Russian Retro Computers

[crustyasp46]

Not much here of computing from behind the "Iron Curtain" about their early days of computing. The exception being posts by member Zelya on the Lviv PC-01. viewtopic.php?f=13&t=3873.

I found the following pictures on Wayback. No information on them , just the pictures.

AGATHA ( Apple II clone )

BK-0010

Digra ( " Dynamo Computer " - Spectrum Clone)

HOBBY ( Sinclair ZX81 Clone )

MICROSHA

PK-8000

Cassette Software

DOCS.

Shipping Box

I have a keen interest in not only our domestic ( North American ) computing history, but also that of the world. Anyone care to share some of their local computing history and stories?

[Zelya]

Agat - one of the first soviet small computer. The clone of Apple II. It was not so bad and also had a huge soft collection from original Apple II. But it was too expensive to have it at home. It was present mostly in schools or in other government institutions.

BK-0010 and later BK-0011. Very interesting computer. I'll talk about it later, because there is a lot of information.

Spectrum Clone. There were a huge number of different handmade clones of Spectrum in USSR. With different specifications, quality and compatibility. This subject is not for one post on not for one topic . It is still possible to buy modern clone of Spectrum today in ex USSR countries:


Microsha. At the beginning of 80th the article how to make computer at home was published in soviet famous magazine "Radio". This computer based om i8080 clone and was called Micro-80. The design of Micro-80 wasn't perfect, but it was the first acceptable computer for a lot of people in USSR. Later, in 1986 "Radio" published new article with improved version of Micro-80 called Radio-86RK. It was much easier to make at home. It have no graphic mode, it have no colors, it have no sounds, but it was acceptable for most of people who was familiar with radio technologies. And this computer became one of the most popular in USSR. So, from 1987 a lot of factories started to product clones of Radio-86RK. One of the most known was Microsha. It has the same characteristics as the Radio-86RK, was not so expensive, had acceptable quality for USSR, but.... It wasn't compatible with Radio-86RK soft because of minor changes.... Yes, it was Soviet Union Lode Runner clone for Radio-86RK:


PK-8000. I don't know more about this computer. As I know it was designed as simpler MSX clone. And it could execute several MSX programs. It has popular in USSR clone of i8080 and because of this it can be easy to post soft between PC-01 Lviv, PK-8000, Vector-06C and several other models. Many developers from early 90th prepared their games for several platforms. That's all I know about it.

[crustyasp46]

Spectrum Clone. There were a huge number of different handmade clones of Spectrum in USSR. With different specifications, quality and compatibility. This subject is not for one post on not for one topic . It is still possible to buy modern clone of Spectrum today in ex USSR countries:

I read on a site regarding the Russian Spectrum clones, and the person was only highlighting two computers,( Scorpion and Pentagon ) because the Spectrum was brought in by a few people, and some o those people had friends who were engineers, the engineers made clones, those clones were distributed and the ones who got those clones had engineer friends, and made more clones, and the cycle continued and to try to cover all the clones would take forever because there were millions of clones of the Spectrum.
Quote from site : " There are too many models of Spectrum in ex-USSR to attempt to list them all here. and we don't need that anyway... all of them are quite similar in main idea, so we wouldn't try to write about them. "

Code: Select all

http://www.worldofspectrum.org/rusfaq/#1

Also, I read that in Poland that the Spectrum had a large role in the passing of information for the Solidarity movement. Can't find the site which mentioned this, as I saw that when I first was stumbling around the net looking for computer info. Would be nice if someone had info on it though.