Soviet Sinclairs & Eastern Bloc Micros - The Home Computer Revolution in the USSR

[@RMCRetro]

Thank you for watching. Please check the description for further reading and links to channels who kindly allowed me to use supporting clips. If you'd like to support future RMC videos then you can become a Patron at patreon.com/retromancave or you can treat yourself to retro posters and mugs at www.etsy.com/shop/TheRetroManCave - Neil - RMC

[@d2factotum]

Is that the yellow machine I spotted on the shelf when you did your new cave tour? Nice to know where it comes from, if so! And a fascinating video to boot.

[@niamaru2]

awesome video, loved it! this is part of our history and I am glad someone is diving into it :)

[@evefavretto]

Just a correction: at 16:94, the Microdigital TK-95 is actually a Brazilian ZX clone. (Sorry, someone already corrected you)

[@RMCRetro]

d2factotum that's correct. The yellow one has a fried voltage regulator but I hope to fixit up some time. Perhaps not a series just a little job on the side

[@Offsettttt]

I have a few tapes with games for Russian Spectrum clone. I can record and e-mail them if you want.

[@skochin]

OMG, I grew up in Leningrad/Saint-Petersburg. I was 15 y.o i. 1990 when I got my first 48k clone. It was Leningrad model naturally and required TV set modification to accept RGB. Installation took all day as the guys who sold me the unit couldn't figure out some internals in the TV. The way we used to get software was to go to almost outside of town to some sort of electronic flea market and hang out with bunch of dudes fo exchange tapes you have already copied on your own for new ones with a small fee. Again, I was 15, commuting all across Leningrad(population 5 million) all by myself by bus-underground-walking, to hang out with just some guys who pirated those tapes, and then back home - a nighmare of any nowadays parents. But it was awesome! Best years of my life. Sinclair made me who I am, I choose computer science in college all because Sinclair was in my life.

[@ogsmakil213]

Awesome story dude!!!

[@moggadah]

A story from a western European country. My brother and I got our ZX Spectrum 48k for christmas 1983. We traded games and sold some copies. It was a bit immoral - we were kids and had no means of affording to pay for 100s of games. But we bought several originals from England that were delivered through mail. In 1986 we had enough money to buy a 128k. I liked exploring the machine and various software. English home computer magazines were an amazing read; well informed and many times humorous. Of course the ZX is what got me into programming.

[@LGR]

Most excellent, sir. Been wanting to dive into this realm of computing for a long time myself, definitely sparked some renewed interest and helped me learn new stuff here. The sheer number of Spectrum clones from behind the Iron Curtain is wild to me, it seems like every time I stumble across one on eBay it's entirely new to me.

[@RMCRetro]

Thanks Clint, it certainly opened my eyes! I'd quite like to get my hands on one of those Dendy NES clones now

[@jelgue]

I think I still have one of those in the basement at my parents house: i.imgur.com/X7Gut9h.jpg I don't know where it originated from but it was bought through a mail order magazine around 1990 in Norway. Would you be interested in this one?

[@jamiey5779]

+RetroManCave There's a Russian KZbinr called Kinamania. He has a series of videos called Dendy Chronicles that have English translated closed captions. He's got a lot of other content, but a lot of his other videos haven't been translated. I recommend checking out Dendy Chronicles. kzbin.info/aero/PLCE3FEDC39DEF28E3

[@RMCRetro]

jelgue I sure would. That would be fun for an episode. If you'd like to email me on the channel name at gmail dot com we can chat

[@TheTurnipKing]

It's a fantastic coincidence that as the system was winding down in the west it was just ramping up in the east, giving the system one of the most prolonged afterlifes this side of the NES

[@chuckySK81]

I am from Skalica, Slovakia. The city where Didaktik was born. First was Didaktik Gama, it looks like the original Spectrum, than was Didaktik M an later was Didaktik Kompakt /64k but only 50 use as RAM/with integrated D80 floppy mechanic with Snap button. Didaktik also make some periferia like "sound card" Melodik, Joysticst and some other. Like external floppy mechanic D40 and D80 with snaphot button. Is was like "save game" in today language. You press button "snap" and floppy save all memory state to floppy and you can later load this state and continue work, or game.I also work in this company, but today thay make some elektronics board for Protherm and majority of Didaktik production is in mechanical products. In past days, they make didactic tools for schools. Thats becouse Didaktik/c. Like most of this factories, today production is only a shadow of the best days I also know some people who work on original design, PCB, ULA and they told me, that they want 128k and Melodic inside, but RAM cost to much for our customers. There was also project Didaktik Profesional in desktop or tower form with 128k,Melodik soind module, printer port,2 floppy, external keyboard, but only as prototype, never sold on regulary base.IBM PC Standart come to us very quickly after iron curtain fall....

[@trewlove]

My father smuggled one Spectrum from West Germany to Yugoslavia back in early 80s :-)

[@craigvard1639]

How did you got games for it?

[@trewlove]

There were adverts in local computer magazines, like, 10-15 games on one C-60 casette, all pirated of course. Here's scan of one such page from 1988, you can recognize names of the games in ads: pc.sux.org/SK/1988/12/SK_1988_12_57.jpg

[@craigvard1639]

Thanks for window in history. But surprisingly, I recognize only 3 games: Barbarian 2, Tetris and Target renegade. By the way, were this games in English or in other languages? PS: And last. Kermit-soft - what the hell?

[@trewlove]

All original games in English. Kermit Soft was name of one of the sellers :-)

[@ivanski28]

We bought ours in Athens via mail ordered I think then smuggled it back to Yugoslavia. :) Predrag Djenadic, Pirat No 1 ;)

[@stepa22]

Didaktik M was actually made in Czechoslovakia from 1990, so 8(!) years after relase of ZX spectrum and year after fall of iron curtain. But therefore, there was Didaktik Gamma, made from 1987, wnich was also compatibile with Spectrum. And also, there were Spectrums too! :)

[@MrDuncl]

R.I.P. Clive Sinclair, the man who started all this. Thanks to Neil for the very well researched video.

[@Diggnuts]

This also explains the immense talent pool of coders in the former soviet countries. A much larger portion of the active IT crowd there has first hand experience with coding on the raw metal. Most of us westerners have been been handicapped by using multiple layers of abstraction for more than 2 decades now, taking us away from the iron.. I still find it awful that most of the techies I meet have no real physical concept of things like registers or memory layout.

[@noop9k]

More often than not they were underemployed, compared to their western counterparts. A western engineer of comparable skill level would not waste his time on such things. Also, they lived basically 10 years in the past.

[@Horzuhammer]

Those guys also most likely had tools way less advanced as their western counterparts (10 years prior) too. That kinda makes those machines, and their creators even more impressive.

[@kloakovalimonada]

Yes, but in the end, their immense skill ended up with the eastern bloc technology only just barely catching up with western technology. Putting their skills to use in western contexts would probably yield something special.

[@zarkoujdur9424]

I have still remembered Z80 assembler instructions: LD HL, LD BC, DJNZA...))

[@Qtechbh]

The real reason was more related to the educational systems at the time. They were stricter/stronger/harder and more demanding Maths/Physics curriculums aswell as wide spread access to personal computers in schools. Unfortunately this all changed with the fall of the Union with that system being hugely crippled and dumbed down from the 90s onwards...

