced computer for you, and you should make everything you want by your hands”.

[youtube]bHhU_1hXWTE[/youtube]
(PC-01 Lviv advertisement)

And people started to produce. First of all games, of course. Started from simple Basic games for own usage, and then cool Assembler games for sale. Look at these pictures:


(Not Dizzy, but Dracula)


(8 bit racing)


(Every computer must have this game)


(And this, of course)


(Game for two players)


(3D game! Almost…)

And later… But what happened later I’ll tell you next time.

Thank you for the attention. Also, you can play PC-01 games online

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http://lvovpc.ho.ua/games/

. Or you can get a lot or emulators even for

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http://boards.dingoonity.org/dingoo-releases/lvivgoo-emulator-of-ukrainian-computer-%27lviv-pk-01%27/

(Ooops! This is topic for next chapter)

Bye!

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http://www.vintage-computer.com/vcforum/showthread.php?31665-Lviv-PC-01

[crustyasp46]

Thank you, for the information and details for this vintage system, enjoy the reading and the links.

[Hot Trout]

Thank you for the post, please remember that ALL links must be inside CODE tags. I have edited your post to comply.

[Zelya]

PC-01 Lviv was very unsuitable platform for game development. It has not so bad resolution 256x256, and allows to use 4 colors form 8-color palette. Totally it has 16 KB of video RAM. But slow clone of i8080 can't rewrite all this memory with acceptable speed. For example, ZX Spectrum has interesting feature. Speccy allows to use 16 colors (!) with one limitation: only two colors for square 8x8. This limitation allows to decrease video RAM to only 6.5 KB (for 256x192 resolution). 4 colors and 16 KB vs 16 colors and 6,5 KB, not so bad difference, am I right? So, its impossible to create colorful game with background scrolling on Lviv. I've lied... There are present several beautiful workarounds but I'll tell about them later.
PC-01 has no interrupts! Most of all computers generate interrupt when you press key and programmer can catch it and perform some kind of action. Lviv's programmers must to check keyboard state every time they have several free ticks of CPU . Also, other computers generate interrupt every time screen refreshed (50 fps - 50 interrupts). This allows you to synchronize music and game logic. For PC-01 you should to calculate every function's weight in ticks. This is terrible work. And of course, Lviv had huge problems with sound. There is nothing except one bit beeper. Without interrupts and with slow CPU you can play some kind music only with powerful magic.
BUT. Why am I talking about PC-01 if it was unacceptable for game development? Because a lot of games were developed for it! There wasn't game industry in USSR. So, pupils and students learned Basic on this computer, later assembler and later started write programs. Maybe not all of them were good. But... Just compare Heartbroken on Spectrum and Lviv:
Speccy:


Lviv:


Maybe it sounds strange, but game development for Lviv is continuing now . Here you can see several fresh ports from MSX:





And here are two new games from 2013:


So, I think it doesn't matter how powerful was your computer, the most important think is how much do you like it (and not only you )

[Zelya]

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http://www.micromart.co.uk/pc/emulators/390/russian-computers-computers-came-cold

Lvov PK-01

This was my favourite machine to emulate, not because of its catchy name (I’m not patronising the Russians here; it’s not like ours were much better e.g. ZX81, Amstrad CPC464) but because it has an intro screen with gaudy 3D letters spelling out its name. Brilliant.
Made in 1986, the Lvov is a great little machine. On it you can play great arcade games (even if the colour scheme is a bit iffy). I managed to play an excellent Galaxian-type game, a Way of the Exploding Fist copy and a Pengo game, all with very responsive controls and good gameplay. Interestingly, the Lvov doesn’t feel behind the times at all, rather it seems about the same as some of the computers you could have bought in 1986 in the West, such as the MSX or the Amstrad CPC machines.

Apart from these games, I could make little sense of any of the commands and errors that were needed to run this computer properly. Despite this, I greatly enjoyed emulating it, and it’s one I shall definitely return to, if only to see what other gaudy-coloured games are available.

[Zelya]

Lviv PC-01 now in Netherlands!

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http://www.marktplaats.nl/a/computers-en-software/commodore/m745453655-lviv-pc-01-computer-i8080.html?c=be2da871b0d84f75c3056cc6db858f31&previousPage=lr

[Zelya]

At last I have a little bit more time. Several my unfinished programs for PC-01:
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSyXucBCw9Y[/youtube]
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1fhU7DlihQ[/youtube]
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7-VmNmvtNo[/youtube]
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ip1dvjoqFIM[/youtube]

Does somebody want to study programming for PC-01