How a little East German Computer Monitored a Nuclear Tomb | Robotron 1715M TEST RUN

[@TheSixShoota]

Awesome intro!

[@ChernobylFamily]

Thanks!

[@stefa168]

@@ChernobylFamilyAmazing and very creative!

[@DirtyHairy1]

Yes I love it!

[@ChernobylFamily]

Thank you:)

[@johnnyzippo7109]

Yes it was !

[@catriona_drummond]

The power switch is funny. We had the same switch on East German fridges. Love how these standardized components pop up in all kinds of contexts.

[@ChernobylFamily]

At least, it works...)

[@notiashvili]

Same here in Georgia - I remember that exact translucent power switch on a number of soviet appliances.

[@LotharG-f4c]

The designation "MME" on the two controller chips stands for the German manufacturer "MikroelektronikMarxErfurt", i.e. the former "Funkwerk" in Erfurt, which was renamed "VEB Mikroelektronik Karl-Marx Erfurt" in the early 80s. By the way , i have learned my occupation there and later i was working in the "ROBOTRON" Factory in Sömmerda where the 1715 was build. I checked and repaired the floppy controller board. on the PC 1715 It was a great time back then and we were paid well.

[@ChernobylFamily]

Thank you for sharing!

[@Canleaf08]

Ahhh now I know the origin of the company “Funkwerk”… This company manufactures station displays and communication technology for the Deutsch Bahn in Germany… “VEB Funkwerk Sömmerda”…

[@LotharG-f4c]

@@Canleaf08 In Sömmerda it was no company named "Funkwerk". The company was "ROBOTRON Büromaschinenwerk Sömmerda". The PC1715 and the successor "EC1834" was manufactured there until 1989/90. The latter was already equipped with a hard disk and graphics card (either monochrome or in color "fullgraphic"). And so i know it was compatible to MS-Dos 5.0.

[@rileyfaelan]

@@LotharG-f4c Before it was Robotron, it was _Büromaschinenwerk Sömmerda,_ known for the Soemtron line of electronic calculators (contracted from SÖMmerda elecTRONics). It was one of these industries that got split into an Eastern and Western half when the Wall went up, and for a while, there was some chronic friction over the trademark. Eventually, the Eastern part renamed itself to VEB Robotron. That name is still in use, now as the _Robotron Datenbank-Software GmbH,_ which got started as an effort to reorganise the VEB into a GmbH when the Wall came down. They have a website and everything.

[@blocksarefun1]

The quality feels like a museum is behind the product, great video as always

[@ChernobylFamily]

Totally agree. Those guys love tech, and do a great work!

[@Phunker1]

This thing has a great history. They weren't allowed to build a personal computer - but nobody said anything about a print controller. This is what this is. At least officially - at first.

[@ChernobylFamily]

Precise!

[@nobeltnium]

were building a PC is prohibited by the Soviet Russia? And why is that?

[@kargaroc386]

@@nobeltnium Presumably, because there already was one. If they made another one, they would be competing - and they want inter-cooperation, not competition.

[@BastetFurry]

So a terminal that accidentally booted into CP/M. 😅

[@rileyfaelan]

@@nobeltnium There might have been budgeting restrictions. Central planners were often quite pointy-haired about such things. The great thing about a universal computer is, it can do a lot of different things, so you can make a lot of different devices that are really universal computers.

[@mx0r]

I drive around that Robotron building in Dresden almost every day and I never knew! Nice!

[@ChernobylFamily]

Wow! What is there now?

[@mx0r]

There were some offices and computer wholesale. But it seems mostly empty now, there is some development around.

[@viktorgorbunov]

Radeberg? Visited it 2 weeks before war...

[@AbdiPianoChannel]

Do you know what happened in Dresden in 1944?

[@mx0r]

@@AbdiPianoChannel Who doesn't? Anyway, how is that related to a building, that was built in (I believe) 70s?

[@robertzmijan8639]

I have bought and restored two of these (including two monitors) some time ago. Indeed, the fan of the power supply is quite something - heavy metal propeller and runs on 230V ac. Usually these power supplies need a recap and re-tunining sometimes with an odd transistor burned, for the screens a common fault is the flyback high voltage transformer. I was very lucky, because one 1715 had a 100% readable floppy inside with the clone of cp/m and after repairs it all booted to command prompt. My motherboard has the east German/Czech(TESLA) and Polish(CEMI) components. Thank you for this fantastic material, it's a pleasure to watch, especially with my 4 year old son who loves all robotron machines and your channel :D As a side note, I'm looking for the plug of the 1715 keyboard, as the only keyboard I was able to buy someone had its cable cut off.