[@noop9k]

"produced at Ukraine, Minsk, .." Ukraine is a member of USSR , now a country, while Minsk is a _city_, capital of Belarus, which is also a member of USSR, now a country. Other cities in Belarus also made computers. In particular, "Байт" speccy clone is made in Brest, "Квант" speccy clone is made in Orsha.

[@CZ350tuner]

Back in 1995 I was the leader of a University engineering student exchange with Prague University for a summer. Whilst in the Czech Republic I was invited to stay for a weekend with a family in a small village near the border with Poland. In the house they had a white Sinclair Spectrum 48 K clone which quite impressed me as it was a better constructed machine than the rubber keyed wonder and Spectrum Plus models we had in the UK and Europe, what with a proper keyboard, etc. The Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians took the evolution of the Spectrum further than it managed in the rest of the world.

[@vojtasTS29]

It was most likely the Didaktik gama.

[@embeDes]

Here in Poland, the Elwro company manufactured the ZX Spectrum clone since 1986. It was called Elwro 800 Junior. I was nine years old when I started to learn how to program such a machine in Basic. If I remember correctly, we had nine of these computers connected together into a local network in our youth center. One computer was equipped with a floppy disk drive and a matrix printer and it worked as a master and eight computers worked as slave devices. We had a wonderful woman teacher who have impacted my life because she have ignited a spark of my imagination and I have decided to pursue a dream to become an engineer in the field of electronics and computer science. Today, after over thirty years I still remember how excited I was back then every time I visited the youth center to learn something new.

[@aprofondir]

In Socialist Yugoslavia we just had Sinclair Spectrums

[@SuperJet_Spade]

I've never given much thought about home computing in the USSR in the 80s-90s until now. This was a really interesting video to watch.

[@rednight2476]

Contrary to California tech journalists the C64 was the #1 machine of North America. The sales figures easily demonstrate this. The Apple II was more akin to the BBC Micro as a school and education computer. Home ownership of the machine was mostly school teachers, and administrators as Apple gave heavy discounts on the machine to them. Outside of education it was pretty much considered a rich mans toy.

[@RMCRetro]

Thanks for sharing that. I think a US / UK podcast or episode where we can just chat about the differences in the two countries would make for interesting listening.

[@gwenynorisu6883]

Yeah ... Apple II == BBC Micro (and Apple I == Acorn Atom? But then what == the Electron? I guess the Mac == Archimedes...), C64 == Spectrum (and earlier Commodores sort of == ZX80/81), Atari 8-bits (and consoles, in fact) and MSXes were off to themselves in both markets, Tandy Coco == Dragon32, and then there's a bunch of other wacky but fondly remembered also-rans on both sides. Maybe Colecovision == CPC, Intellivision == Oric, something like that? And eventually NES == Master System, and Macs/IBMs == Amiga/ST (...and RM)...

[@mason6300]

Not much of a change for Apple in today's market.

[@Longlius]

The Apple machines were also popular among electronic hobbyists and enthusiasts of RPGs and simulations.

[@herrbonk3635]

12:45 The Z80 in that Didaktic (Z0840004PSC) is no "clone", it's sold by Zilog. "Z084" means Z80 series, "00" means CPU (not DMA, SIO, UART, PIO, etc), "04" means max 4 MHz (4, 6, 8, 10 or 20 MHz) and "PSC" means plastic DIL package.

[@UncleRus]

By the way, the markings of all Soviet ICs contains Cyrillic symbols only and are pronounced accordingly. For example, КР1858ВМ1 is not a kei-pi-1858-bi-em-1, it's KR1858VM1

[@RMCRetro]

Hi UncleRus, yes one of my Patrons explained this on early access and I chose not to re-edit it as I'd likely get just as many comments telling me I was pronouncing it wrong whichever option I took. But yes you are indeed correct, the "B"'s are pronounced as "V"'s and the "P" there as an "R". I hope you enjoyed it anyway.

[@genkiadrian]

RetroManCave The Wikipedia article lists the correct name, too: ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Т34ВМ1_и_Т34ВГ1

[@eddiehimself]

Fun fact: there was a type of phishing scam going on a few years ago where scammers would use Cyrillic characters that looked identical to their Latin equivalents in web addresses to make them look like legitimate websites. Fortunately most modern browsers will warn you if the web address contains non-ASCII characters, so it's not much of a problem any more.

[@gregorymalchuk272]

@@RMCRetro Hey, what button do you press to kick the Byte into English Basic? Also, did you say that the Byte has both an RF and an RGB video output? Is the RF output PAL or Secam?

[@destubae3271]

🅱️ladimir

[@AttilaSVK]

I don't know how I missed this episode when it came out :) One of my dad's friends had a Speccy in the mid '80s in Hungary. He sold it in order to buy a Trabant second hand :D

[@edgeeffect]

"a new generation of engineers skilled at reverse engineering".... The birth of the legendary "Russian Hackers".

[@jackkraken3888]

Where safety is number one priority.

[@harumy1137]

Hi, great content. Let me report here as I pretty fit your description from the last minute. I bought my first spectrum in 93, it was rather big grey 48k box of unknown origin but with 5.25 floppy and somewhat larger keyboard. When the master from the shop arrived to connect it to TV, I realized this is the guy who actually assembled it. The machine was nice but had terrible problems with heat. Another model was Pentagon 128, which I consider the best zx overall :) Last was Scorpion 256 with 2 floppies, and you could reasonably run an Iskrasoft DOS, which also had shell similar to norton commander. It had hardware assisted debugger and a "magic" button opening it whenever. Oh how much easier some games became. The peak of my ZX carrier was to connect a mouse and write some asm for it, also digital sound was fun. Also to pass a roumor, UFO port (while being a great game) was considered untrue, because it was written on PC and cross-compiled. My friend was even soldering such noname speccies for a while, he might be available for interview (if you are serious :)

[@gwenynorisu6883]

Hey, if it was coded on PC but then compiled _for_ the Spectrum clones, and successfully ran on them, it still counts. Cross-compiling isn't the same as emulation or faking it, the code still has to work on the stated target platform, and it's a tool that's been used for all kinds of better known systems, especially consoles (which you usually can't dev on directly for obvious reasons), or new generation machines early in their lifecycle before the hardware (or more importantly, the OS) is finalised and certainly before any useful compilable language has been written to run on them directly. If you have a 20th century console game, or anything for a computer system with a copyright date in the same year the system was released to the public, chances are it was written on some older/more powerful machine then cross compiled. Wouldn't be surprised to find it was a common thing for a lot of later, more sophisticated (and backported) Spectrum games in general in fact. You usually want something with more memory, CPU power and disc space/speed (and higher resolution/colour depth, easier user interface...) than the typical consumer system when writing any software beyond the level of a toy utility, and the easiest way to get that when writing for the Speccy would have been to, well, use a different computer, preferably a fast 16-bit with a decent amount of RAM and a hard drive, or at least twin 720k floppies. Why fart around trying to upgrade the memory and processor of your cheapo 8-bit computer, and still being stuck with the clunky low-rez low-colour display and lacking UI potential, when you could spend less time and money on buying a more powerful model that delivered all that even in its own base model, with the only tradeoff being that you had to buy an add-on for your programming language that would spit out Z80 machine code and use Spectrum device drivers instead of e.g. 68000 or x86 code and Amiga/Atari/IBM devices?

[@desther7975]

This is a fascinating topic to me, early Soviet and Russian computers and video game consoles. For anyone interested in learning more about Dendy in particular (the NES clone), I recommend "Curse of the Grey Elephant" by Kinamania. He is Russian and the video features Russian audio, but has English subtitles available.

[@NickBailuc]

Great VIdeo! Although I was surprised you didn't mention the very important research center in Zelenograd which is the root of all this research in the Intel line of CPU's. From that, they made factories in almost every SSR and Eastern republic. I own a computer called -Sintez-, made in Moldovan SSR in 1989. Its got most of the ZX hardware, but also an 8080. People say its not a direct clone, although it is compatible with a lot of ZX software

[@MarcKloos]

beta.collectorsbridge.com/collections/sinclair-computers-and-clones/article/signal-sintez-2

[@NickBailuc]

@@MarcKloos the one i own was from 89 (the site incorrectly says 91): www.leningrad.su/museum/show_calc.php?n=398 except mine is orange not white, and it has an intel 8080 alongside an east german z80. it plays western software perfectly (i load itvia my phones music player). too bad i cant figure out a way to use it in canada, its got a DIN-7 which is essentialy RGB-Scart, but i cant find a scart-hdmi converter that works with it (or even my dreamcast)

[@vladtru9670]

There is a small mistake here, in Zelenograd they did not deal with Intel processors - this processors generally had little interest in the leadership of the Soviet electronic industry. Soviet analogs of Intel processors were developed mainly in Kiev and produced in the Ukrainian USSR, and quite a few were cloned - i8080 (used massively in Soviet home and school PCs of the second half of the 1980s), i80C85 (used very rarely) and i8086 / 8088 ( used in all Soviet IBM-compatible). And in Zelenograd, as I know, different sectional processors (usually used in military and space technology) were created and produced, but most importantly - microprocessors of the original Soviet architecture Electronica NC (K587 series), and from the beginning of the 1980s - processors of the original architecture, but with the DEC PDP-11 / LSI-11 command system (K1801VM1 / 2/3, N1806VM2, KA1013VM1 series), and these processors were the basis for the most popular Soviet PCs - UKNC (a powerful 2-processor school and professional computer), DVK (several professional models with different capabilities), BK-0010 / 0010-01 / 0011 / 0011M (low-cost home and school PCs), MK85 (pocket PC), as well as various microcomputers used in industry. However, in Zelenograd in 1991, already in market times, they nevertheless started copying the Z80 - but this is not Intel at all :). Computers Synthesis, as I know, are the usual analogues of the Spectrum, on the Z80 processor or its clone.

[@BazzaHSpeccymad]

Fortunate enough to gain an insight and appreciation myself through a number of subscribers from Russia/former USSR countries just how massive the spectrum was and continues to be. Wonderful stuff and great video

[@RMCRetro]

Thanks Bazza, I've enjoyed watching you play some of these games on your channel

[@nikotin777]

Thank you so much for this video! I'am one of whom wrote first lines of code on such zx-clone. I still remember the moment when I first saw this computer. I saw it at my friend's apartment. We played "Deathchase" game and it was awesome :) After this I begged my parents to bought "the computer" and they bought one in 1993. It was "Sintez-2" 48k ZX-clone. A lot of hours was spent in Sinclair BASIC editor and at loading hundreds of games (because every cassette contained at least 10 pirate games on both sides). There was a lot of tech and game literature at those days too. Now when I know the truth about ZX story I'm very appreciate to sir Clive Sinclair for his invention.

[@IvanDSM]

At 16:54 the clone that appears isn't a Soviet Speccy clone, but a Brazilian one! It's the Microdigital TK95! :D

[@RMCRetro]

That's correct. One slipped in there. Do take a moment to visit homecomputer.de for more great photos. I hope you enjoyed the video

[@IvanDSM]

You bet I enjoyed it! An overview of the soviet Speccy scene was long overdue on KZbin, and you did an amazing job! :)

[@1337Shockwav3]

Take on the brazilian clones next? :) I do own a TK90x and find it a really interesting machine considering they cloned and adapted the ULA to their needs very early on.

[@FrankWoodPhotography]

An incredibly well researched, detailed and interesting story! Bravo! I particularly liked the 8 bit version of “Back in the USSR” - it didn’t go unnoticed! 👏 👏 👏

[@boji55]

Ahh the soviet mainframe, I have worked with the engineers that that took apart the IBM Mainframes and cut the dye so they can make an exact copy of it, Bulgaria would sell antiques and buy IBM products on bogus Companies and ship them to Bulgaria as Produce etc as there was an Embargo on the USSR and IBM could not sell them directly, The division that took care of the disassembly and copying the code was called IZOT, after they would make all the schematics there were sent out and all the parts were made in COMICON disks were made in Stara Zagora Bulgaria :)

[@boji55]

Then We did mostly that, and now we are suffering from the consequences.....

[@boji55]

@James Sempy True, But when you get your masters and the only job you can get is a government one and you get paid next to nothing to copy(not innovate), and nothing else permitted, similarities in generalizations we can write a lot to sway to point of view to ours. The days which we are discussing have passed, a new era has begun from HW point of view at least for Bulgaria, nothing gets produced almost, for Developers and Support we have a good job market and good salaries, which are not as high as in other countries but we can buy more with them here, also as a member of the EU that gives us a good market position for the whole union :)

[@iscander_s]

You suffer the consequences of destroying your own industry in means to join EU. You've had a multiple huge computer factory with a full cycle of the manufacturing thus Bulgaria could produce computers 100% by itself from raw materials including IC's, hard drives, peripherals, etc. And no, they weren't obsolete, they were in time with modern western computers. Bulgaria could probably become one of the top IT countries in Europe if it weren't destroyed all its industry. Now they mostly produce vegetables instead.

[@thebaldconvict]

@@HerneHunter Well said!

[@eugenijusjanuskevicius2292]

@@iscander_s i still doubt if Bulgaria would be willing to produce the copies of IBM mainframes today.

[@penzlic]

Yugoslavia had relatively big ZX, c64 and other microcomputer fanbase during early and middle 80's. Imported ZXs weren't cheap (there were relatively big import taxes), but grey market and bootlegging cassettes did good job. There was Galaksija (Galaxy) DIY micro, with schematics released in monthly magazine of the same name.

[@sergo40]

Awesome! This is some content I'm really happy to see and often gets overlooked. Living in a ex-USSR state, we still discuss and see some of this hardware go around locally, we also used to produce 8080 clones here that are quite sought after by local collectors. I have a 8080 clone and a ZX Spectrum clone, that were made in different parts of the USSR, very interesting hardware with even more interesting design.

[@moxie_ST]

Yugolslavia was full of spectrums comodors and amstrads in 80's I did lose a lot of sleep playing elite on my zx48k :-)))

[@gwenynorisu6883]

I guess you had a bit more of an advantage, being one of the more satellite quasi-soviet states (was Yugoslavia even actually part of the USSR? I'm too young to remember), sandwiched in-between the capitalist and ultimately EU-member Greece and Italy (before Slovenia and Albania broke away at least) and with somewhat freer movement and trade - for example my grandmother and great-aunt went on holiday there in the 80s without it seemingly like too unusual a thing, unlike a trip to Russia might have been, not to mention the Yugo car exports. Plus that long, fractal, difficult to guard Adriatic coastline...