[@ChernobylFamily]

Thank you for sharing!

[@ironhead2008]

Some really nice industrial design on that thing.

[@ChernobylFamily]

Yes. And comparing to Soviet, the quality is impressive.

[@theoracle6142]

Absolutely best intro I’ve seen in a long time. Great video as usual.👍🏻

[@ChernobylFamily]

How it was recorded deserves a separate video:))))) thanks!

[@TheTerminalGuy1]

Robotron. These computers were everywhere in the early-mid 80s in german Classrooms, as a german myself, i'm starting to collect these Robtrons more and more.

[@ChernobylFamily]

For us, having access to one was a great luck. Those were great level-up compared to Soviet tech.

[@catriona_drummond]

What classrooms in what schools? You sure?

[@TheTerminalGuy1]

​@@ChernobylFamily I agree, during the 80s having media storen on diskettes was not the goto for everyone here, we stored them on the Datassete. When Robotron launched many of these systems in the 80s, everyone used them,

[@TheTerminalGuy1]

​@@catriona_drummondWell, like in evey school, elemantary,libraries, technical,physics, Yes I'm sure, here in germany many of the museums contain hundreds of Robotron models.

[@catriona_drummond]

@@TheTerminalGuy1 Well maybe I didn't go to school in East Germany then but in some other weird place that pretended to be East Germany. I have never ever seen one anywhere, ever. Or maybe it's because i didn't live in Berlin ;)

[@Marknmel1]

Nice Matrix Intro - I loved it!

[@ChernobylFamily]

We had much fun filming that :))

[@daicekube]

Quick note just 5:30 in. Interesting SI/SO (shift in/shift out) button. In the olden days you had 7-bit US-ASCII codes (keyboard and display) at the bottom. To get national characters for those who weren't Americans... There was the NRC - National Replacement Characters - that had to be set, probably, in BIOS or in control page files or similar depending on HW and operating system - or other software. Now, the NRC was just an overlay so that some characters were changed. ']' (Å), '[' (Ä), (Ö), '}' (ä), '{' 'ä' and '|' (ö). Like for us in Sweden, we don't use {} (curly braces), [] (brackets), and | (pipe). We do , however, have three more letters: åäö/ÅÄÖ. So, in Swedish NRC, the characters we don't have is the US alphabet were replaced with our national ones. However, this caused some problems relating to old mechanical typewriters and the placement of the our national characters. There was a conflict with the character values. In Swedish, those extra letters comes out in the order: å, ä and ö. However, replacing the US characters with our made the order: 'ä', 'ö' and 'å'. So, this caused a problem when sorting records with text requiring what is called a collating sequence where a sort is told how to arrange values. But there was also the ISO-8859 or ISO Latin Alphabet character set and its variations. In Sweden we used the 8859-1 or Latin character set 1. The 7-bit US ASCII only used the lowest seven bits. The eights was left for parity. But when parity wasn't required, that bit was open for use... With the other character sets. And the way to toggle between a 7-bit character code and an 8-bit one was using Shift out/Shift in (ASCII control codes 0x0E and 0x0F). However, this screwed up printing if you ran like an 8-bit application on a 7-bit UNIX. Because when the 8-bit å, ä and ö came out on the printer, they came out as 'e', 'd' and 'v'. Because that''s where our local å, ä and ö resided with the 8th bit cleared. So, besides having the printer set up OK, you also had to (in UNIX) add a 'tr' (translate) command the a 'filter' to be executed before the actual print started. Oh dear! Hope I got all this right. But it was like ages ago! ;)

[@ChernobylFamily]

This is a very valuable addition to the story. Thank you very much!

[@matusekpetr7806]

Super intro, parádní video ! Osazení součástkami přesně ukazuje, jaká to byla hrozná doba, sehnat součástky byl nadlidský úkon a nasypalo se tam prostě to, co se zrovna sehnalo, proto je to takový mix různých výrobců a taky některé čipy se zas prý dohodli, že je bude dělat jen jeden, aby si "nekonkurovali" a každý mohl "přispět" svým do mlýna 😀

[@ChernobylFamily]

Ďakujem!