[@altair1983]

@@gwenynorisu6883 Yugoslavia wasn't part of USSR and had much softer government and politics then USSR (neither was Albania in Yugoslavia nor USSR). the thing was that everybody had some channels to obtain stuff from west. everything from coffee and jeans to electronics and even cars (more difficult) could be bought more or less legally. For example if you lived in Zagreb (now Croatia) you could go to Trieste (Italy) or Graz (Austria) for shopping, but stressful moments were on the border crossings (customs!). But even customs officers turned the blind eye if the stuff was for personal use and you didn't spend a lot. (thou i remember the stress) My father for example traveled a lot to UK because of work and was constantly buying stuff for lots of people; Atari, boat equipment, small electronics, Lego (me), Barbie (my sister), clothing, music records (neighbor). Interesting times

[@zarkoujdur9424]

Yugoslavia has never been a Soviet satellite. I was a citizen of Yugoslavia and traveled freely to Western Europe. Before 1990 I visited my friends in Belgium and bought Spectrum Plus in Italy...)

[@killerbee2562]

​@@zarkoujdur9424 Tito liked to play both sides to Yugoslavia's benefit.

[@MarkyShaw]

This was a pure delight to watch. I loved the documentary vibe you put on these videos. This was a fantastic and fascinating story. Having watched the Tetris documentary from the Gaming Historian a couple weeks ago, this was an awesome follow-up to dive in to the world of these clones and the developers that pushed the system to its limits. I imagine guys similar to Alexey Pajitnov might have one of these at home. It's amazing to me to see the extent of how humans continue to explore technology given what they have access to. The little contributions are what make all the difference. Awesome video.

[@RMCRetro]

Thanks Marky I'm glad you like the style. I too enjoyed the Tetris documentary I think there is a wealth of history out there to be enjoyed which we're finally able to share and discuss thanks to KZbin and other platforms. Those non-ZX Spectrum clones in Russia need to be explored more for sure

[@MarkyShaw]

I apologize for incorrectly referencing that documentary, it was the Gaming Historian. Although I religiously watch both MVG, TGH, LGR and of course RMC :-) Almost sounds like we need a Retro Gaming TV Network haha.

[@KuraIthys]

mmmh. Apparently the only thing he really ever got for making tetris was a new, more powerful computer. Not the worst thing ever, under the circumstances, but still doesn't feel like much. XD

[@Petertronic]

здорово! Excellent video, with production value better than most tv channels. It was a great era to have grown up in, I loved my Spectrum.

[@RMCRetro]

Спасибо! Very kind Peter thank you for watching

[@TafferDP]

I still have my "Raton-9003" (Ратон-9003), although I doubt that it works.

[@MichaelThomas-be7gq]

Brilliant, brilliant vid. The Spectrum, what a machine to inspire the East to join the West. My parents were not loaded and without that fantastic piece of kit, I would not be here now with a great job I love and edging towards 50. Fair play to our Eastern cousins, you had the passion too and seeing what you did to the kit - hats off to you all.

[@hackbyte]

Whaaa ... MAN! .. I just had to _re-watch_ your intro for this episode. You really made it so cool ... syncronizing sound and pictures giving eachother more meaning as they had alone ... and this cool track ... i love it! GREAT JOB.... Really cool. ;) Hacky

[@RMCRetro]

If you must know 😆 I had a cold so was unable to narrate for a few days. So I spent a lot of time procrastinating on the intro until I was well enough to record the voice bits. It was fun though, not sure how to make an intro more epic than Churchill though 🎬😁

[@hackbyte]

Heh yea ... well absolutely! ;) And epic is the right word. ;) Btw i love the episode too, you go so good in the deeper things and details.. I like it. I never really cared about history in my life (well, i'm born in 1975), with one exception: There are so many interesting, funny, wise and just nice anecdotes since the very first "signs of automatic computation" (starting at the jaquard looms, or maybe babbage .. or at least starting at hollerith), that it just truly fun to find them. And you do not only that but present it very well. Thanks man! ;) Btw, greetings from Hamburg, Germany. ;) Hacky

[@michalzustak8846]

Not sure why were you so surprised Didaktik M had an "English" keyboard - it was a Czechoslovak computer and Slovak and Czech languages use the Latin script.

[@VRGamercz]

Možná proto, že píšeme latinkou :D

[@TheDimsml]

What you totally forgot to mention, though, is that a lot of speccys were not made in a factory or by some small business. Quite a lot of them were a DIY excercise for the not so faint hearted. Your bare minimum set of parts was the processor and the accompanying chip. Everything else was basically either a straight hardware clone or a compatible chip made from a predecessor of a modern FPGAs. Just like you have shown in the video, in some cases you could just grab a bag of Soviet 7400-compatible logic chips and build everything from hardare up. There were pieces published in the Радио magazine, where someone would publish a schematic of a PCB that was functionally equivalent to an original chip. Sourcing everything else was basically a lottery of buying, knowing people and liberating stuff from various not so legal sources. PCBs were coveted too. Some people just made Speccys on a piece of cardboard, chips were connected by wires. DIY membrane keyboards were made from aluminium foil, cardboard, polyethylene film and lots of cursing. Even more cursing followed when your fingers ached from typing. There were some Intel-based clones too, this thing here is called Поиск (it means a quest or search for smth). geektimes.ru/post/199044/ And here is the East-German Robotron. There was a hacked version of Windows 3.XX, but it is sadly lost, probably forever. geektimes.ru/post/162043/ But I have recently found out that there was a Win 3.XX version for two-color displays used in Motorola Police Car Terminals. Maybe it is compatible with Robotrons and can be dumped? Who knows! hackaday.com/2018/03/17/from-cop-car-data-terminal-to-retro-computer/ And yes, I was born a little too late, so I might be wrong in some parts.

[@RMCRetro]

Дмитрий Смолин thank you for sharing this. There is indeed a whole cottage industry of people building from parts and that's a topic I want to cover, but I think I'd do it an injustice unless I had some guests who did this back in the day to be a part of the episode. Hopefully some day.

[@TheDimsml]

No problem. I quite enjoyed the video, but I wanted to do those unknown heroes some justice. I am in no way trying to be an ass (well, maybe a little) but I must mention those guys. There could be no speccy fanbase without them.

[@RMCRetro]

Дмитрий Смолин absolutely. Respect where it is due for sure

[@1337Shockwav3]

Who knows if the Robotron Win 3.11 version is lost forever ... those GDR-computer enthusiasts are simply amazing - going as far as rebonding seemingly broken EPROMs.

[@gwenynorisu6883]

The Sinclairs were, after all, designed to be built as kits - I don't know if the Spectrum was ever offered as such, but it certainly looks like it was originally intended that way. And it was essentially an evolution of the ZX80/81 - really its main difference from them was the ULA looking after most of the functions instead of the CPU and ROM doing it (which allowed the addition of bitmap graphics, sound and colour more or less "for free" within the same CPU power and memory bandwidth limits), the larger memory (also essential to produce bitmap rather than character display, plus colour attributes), reworked ROM, and rubber keyboard in place of a simple membrane. Of which hardly anything other than the addition of the ULA (which arguaby reduced the chip count instead of increasing it) caused a major change to the PCB; the ZX80 and 81 still had to use 8 RAM chips after all, merely 1K x 1s rather than (nominal) 16K x 1s. So they were pretty much perfect for adapting into a Soviet semi-homebrew kit computer format. Just adjust the hole spacing slightly (western chips used 1/10th inch, i.e. 25.4mm, Soviets used 25.0mm, just different enough to make it difficult to directly cross-install anything larger than a 555), maybe by doing nothing more than copying the layout at 98.4% scale, and so long as you can make a suitably cloned ULA and ROM to include alongside the other off-the-shelf chips (or provide a discrete-logic emulation on a daughterboard that wires into the same pin outline), you're good to go. Soldering up something of that complexity wouldn't be a particularly daunting job for anyone with even minor home electronics repair experience.

[@andreigalinski413]

Awesome video and exemplary research, thank you sir! Just as some ppl mentioned, a whole lot of Speccy clones were not actually bought here, they were rather assembled from DIY kits. My late father and i actually did exactly that back in the day. I'm sure you just made him smile in the Heavens! :)

[@serpentza]

Really enjoying your content mate, keep it up!

[@RMCRetro]

Thank you sir, a pleasure to have you visit the cave

[@tziuriky86]

Ah nice to find also Serpentza here! :-) I knew you liked Retro computing stuff :-P

[@gregorymalchuk272]

@@RMCRetro Which key did you press on the Byte computer to change from Cyrillic Basic to English Basic?

[@Edman_79]

So, finally watched the whole thing and - my God, I really had no idea how far did those clones and people around it go. Just amazing. Thank you for another super-interesting and very educational video. I told you people will enjoy this one immensely :D I'm not saying anything new here, but - excellent job!

[@djditty8012]

I found my way to your channel via LGR and I must say I love you channel and content! Good up the fantastic work!

[@RMCRetro]

Thank you sir, a friend of LGR is a friend of The Cave :D

[@djditty8012]

Well I am a permanent cave dweller now! 👍👍

[@Ernesto_Uriburu]

Very nice video with lots of data. A small mistake at the beginning, it is the upper 32K that use half working 64kbit RAM ICs, the lower uses 8 fully working 16kbit chips..

[@zoltanbogoly1977]

The Didaktik M computer was not produced in the Soviet union (but some component were from Soviet production), therefore it had not cyrillic letter on the keys. As his older brother the Didaktik Gama (was available in black and light gray case), was produced in Czechoslovakia by Didaktik Skalica (now Slovakia). It's following model was the Didaktik Kompakt, with an integrated 3.5 floppy drive Didaktik 80. For the Gama and M models there were after 1991 available (also worked with the original ZX Spectrum), two type of floppy drives: Didaktik 40 (5.25, 320 kB) and the Didaktik 80 (3.5, 720 kB). The problem with them was the incompatibility with the Disciple and D+ drives, which were developed for the original Sinclair ZX Spectrum. It increased the software piracy in Czechoslovakia, in order to make the games available for the D40 and D80 drives operating system. Saving any game to a D40 or D80 was easy, by pushing the Snapshot button on them. The button was originally designed, for saving the postion during the gameplay.

[@vladimirrodionov5391]

BK-0010 is still the best Soviet computer. Speccy was more like a toy which quickly died when cloned NES (Dandy) systems became widely available. BK-0010 is a true feat of Soviet engineering. They cloned PDP-11 ISA and produced a compatible single chip implementation then put it into the first 16-bit home computer in the world (1983). Before Amiga 1000 and Atari ST.

[@vladimirrodionov5391]

@@alonecoder600 I'm not surprised that a computer from 1991 is better than a computer from 1983 :) But I would put ATM Turbo into the same category as a super upgraded Amiga 1200 in 1992, too little, too late. It's a bit of of a holy war but in the hindsight I think it's BK-0010 and 0011M that is the true Soviet achievement in the field of personal (home) computers.

[@betamax80]

I am so excited that you have covered this. I have always felt this was the missing piece of the home computing jigsaw.

[@RMCRetro]

That's great to hear. Where in the world should we go next?

[@stockicide]

Africa.

[@GenXGrownUp]

I'm a sucker for documentaries, and even more so for tech documentaries. And this production is a wonderful example of both. Your production quality is outstanding. Thanks so much for your efforts and for sharing your knowledge!

[@EuryBartleby]

The editing in that intro is something else.

[@RMCRetro]

Thank you!

[@Bob_Beaky]

As someone who's sick of hearing about "how Nintendo saved the games industry" (TM), it's refreshing and utterly compelling to hear about what went on in the other half of the world. Thank you so much for sharing. Can't wait for more. :)

[@RMCRetro]

Thank you I'm glad you liked it

[@NickMaiorsky]

I used to rock my PОБИК :) back then 48kb was a lot of fun.

[@stathissim]

Wow! Excellent writing and execution. one of your top videos really enjoyed watching it, even for the second time. Keep it up

[@SergiuszRoszczyk]

Well... very good job! I was a bit afraid how you will arrange this video and on the other hand very curious how people from "the other side of the wall" looked at us. I got my first Atari just a while before The Wall went down, but those clones, lack of law enforcement in software licensing and the need to do everything from the scratch really helped us to develop a lot of skills and inspired a lot of young talents.

[@shevat]

It wasn't so hard in Poland to buy 8bit computers (in 80s). Spectrum and Atari (800XL and 65XE) was really popular. Not cheap, not even affordable. Micros cost a few monthly wages, and usually you had to buy it for US dollars ( "impossible to get" ;P). But even so, computers were fairly popular in homes. My parents bought me ZX Spectrum 48k in 1986 (what a christmas it was for me :P). There was Elwro 800 Junior (Spectrum clone) in Poland, but not very popular. Even in our computer magazines (Bajtek or Komputer) there was rarely any mentions about clones. Most of articles were about normal Spectrums, Atari or Commodore machines (or PC's).

[@shevat]

It's kind of stupid to reply myself, but well... In "Thank you for playing" (a documentary about polish gaming magazines) Adrian Chmielarz says something very similiar. In polish shops there was literally nothing (empty shelves) and yet in homes there were computers (and newest games, pirated of course) right beside empty refrigerators :). kzbin.info/www/bejne/boucZIFqotZ3brs (first scene right after the intro).

[@imho4990]

I bought the first ZX Spectrum+ in 1985. My parents gave me money. ;)

[@oprion]

Long live Bill Gilbert!

[@kaloyankatzarov9284]

I see a lot of people taking about computer development, and that's great, but we do need to take a moment to appreciate the fact that these mad lads managed to get DOOM and XCOM: UFO Unknown of all things working on a 8 bit system.

[@Horzuhammer]

Fantastic video! Yet another instance of this channel covering a topic I've been dying to learn more about for ages.

[@SuperRetroid]

Very nice & informative video, Mr Cave!

[@XalphYT]

This is amazing. Absolutely amazing. Thank you for making this! I can go on for hours about western 8-bit computers, but the East Block stuff is completely new to me.