[@AzagXul666]

You got a new subscriber, greetings from Finland! I was almost 12 years old when Chernobyl happened and I think I remember there was quite a bit of panic and confusion in our family too. We lived near western coast of Finland...

[@ChernobylFamily]

Thank you! Today - a new video!

[@eugenesorokin6602]

Thank you. I have had a book about robotrons back those times and haven't seen it so close, it was allways like a parallel universe somewhere there.

[@ChernobylFamily]

Very true.

[@gavin9038]

Really interesting computer and the quality of your videos is really amazing and professional. I really loved the intro!

[@ChernobylFamily]

Thank you!

[@scotthjackson5651]

Really loved this video and gotta say the Tetris demo was a very special moment indeed. You guys are amazing. All the best from , Argentina.

[@ChernobylFamily]

Thank you!

[@rexthewarhorse]

Best intro ever! And the Crysis joke 😅 There is always one in the comments but you beat them to it And there was Fuzik 🥰

[@ChernobylFamily]

Thank you:) Fuzik got a full bowl for his participation:))

[@rexthewarhorse]

@@ChernobylFamily as it should be. I think it's in his contract even 😅

[@SpotTiger]

IMMEDIATE LIKE FOR THAT INTRO OMG You make a great Neo!!

[@ChernobylFamily]

Thank you :)

[@SiqueScarface]

The East German Rossendorf Nuclear Research Facility used two Amiga 2000 as central control computers. I've been shown around in 1987, and I was told that at the time, the facility paid about 200,000 East German Marks per device.

[@ChernobylFamily]

Wow! Thank you for sharing!

[@Bertie_Ahern]

That's crazy. I didn't think they were allowed to import Western computers

[@SiqueScarface]

@@Bertie_AhernIt's not that easy. And I suspect that those computers were not imported by East Germany, but sent as a gift from West Germany to East German relatives, but seized at the border by customs officers.

[@diedampfbrasse98]

@@SiqueScarface thats just silly, this late into the cold war such trades between east and west germany were rare, but possible through regular channels. It usually was simply prevented by the price tag, as this also was the time east germanies economy already was on its knees. Mind you, the mostly IBM compatible, "mass produced" Robotron EC1834 office PC was sold for 60.000 east german mark in 1988.

[@SiqueScarface]

@@diedampfbrasse98Yes and no. Yes, 16 bit processors were no longer on the COCOM list (but 32 bit were, hence the billion East German Mark effort to create a clone of the VAX processor in the late 1980ies). Thus 8086 and 68000 processors and computers based on them were available. This is the reason why the Robotron PC1715 shown in the video has NEC and Zilog chips and not their East German (U880) or even Soviet Union manufactured (KR1858WM1) clones. But on the other hand, East German customs seized stuff from packages, which were not correctly declared. It was then sold on the official channels. So yes, it's possible that the two computers were bought officially, but it is also possible that those were seized ones. You just couldn't tell.

[@ScarlettStunningSpace]

I loved the intro so much! KZbin recommended your latest video to me and this video was mentioned, so now I'm here.

[@ChernobylFamily]

Welcome!!

[@colombianguy8194]

Excellent video, this machines screams East Germany in every design touch, i love it. Thank you for your videos, please stay safe in this hard times for your country, greetings from Colombia.

[@ChernobylFamily]

Glad you like them! And thank you for your support!

[@victorjoovicbot]

That's the machine solitarily stood on the desk and did everything it could to monitor every minute of the reactor.

[@ChernobylFamily]

Well, it was a part of a bigger system..)

[@Toothily]

In all the old electronics I’ve poked around in, I’ve never ever seen capacitors like those red ones, wild.

[@ChernobylFamily]

It is type K10-7 ceramic capacitor, with a very little amount of silver. Not very practical, as is fragile, but generally works ok even if edge is damaged. Still good that they did not place there green KM capactors, otherwise this machine would be long gone...

[@buriedbits6027]

These older machines have really nice looking motherboards 13:19 I love that yellow board. It’s so cool looking.

[@ChernobylFamily]

Glad you liked!

[@MotownBatman]

w!ZarD! Thats an awesome find Guys!!, Well Done~~! OG TETRIS!!