[@RMCRetro]

XalphYT you're welcome and thank you for watching

[@krnlg]

That Didaktik computer is *incredibly* aesthetically pleasing. The small case, rounded key edges..!

[@vladtru9670]

The triumph of the Spectrum clones in the USSR and the CIS was not fast and unconditional. The first few years (1986-1989), Spectrum-compatibles in the USSR were purely amateur radio PCs - their circuits went "underground" in some regions of the USSR, their components (printed circuit boards, processors, ROMs, keyboards, etc.) could be bought at some radio markets, but they were not at all widely known throughout the country, since there was no information in magazines and other press about them. At the same time, Spectrum-compatibles (in the USSR they were usually called “Sinclair”) competed with the original Soviet amateur radio designs, which, thanks to the large-circulation magazines, were known to every radio amateur - Micro-80, Radio-86RK, Specialist, UT-88, Orion-128. Moreover, the assembly of these PCs, as a rule, was much cheaper than the Spectrum, because it did not require foreign components (the Z80 processor was not produced in the USSR until 1991, and ROMs were also often imported, since Soviet counterparts were scarce), and by the number of chips Spectrums were usually more difficult. In the very late 1980s, the Spectrum immediately attracted the attention of many Soviet factories, which the government forced to diversify production - to produce not only military or industrial equipment, but also “consumer goods”, which often became just home computers. The fact that the bulk of the factories chose Spectrum clones for production was explained, of course, not by any of their obvious technical superiority over other Soviet PCs, but by their extraordinary convenience and profitability: in the USSR it was actually an open standard that did not belong to anyone and was not controlled by anyone ( like an IBM PC), and computers were quite simple in circuitry (especially with the use of ULA analogues, several types of which were produced in the USSR from the beginning of the 1990s) and very profitable in terms of retail price ratio (it was higher than many good Soviet PC) and the production cost, with this PC family on the market there was a huge amount of foreign cheap pirated software, that completely eliminates such PC manufacturers from care to create and distribute programs and games. However, despite the obvious profitability of producing Spectrum-compatibles, not all Soviet factories producing electronics switched to the production of these PCs - many continued to produce original Soviet models, which were also in good demand in the late 80s and early 90s: BK -0010-01, BK-0011M, UKNTS, Corvette, Vector-06C, PK-01 Lviv, PK8000, Agat, various IBM-compatibles, etc. After the mass arrival in the ex-USSR in 1993 of game consoles compatible with Famicom / NES (here they were called Dendy, by the name of the most advertised model), and then MD, SNES, 3DO, PS, etc., the popularity of Spectrum-compatible and other Soviet PCs began to decline sharply, as did the production of all these PCs. People started playing on consoles, and since the mid-1990s, modern IBM-compatible PCs have become available to many, which further reduced the popularity of old home PCs. Thus, the era of Spectrum-compatible Soviet PCs did not last long from about 1990 (when they appeared in large numbers in stores) until 1993, when consoles began to be bought in bulk instead. In these few years, they occupied up to 50% of the Soviet home PC market. By the way, it was the spectrum most often played the role of game consoles, since in terms of the number and quality of games they radically exceeded other types of Soviet PCs, except for IBM compatibles. But, of course, they were used for other purposes, like any other home computers - to study programming, graphic and musical creation, some engineering calculations, text editing, etc., although for serious use they are not very and were suitable, especially due to the lack of a high screen resolution (which was on many Soviet PCs: BК, Vector, Corvette, UKSC, etc.). I had three of the most common Soviet home PCs: BK-0010 (an excellent model with a 16-bit processor - the most convenient for programming), Spectrum-Leningrad (the simplest of the Spectrum-compatibles - about 45 chips, without ULA) and Vector-06C (awesome computer with outstanding graphics and sound). Even after the BK (which also has a lot of great games), the Spectrum impressed with the games - there were many, very different and very interesting, although the attribute graphics, of course, were annoying and annoying, even in comparison with the 4-color BK. Having bought Vector-06C after the Spectrum, I was amazed at the graphics and sound capabilities of this PC (256 colors, 16 at the same time, without attribute restrictions, hardware scrolling, overlaying plans, adjustable video memory size from 8 to 32 Kb, etc.) and was puzzled - how such an incredible computer appeared in the USSR and why almost nothing was written about it in the Soviet press (although much was written about the same BKs, about very simple Radio-86RKs and Mikroshas (without graphics and color), about others much less interesting than Vector computers). By the way, the real, branded ZX Spectrum (any models) in the USSR was not noticeably popular - those who had the opportunity to purchase foreign PCs (traveled abroad or had money to buy very expensive imported PCs in secondhand stores or from hand) were preferred among simple PCs more advanced in terms of graphics, sound, etc. models are typically 8-bit Atari, C64 or MSX. Spectrum in the USSR were known exclusively in the form of Soviet counterparts. And all imported home PCs, as I know, in the early 1990s occupied no more than 10% of the Soviet market.

[@romanrm1]

Thank you from Russia! I had one of these back then.

[@DubiousEngineering]

Highly educational! .. great work Neil!

[@OhFishyFish]

A well-researched, professional video without all this shouting and forced humour so prevalent on youtube. You, Sir, deserve a thumb up and subscription! Growing in Poland I've seen the Spectrum and Amstrad in school only few times, then got my first microcomputer (C64) shortly before the USSR collapsed. I remember fondly how I couldn't load any tapes with games (not knowing about the head alignment) so I spent the entire Christmas typing BASIC programs from a German manual that came with the computer to learn how they work. Our family was quite poor so I've had my C64 well into the 90's, I was always envious of the cool Amiga and PC games some kids in school talked about and screenshoots in the gaming magazines. We'd often spend hours playing on the Pegasus (NES clone) after school at my friends house, good old days. :) 30 years later I work in IT in Scotland, only 60 miles from where the Speccy was manufactured, all thanks to that microcomputer I unwrapped one Christmas.

[@markusepple6204]

The flickering picture may caused by noisy 5 volts. Fix it to have another chance to load the data from tape.

[@artiatari1565]

Well, well done episode. The intro though is just and simply awesome and goosebumbs inducing.

[@cpnnpr]

EXCELLENT video! Subscribed!

[@rodoherty1]

Thank you for not adding background music! I could relax and enjoy the excellent script! Subscribed!

[@rodoherty1]

Oh wait ... there is some music there - but it's not intrusive! :thumbsup

[@RMCRetro]

Rob O'Doherty yes indeed but you have to crank it up to hear it when I'm talking. I'm also playing with wider stereo seperation with the music to give the narration more breathing space. Glad you enjoyed it

[@rodoherty1]

Very much appreciated. I struggled to enjoy 8-bit Guy's 3 part series on Commodore because the music was so frequently trying to grab my attention.

[@amerigocosta7452]

Yet an other fantastic video from RetroManCave. I remember when a growing number of game development studios from the former socialist countries started to appear on the international scene. It was late 90's - early 2000s. All those developers did not come from nowhere, they had a rich history in microcomputing, completely unknown to us in the West at the time.

[@darrenjkendall]

Fantastic, content and delivery was beautifully presented keep up the excellent work looking forward to seeing more of this kind of content from your channel.