[@ChernobylFamily]

Thanks!

[@frostwise87]

Brilliant episode such a cool intro 🎉

[@ChernobylFamily]

Thank you!:)

[@martinpanev6651]

Awesome work on the Chernobyl electronics restorations! Were there any Bulgarian made computers in the Chernobyl infrastructure? My grandfather was an engineer on the Pravetz systems and it would be really cool to know! Great work as always

[@ChernobylFamily]

About Pravetz I did not find evidence, but A LOT of disk drives, tape reel drives, etc. from SM EVM minicomputers were made by IZOT. In the next 2 weeks we will have an episode about them!

[@martinpanev6651]

@@ChernobylFamily Ahh! Very cool!!

[@kjamison5951]

For the age, that is a nice slimline case design. Solid but it has nice architecture. Thank you for sharing this!

[@ChernobylFamily]

Thank you! Check other episodes!

[@JeSuisUnePatate]

Amazing intro and you made me laughs so many times along all this vid ! 🤣 I love this computer - A very beautiful piece of that era ! I'm sorry about Crysis tho... How rude.. 😭

[@ChernobylFamily]

haha

[@rozarioagro5532]

The strangest thing for me is that they were able to copy the microchips, but were in no way able to copy a decent keyboard.

[@marcd6897]

they probably considered the existing keyboards subpar and thought they can build a better (and unfortunately overengineered) keyboard themselves because it was simpler technology

[@ChernobylFamily]

I mean, the keyboard is super well built in fact;. just after nearly 40 years and obviously extensive use it is in its afterlife stage...

[@rozarioagro5532]

@@ChernobylFamily in this case, I am a little subjective. I was a poor owner of Elektronika BK 🤕

[@piotrcurious1131]

copying microchips was not that a great skill. Some spy photographed lithography masks, another spy cabled the settings of lithography machines. Back in those times these machines were not really advanced and you could get them from various sources . So imagine most of those chips were actually cloned and started up by people having no real knowledge of how it really supposed to work. This class of chips was already Long obsolete in the West. Perhaps the home computer craze got a little of uptick in reusing them , but if you look at what was available for research and military at the same time, then the gap becomes obvious. Most importantly the West had already computers allowing to CAD/CAM next generation of chips. Soviets were still stuck with pencil and paper.

[@rileyfaelan]

@@piotrcurious1131 Which makes it all the more curious that KGB, having stolen the blueprints for 64-kibibit RAM chips, had so much trouble trying to steal 256-kibibit ones that it resorted to just buying a licence instead. From Toshiba, IIRC. (You'll note that this system has 64-kilobit RAM chips: 32 chips making up 256KiB.)

[@ruben_balea]

😅Crysys is a bit excessive but there's at least a Doom clone for the ZX Spectrum, I bet it can be simplified even more to use a text display.

[@ChernobylFamily]

:))

[@puciohenzap891]

I like the name, they should make a movie about it - Robotron vs Terminator.

[@ChernobylFamily]

Well, this machine is so heavy that I guess this battle will end quick :)

[@swedenfrommycam]

Very well made! Thanks😊

[@ChernobylFamily]

Happy you liked it!

[@joshcarter-com]

Wow! This reminds me so much of my first 8086 PC. I know nothing about USSR computers so it’s fascinating seeing software that looks VERY familiar to what I grew up with: CP/M, Turbo Pascal, Wordstar. The hardware is especially cool. I like that the power supply has front/back venting along the side of the case. I’m guessing that the red capacitors are for decoupling, preventing transients from one chip from affecting its neighbors. And it’s got a legit Z80 CPU! Wow, I’m such a nerd. And apparently an old one, too. Thanks so much for this video, it was a real joy to watch!

[@ChernobylFamily]

Thank you! Stay tuned, we will have more and more!

[@joir2000]

Nice video! Steady built machine. Looking forward to the video about см1420

[@ChernobylFamily]

That will be an interesting one. A very huge number of Chernobyl data processing systems were running on them. We've found a lot of interesting references to share.

[@Sharief001]

I friggin love you guys, from South Africa 🌍❤️

[@ChernobylFamily]

Thank you! Today - a new video!

[@edward9674]

Thank you for the video! I wish i had time to watch right now but i'll check it later cuz this stuff is fascinating!