[@RMCRetro]

Thanks Darren, the documentary style episodes will certainly continue to be a part of the channel. They are less frequent owing to the work required to make them but hopefully worth the wait when they do come out

[@QuaaludeCharlie]

Thank you for putting together the slide show of Sinclairs & Eastern Bloc Micros from Russia , Without looking them up it's a rare treat indeed , Liked and Shared :) QC

[@LastofAvari]

Wouldn't think that I will ever see a Speccy clone from my country in a UK KZbin show. I'm talking about Byte (Байт) from Belarus. I had the other Belarusian clone - Kvant (Квант) in the 90s.

[@rock3tcatU233]

In my country we mostly used the Blyatronic-9000 (блятроник-9000).

[@KasparOnTube]

@@rock3tcatU233 LOL

[@HerringandChips]

Beautiful Work. Always see these things pop up on eBay from time to time. So hearing the story behind them was fascinating.

[@alexmute4546]

With the today's death of Z80, I wanted to view again this tube. I would compliment you for it when it's one of the most inspirational you produced.

[@osgrov]

This is a superb video and a most interesting topic that I know far too little about! Keep this high quality up and your channel will explode, I'm sure. :) Can't wait for your next video!

[@RMCRetro]

Very kind thank you. As far as I'm concerned the explosion has happened we have a great number of Cave Dwellers here now. And thank you I intend to keep enjoying sharing new content

[@max5250]

@RetroManCave Correction at 03:50 in the video. They were not using 32KB chips for lower 16 KB RAM, but actually they used 64KB chips for upper 48 KB of ram. There are no 32KB RAM chips (16KB ships are using 7 multiplexed address lines to achieve 14 bits needed to address 16 KB, while 64 KB chips are using 8 multiplexed address lines to achieve 16 bits needed to address 64 KB), so they were buying (at discounted prices, of course) 64 KB chips with one malfunctioning address line.

[@vtx24alpha]

Thank you for posting this video this is interesting from a history perspective.

[@MartinKidd]

Fascinating stuff, a whole world of computing I knew very little about. Thanks!

[@herrbonk3635]

3:30 The 16KB bank of DRAM was just ordinary 4116 16 kbit chips. It was the other 32K bank that employed faulty chips in early machines. Standard 4164-compatible ICs where only 32 kbit of the 64 kbits could be used, or was used. 4:00 The ULA did not "control" the reading of the keyboard or reading/writing on tape, or any peripheral functions for that matter. This was all done (timed) by the Z80 CPU, just as in the ZX80 and ZX81.

[@viriatvsoflvsitania5422]

In Soviet Russia, computer clones you :) Now seriously, I truly enjoyed this episode. Great work sir.

[@noop9k]

There is a good Soviet sci-fi novel where this is exactly what happens.

[@20035079]

@@noop9k what's it called?

[@WolfKenneth]

Poland here spectrum was very popular in second half of 80ties. But around 88-90 Amigas, Ataris and PCs with 286 and 386 started to show. In 90ties Spectrum become thing of the past. But in 80ties we had radio station broadcasting spectrum programs we had magazines with not only news about development of electronics from both Comecon and from other side but also featuring pages of code games and programs. Spectrum was big in 80ties.

[@craigvard1639]

Oh. Nostalgia. I remember the day then my mom bring to me my ZX (clone of course. КВОРУМ) in 1992. It was my friend for many years. Bruce Lee, Dizzy, Exolon, Quazatron and above all - Elite. Thanks RetroManCave for this video. Only one question - Does you TV understand SECAM? PS: Sorry for my english.

[@RMCRetro]

My TV is PAL and not SECAM but I was using the composite out. I have a SECAM tuner box but that wasn't able to tune into the Byte at all. The Didaktik I used RGB out on which was great. Your English is fantastic.

[@w4lsh]

Bruce Lee was my favourite Spectrum game!

[@gwenynorisu6883]

That's a good point actually, it's probably what confused the capture card. Composite video will still be SECAM in a Soviet machine (at least the earlier ones...), as it's at the colour encoding level that the standard applies, not the RF modulation. A lot of PAL TVs and monitors will quietly also understand SECAM just fine, as it made life easier to produce a single model for all of Europe that could be used both in the majority PAL areas as well as minority SECAM like France, and to pick up cross-border transmissions. And where they can't understand the colour coding, they'll just ignore it and display monochrome instead, as the baseband mono signal is identical for both... but it's probably a weird enough addition to the signal to completely throw a capture device that's trying to encode a digital file out the back end instead of just throwing the demodulated signal directly at the electron gun and sync hardware of a CRT. The tuner side of things, I would expect the Soviet TV frequencies to have been deliberately chosen to sit outside of the normal range of western broadcasts so to prevent casual listening-in to their programmes by outsiders, and more importantly to make it harder for their citizens to tune in to anything from outside. Plus things like computers and VCRs can be difficult in the first place, sitting right at the far end of the band and sometimes outside the range of more limited tuners, and certainly outside of any overlap that might exist between two _mostly_ different broadcast frequency ranges. But it's unimportant seeing as the composite output exists. I guess what you probably need is something that can convert PAL and/or SECAM composite to RGB or whatever, but such scalers seem to be rather thin on the ground these days. Certainly last time I was looking for something like that in a professional capacity I came up empty handed in terms of anything that was affordable, and the only things that were more expensive and rarer were devices to encode PAL/SECAM composite _from_ RGB... Given the way that the machinery encodes the signal, though, it might be possible to mod-in an RGB output, if the signals exist on the board upstream of an encoder/modulator? Like if the ULA first produces RGB (or RGBI) then sends it to a secondary SECAM encoder (and RF modulator) similar to how a lot of other 8- and 16-bit computers worked, or at least if the ULA is broken out into discrete logic so that you can find the internal colour signals even if it pre-bakes them into SECAM format before officially exiting the simulated ULA? If it can be done, there's almost certainly a guide up online for it somewhere already, as RGB (or alternatively YCbCr) mods are very popular things for a lot of old hardware. (Annoyingly, the otherwise useful SVideo mods wouldn't be much use here, as the Chroma would still be in SECAM format...)

[@zarkoujdur9424]

My favourites: Elite, Rambo, Jet Set Willy, Manic Miner, Highway Encounter of Costa Panayi...))

[@bierundkippen720]

Why do you lie to him saying his English is fantastic? Wanna be polite? Well, let me tell you that lying is never polite!

[@StuffWePlay]

This is a fantastically produced video. Always been fascinated by this part of retro computing history. Thank you for making this great, informative video!

[@louiseogden1296]

When I lived out in Poland in 2002-03 I bought a PC built from scratch by the Russian students I lived with. I didn't realise until now what sort of iceberg the was the tip of until now :).

[@jonparravicini-g5n]

Competent, complete, kind. Great production.

[@RMCRetro]

Mariano Equizzi thank you

[@joshuamichael1232]

Thanks for helping me sell my spare Harlequin boards on ebay! There's a few left if anyone want's one, go search for it! Selling out fast and cheaper than other sellers! (also used a better manufacturer)

[@mikeb5314]

The mainframe at 6:38 is in East Germany (Thats a picture of Erich Honecker on the wall) The GDR/DDR had its own computer industry VEB Robotron (a subsidiary of RFT) was the main manufacturer and the GDR media also made a big deal about producing the first 1 megabit chips in the Eastern bloc. VEB means "People owned business" in German (a socialist equivalent of a limited company).