[@ChernobylFamily]

Enjoy!

[@neil4306]

Love your videos

[@ChernobylFamily]

Thank you!

[@KeritechElectronics]

LOVED the Matrix reference! Nice computer, and I liked that version of Tetris.

[@ChernobylFamily]

Thank you!

[@MrWaalkman]

@4:06 Both the "Printer" and the "V24" looks to have a bent pin on the lower left row. Be careful with those sockets. @5:10 I'm happy to see that Radio Shack lives on in Ukraine. Or at least their emblem. And I like those jumper board switches. No orange cats were harmed (or fed, apparently) in the making of this video.

[@ChernobylFamily]

Thank you! Haha that is actually a "repeat" button which executes once more the last command. Cat was fed well:) in Patreon version there is a scene with a stash of cat food in a book :))

[@Matt_The_Hugenot]

I have only seen these in pictures before. It reminds me very much of the British RML 380Z, another solidly built Z80A based computer that I used in the early 1980s. The ability to switch character sets is an excellent feature.

[@ChernobylFamily]

Thanks for sharing!

[@NuGanjaTron]

The GDR made some amazing -- and affordable -- stuff back in the day. The styling was usually quite run-of-the-mill, but this is a refreshing exception. It looks like something Dieter Rams would have designed for Braun!

[@ChernobylFamily]

Thanks for sharing!

[@mrLumen2]

Интро - огонь. В следующих сериях жду интро в стиле "Парка Юрского периода": "Это UNIX (Dos, CP\M, .....). Я знаю эту систему". Или в стиле фильма "Хакеры" (1995) : "Yea, RISC its good" ).

[@ChernobylFamily]

АААААААААА

[@chriswareham]

Spotted a Texas Instruments chip on the motherboard, and it wasn't socketed. Since the processor and floppy controller chips are socketed, but there were East German clones available, I'm guessing those two may be later replacements.

[@ChernobylFamily]

Or a shadow import.

[@Canleaf08]

@@ChernobylFamilyShadow import or Vebeg… Exchange programmes existed for a lot of items. Like light beams from VEB Ruhla Electrika against VW Golfs / Transporters T3. Maybe also computer parts.

[@Ascania]

@@Canleaf08 That is very unlikely. Computer parts and microelectronics were in the COCOM list and couldn't be officially traded to the East.

[@korolchukpp]

Nice!

[@ChernobylFamily]

Thank you:)

[@LaLaLand.Germany]

Now I want such a box. That computer is actually awsome and made in Germany.

[@ChernobylFamily]

Imho, it is very limited for a meaningful retrocomputing, but at the same time it is rock solid, so maybe it is a good choice.

[@LaLaLand.Germany]

@@ChernobylFamily It´s the rocksolid part I like much. And when it can do Tetris it´s good enough for me. It´s the looks at 2nd that I like, too. Sadly these cans went decades ago from where I live and I need the hole shabang, shipping to Germany would kill me. But if You know of a set that is in "fix-er-up" condition aka complete, powers up, needs cleaning and paint: we need to talk. I even have an 8dot printer that might work with that. The set just looks apart. I hope I can sometimes maybe get one. Thanks for the reply

[@ChernobylFamily]

Need to think...

[@diedampfbrasse98]

Robotron computers are indeed rock solid ... a museum (Technische Sammlungen) here in Dresden has quiet a number of Robotron on display and for most of my visits in younger years one or two still were operational to be used by visitors/or at least demonstrated in operation. there is a complete virtual tour online, looks like there are still some machines set up operational in the updated exhibit ... hard to imagine more modern computers lasting that long.

[@LaLaLand.Germany]

@@diedampfbrasse98 I for shure would like to get my hands on a set. Are there any sets left in Germany?

[@pianoman4Jesus]

I had on idea that the first version of Tetris was text character mode! I had a version in mid 1980's (still have it) that is DOS graphics version, and it says something about coming from Russia in the startup screen. Thanks!

[@ChernobylFamily]

It becomes even more interesting if you check what Elektronika-60 is. In bare minimum it is a rackmount computer with nothing except punch tape input!

[@pianoman4Jesus]

@@ChernobylFamily Are you saying that Tetris ran on a Elektronika-60 with paper tape?!

[@rileyfaelan]

The delta signs are a curious sign of modernity, in that the original Robotron 1715 (and I suspect, the default character set of 1715M) has a rectangular block at the position of character code 0x7F. It's not considered an ASCII printable character, and the code, with all seven (!) bits set, was once considered to be reserved for 'deleting' characters from punched paper tape by punching all the holes, so its ASCII mnemonic was DEL. With the advance of video displays, this particular usage was not particularly important, so various systems put some glyph that seemed like a good idea in this position; IBM chose a delta sign for the charset 437 popularised by IBM PC, probably as a pun for the DEL mnemonic. The reloadable charset that your start-up disk appears to have loaded is probably inspired by this.

[@ChernobylFamily]

There was a cool feature of this Robotron. You actually could load own fonts and character sets programmatically. This way you could massively extend pseudo graphics, which was actually used in a few games.

[@rileyfaelan]

@@ChernobylFamily Yep! You can see the font being loaded in the boot-up in this very video, even. (I've only got font ROM dumps of a couple of variants of the original 1715, so I can't say for sure what might have been in the default font ROM of 1715M.)

[@rickglorie]

It might be, that the standard being hammer typewriters in the day, the keyboard was ergonomical for it's time. It's still insane that we use a keyboard layout from the typewriter times (to not get the hammers mixed up) when those hammers are long gone.

[@ChernobylFamily]

Actually, true.

[@mlthmp]

Thats a sleek looking machine. Great video

[@ChernobylFamily]

Thanks 👍

[@NuGanjaTron]

4:58 The most intuitive cursor keys ever! 🤣

[@Windows3x]

Moc pěkné videa 😊

[@ChernobylFamily]

Ďakukem :)

[@slincolne]

A lovely example of a computer of that period. Also - did you see there was a copy of Turbo Pascal on the first disk (CP/M boot) ?

[@ChernobylFamily]

Yes, I did :)

[@DOSlogic]

Хороший огляд, цікавого комп'ютера. У ваших відео я все розумію англійською :)

[@ChernobylFamily]

Дякуємо :)

[@MadScientist267]

The sassy Teac floppies set this visually. Or maybe I'm just overly nostalgic. Either way there's no mistaking one from the front lol

[@buriedbits6027]

I am out here in Poland. Man it would be so cool to go there and check out these machines you have. I guess it’s all in a museum?

[@ChernobylFamily]

Feel free to come, we can bring you to a couple of museums with fantastic exhibits here in Kyiv. Ourselves, we do not keep tech, either we donate or sell it.

[@SobieRobie]

So Alex, which pill did you take? :D Interesting machine although with dedicated use. For personal use KC85 was much better because of having graphic mode.

[@ChernobylFamily]

A green one :)

[@cedric3973]

Great intro and a SCP refernce. Awesome video.

[@ChernobylFamily]

Glad you liked it!

[@wrbrower]

I'm sorry, but the game's. audio dropped out in the video when you were playing Tetris. 😅 Other than that, great video as always.

[@ChernobylFamily]

The problem, there is no sound at all - this computer is totally silent, and I had to mute sounds of the machine itself due to its insanely loud fan.

[@wrbrower]

@@ChernobylFamily That was a joke, my friend. Love your channel.

[@ChernobylFamily]

Haha, sorry, sometimes I have troubles getting that :))

[@StanislavBruiev]

We had one at the Kharkiv Radio Technical school in the mid-90s

[@ChernobylFamily]

I hope not as late as this one. i saw previously produced, they still were quite ok...

[@GenaTrius]

If you could, please tell your cat that I love them. I'm on an eternal quest to inform every cat.

[@ChernobylFamily]

I told him, he made puuuurrrr

[@TheFanOrTheMask]

you guyz rock

[@ChernobylFamily]

THANKS :)

[@Crazyfrench]

2:22 I laughed at the Soviet Union's flag ^^

[@ChernobylFamily]

FINALLY someone noticed that :))))

[@Atmatan]

Such a banger it's obviously keter.

[@ChernobylFamily]

Hahaha yes

[@julienhennion7802]

You deserve more views :)

[@ChernobylFamily]

Thanks for watching!:)

[@arnetrautmann9783]

I learned coding on such a machine back in 1988. Not in Chornobyl, of course, but still...

[@ChernobylFamily]

Cool!