[@nosferadu]

Growing up behind the Iron Curtain, around my 4th birthday (I think) my dad bought me a clone of the Atari 2600 named the "Rambo". My second was a Spectrum clone called the "HC-91", on which I learned how to program in Basic. Then came an NES clone called "Terminator 2". I'm not even kidding about these names. They sound laughable today, but if it hadn't been for these clones, we wouldn't have been able to afford a computer until at least 1995. So today, instead of being a game developer, I'd probably be huffing paint in a ditch somewhere.

[@zeoxbg]

The terminator 2 was a oddly shaped black box with blue buttons, right? We got that in Bulgaria too, but that was maybe in the mid 90's. Before that the NES clones were mostly clones of the Japanese Famicom, it took some time before they started changing the original design :)

[@drewgehringer7813]

"OK, we need a name for our product, and America is associated with quality. What should we go with?" "...How about the names of American action movies?" "PERFECT. you get a raise."

[@sobolanul96]

I still have the terminator 2 console. Played the crap out of it.

[@gregorymalchuk272]

What year was this?

[@bluespartan076]

I now want an nes clone named the terminator 2. Also im soughing after a Toshiba t1000 laptop computer so I can name it either john Connor or the Toshiba t1000 terminator

[@10p6]

They say the C64 was the best selling 8 bit machine, but if you take the Spectrum and all the clones around the world, the Spectrum massively out produced it.

[@MindFlareRetro]

A very well produced video. The intro was especially top-notch. Great info, kudos on the research effort. I had no idea about these "Eastern Bloc" micros. I learned a lot. I have to say, there is something quite attractive about the form factor of the Didaktik. Maybe it's the Amiga-esque case design. Excellent video. Great work.

[@wickerman6000]

Finally, someone started talking about this, because in the West some peoples still think that during the USSR times we ate cockroaches and drew with charcoal on the stone walls of caves. Yes, not everyone could afford a computer, but at least getting a Spectrum clone was not hard at all, especially if you understood electronics, because in the radio markets of the USSR you could buy all the necessary components for assembling a Spectrum for literally pennies, and assembly guides could always be found in magazines for radio amateurs, which many teenagers subscribed to at that time (radio amateurs in our country were not only those who played around with homemade radio equipment, but also, in principle, everyone who was interested in electronics, it was a household name, although it is already outdated). In general, soldering radio components and assembling your own boards were popular hobbies at that time, even in schools there were clubs where they taught all this.

[@aguijon6]

Amazing well documented video! Nice to know soviet clones not only in emulator options ; )

[@andrewness]

Fascinating, thanks for sharing this. More please!

[@dumitruciupu279]

Congratulations sir in touching a topic rarely mentioned in computer history! Very interesting analysis! We tend to forget that there were exceptional scientists in the eastern block during the cold war!

[@konraft]

I live in Russia, I recommended computer BK0010-01 ... The computer on USSR architecture, 16bit PDP11 compatibility. I recorded video on my channel( where I ran it almost from a potato), some functionality that is available in this machine is very lacking in modern computers. Видеть русский язык в англоязычном видео очень непривычно, был сильно удивлён и рад событию. Спасибо!

[@rattusludus8528]

Born in 1991 but my brother is 12 older than me so i enjoyed Didaktik M very much as a small child. I still have my brothers Didaktik somewhere in my home. It is still working, at least last time i checked (2012). We had a ton of pirated games on floppy discs, and even some original on cassetes. If you want i can send you some of the original czech made games from proxima-sofware.

[@relief_in_death]

My own Spectrum clone, which I had back in the early nineties, sported a beautiful sky-blue underside. I also had a Dendy, but that one was purely for fun and games. The Spectrum clone was used for more serious tasks. For example, the "BEEP" command was my first - albeit a very timid one - step into musical composition.

[@MrReichard]

Truly awesome episode!

[@Charlie-Cat.]

Was glad to view it Neil. Can't wait to see more like it bro. 8^) Anthony..

[@ВсеволодДзюба-д7з]

At realy, theme of personal computers in USSR more bigger. Many system worked by CP/M, RT-11, MS-DOS and own operation system for developed computers in USSR. For example Specialist 85, Orion 128, Lvov PC 01, Union NEON PC 11/16 etc.

[@morphshag]

Bloody good video mate. As always. And one of my favourite topics.

[@wilkebitter5742]

So appreciative of computing diversity, as a part of diverse cultures! What an amazing documentary, thank you very much for your work.

[@may_god_save_us]

OMG, KZbin recommendations cannot surprise me more! One of these computers was built in Brest, Belarus - the place where I come from. Here is a Wikipedia article about this device: ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Байт_(компьютер) And because your example has the СТБ logo (National Belarusian standard, timecode 0:11) it looks like it's from the post-soviet era; it was built on 19 August 1994, probably.

[@ProjectGeek1]

oomphf Your editing is on point for that intro!

[@RMCRetro]

Do you think computer based music videos could be a thing?

[@ProjectGeek1]

I would love to watch that!

[@TheRicheg]

i must say the video's you're making are of brilliant quality i love the references from old magazines and cinematic graphics of the games the descriptive commentary is spot on truly excellent and addictive to watch 10/10 all round. you mentioned they did nuclear resurch on zx spectrums truth is modified ones were actually running graphical information displays to vdu's within the control rooms in places like hinkly point a power station in the early days.

[@75IFFY]

Just discovered your channel. The Techmoan colab brought me here. I’m thoroughly enjoying this

[@RMCRetro]

Great to have you on board thank you for sticking around!

[@gwenynorisu6883]

I'd say the Didaktik's "square" aspect ratio is down to its higher clock speed; horizontal pixel density was directly tied to system frequency in classic machines. The original Speccy already had a slightly square appearance, with slightly thin pixels, and the effect of increasing density to 8/7ths of normal plus showing it on that Samsung combi TV/Monitor (which looks like it's 5:4 native, and probably distorts incoming TV images to match) would be to square up the image almost completely. On which note I wouldn't be surprised to find that the Scorpion offers a doubled horizontal resolution in "turbo" mode. There were official Sinclair clones like the Timex which could produce a 512x192 monochrome display at 3.5MHz, after all, so an expanded unofficial one with twice the bandwidth (and at least twice the memory) available should have been able to do that in colour. Still with attribute clash, mind, but it would have been extremely useful both for "serious" apps like word processing and spreadsheets / databases, and for upping the effective colour resolution, particularly if it also offered the "high colour" upgrade mode where the attributes were updated on every scanline instead of every character row, meaning they only clashed in 8-pixel wide 1-line-high strips rather than 8x8 blocks. If you used hi-rez but double-printed each "actual" pixel, that could become an effective 4x1 colour block size, and as each block could hold two colours it would have made the display reasonably close to a full colour bitmap. And of course if you made each character cell a simple block with "paper" colour on the left and "ink" on the right, and then drew things to the screen purely by manipulating the attributes, you could have an effective 128x192 resolution with the only potential clash being the shared Bright bit. Of course you could just fiddle the video specs further still, e.g. to get 256x192 with a free choice of four colours out of the fifteen per block, but that would be rather more work vs the relatively simple tweaks listed above, both of which at least existed independent of each other...