[@monad_tcp]

13:02 so that's what seize the means of production do. equal distribution of capacitors for everyone ! (but there's no power to power them)

[@ChernobylFamily]

I am very glad they did not use Russian green KM which contain hell of palladium. Otherwise, this machine would be long gone.

[@TinLeadHammer]

There is just enough power for them to work, but not enough to organize.

[@SvenCurly]

I learned on this machine in 1986/1987. ❤

[@ChernobylFamily]

Very cool!

[@SvenCurly]

It was funny. Normally, I'm a mainframe operator, IT basics learned @ PC1715, mainframe operating things @ESER EC1057, a russian IBM mainframe clone. 🎉❤

[@ChernobylFamily]

@SvenCurly as I remember 1057 was a DDR-made clone, many levels up to Russian ones... how reliable was it from your experience?

[@SvenCurly]

@@ChernobylFamilyThis mainframe was a cooperation with several countries (GDR, USSR, Bulgaria, Hungary etc). It was similar to the IBM clone R/360 / 370 mainframe. I was operator, not technician. I don't know about reliability of the whole mainframe system, but we hardly had any downtime. :)

[@drozcompany4132]

Very cool stuff! Interesting that the connectors are labeled in English, from an East German manufacturer.

[@derekchristenson5711]

Very interesting! And a very funny, "Matrix"-style intro. 🤣 That keyboard, though... that sounds execrable!

[@ChernobylFamily]

Glad you liked it!

[@lucasrem]

Even in Soviet times, Philips, wat became ASML now, helped them to develop chips in Dresden.

[@winged_neko]

I would follow the orange cat, no matter what! :D and then insert the crisis disc into the robotron :3

[@ChernobylFamily]

- Meow!

[@alexhajnal107]

I absolutely loved the intro! As for the machine itself I found the mix of German, English, and Cyrillic text surprising; do you know where this example was used?

[@ChernobylFamily]

Cannot answer now, will ask guys. But the software set up is basically "all we could find for it", so therefore it looks as a mix.

[@alexhajnal107]

@@ChernobylFamily The DDR (Robotron included) attempted to sell its products in western Europe but with little success. Perhaps this machine's case was originally intended for that market?

[@D0Samp]

I assume the CPU and floppy disk controller had to be replaced eventually, so it was easier to use western clone chips at that point?

[@ChernobylFamily]

Might be. Or just someone got original chips and decided to use them.

[@MarkMcCluney]

I'm certainly glad I took the red pill and dived deep into the Robotron. I liked it - I miss those days. Well, a little bit anyway. Thanks for showing us Alex. Oh, did you remember to get cat food?

[@ChernobylFamily]

Fuzik has been charged up:)

[@epico1598]

2:05 that building is still standing in Dresden

[@ChernobylFamily]

I thought so

[@volo870]

How is the computer museum in Kharkiv doing? They closed at the beginning of the war and I heard that a shell landed nearby their premises. Are they OK? Is the collection safe?

[@ChernobylFamily]

In Kharkiv - they are good from what I know, good as much as it is possible to be good in Kharkiv.

[@intheprettypink]

Was not expecting a question about the SCP class lol.

[@ChernobylFamily]

Could not hold myself...)

[@Canleaf08]

Ahhh the VEB Robotron… I recently managed to get their DCP version (the clone of MS-DOS) booting in VMWare. Sadly installation is not possible though.

[@ChernobylFamily]

Cool anyway!

[@karlpron]

Those German Z80 clones must have been made very close to the original if they could intermix parts like this :). Cool video. Did they copy western tricks to allow 8 bit processor address 256 KB?

[@ChernobylFamily]

AFAIK, that was a full clone. Unfortunately, right at the moment I cannot answer the second question as my experience with those is somewhat limited.

[@markevans2294]

Something which can be an issue is that Western ICs use 2.54mm (0.1") lead spacing whilst Soviet ICs use 2.5mm. A non-destructive comparison would involve using a logic analyser and having the CPU execute every instruction, including the undocumented ones. A destructive comparison would be to decap the due and look at it with microscope. Bank switching memory is a well known "trick". Which can be done even with 8 bit processors which don't have a separate I/O address space.

[@rileyfaelan]

Yep, U880 is an exact copy of Z80 at the silicon level. The only difference is, it's packaged in a metric chip carrier, so the neighbouring pins' distance is not 2.54mm but 2.5mm. Makes for a 0.74mm total difference over a 20-pin row. One of the reasons for using sockets for the large chips in Eastern Bloc electronics was, it lent the additional degree of tolerance to accommodate Western chips with 2.54mm pitch in a PCB whose holes were drilled on a metric, 2.5mm, grid.

[@erocdraHXAM]

the CM1910 was no 286 it was a 16bit 8086. I hope you were able to reassemble it and it runs again, if not we have to talk 🙂

[@ChernobylFamily]

We eventually gave it to a friend who managed it to run :)

[@erocdraHXAM]

@@ChernobylFamilythat just saved me from a heart attack

[@syhnes]

Ho my god ! The orange cat XD this is perfect

[@ChernobylFamily]

Thank you!

[@syhnes]

By the way dear A., have you seen the movie "tetris " What do you think about?

[@ChernobylFamily]

@syhnes i heard about it, but yet did not watch

[@Txm_Dxr_Bxss]

I've got a Robotron 1715, but it's missing the monitor and it's keyboard.

[@ChernobylFamily]

Still they appear from time to time on online auctions

[@TinLeadHammer]

The "JCUKEN" keyboard layout was known as "SMIT" - keys in the bottom row.

[@ChernobylFamily]

Back in the times when I was a child, I frequently used a typewriter and that combination of letters was, perhaps, one of the first things I noticed..)

[@hi-friaudioman]

Nice SCP joke! That was pretty funny.

[@ChernobylFamily]

I guess what is featured in the next video is Taumiel.

[@andywolan]

Finally, a keyboard that can compete with the legionary IBM Model M keyboard.

[@ChernobylFamily]

haha :)

[@googleevil]

Thank you for your videos. You are the best! Glory to 🇺🇦

[@ChernobylFamily]

Thank you so much!

[@minamotosoft]

COOL!

[@ChernobylFamily]

Thank you!

[@johnnyzippo7109]

They just get better and better .

[@ChernobylFamily]

Thank you:)

[@johnnyzippo7109]

I watch a lot of u tube , 97% of my viewing is that of historic documentary type content . The content provided by C.F. Is my absolute Number One . To this very day I can recall like it was yesterday the network news coverage of the breaking news that was the Chernoby N.P.P. Catastrophe . This event, like no other kick started my unquenchable thirst to understand , Who , How and Why . I verbalize this in the form of a compliment simply to commend and thank you all for your passion and efforts . Like the staff of this N.P.P. and the citizens living within its shadow , WE are ALL merely Sand Pebbles in The Hourglass of This Life , simply , thank you .

[@ChernobylFamily]

Thank you vety much! Check also our Patreon - we publish there a lot of archive/research content translated into English, practically always - for the first time.

[@Markolbe1985]

Robotron made in GDR

[@ChernobylFamily]

Precise! And comparing to it, sоviet tech suхх!

[@TinLeadHammer]

​@@ChernobylFamilyPrecise - точный, precisely - точно. Я заметил, что вы любите это слово :)

[@ChernobylFamily]

Thanks for the correction!

[@redwire1233]

Hi did you heard about the tesla pmd85 home computer ??? It's an cheslovak communism comeputer it was pretty popular.❤👍

[@ChernobylFamily]

Yes, but never had in my hands

[@alexandermirdzveli3200]

Check out the big talent on Alex! :)

[@ChernobylFamily]

:))) nothing would work without camera work of Michaela :)

[@tedstrikertwa800]

The display reminds me of the game Fallout

[@ChernobylFamily]

Actually, true!

[@godfreypoon5148]

2:22 Most accurate soviet flag.

[@ChernobylFamily]

YESS

[@XtreeM_FaiL]

Why so many arrow keys? Are they disposable?

[@guavamax420]

There's an actual QWERTY keyboard for the 1715 computer.

[@ChernobylFamily]

Interesting... never saw those.

[@amonster8mymother]

Tetris!!!😮😮😮

[@catriona_drummond]

13:03 my very thought in that very same moment XD

[@ChernobylFamily]

When I realized what it reminds me, I've been laughing for good 2 minutes.

[@kjamison5951]

An East German computer that monitored a nuclear power plant - that wasn’t the original use but the Stasi were insistent…

[@ChernobylFamily]

That is a good one!