best classic computer to begin collecting for?

[CatPix]

Yes!

I have never seen an Agat, those are rare, cost alot and shipping almost as much (as you can expect from a 80's computer made of metal).

I read that the AGAT use a "standard television with SCART" so you can assume it uses a regular RGBi output, like the Orel BK (Spectrum clone) and the Eletronika BK (PDP-11) does.

Some computers like the Lviv PC-01, Vector 06C and Poisk use RGB TTL (the Poisk being a XT clone, it make sense).

Mikrosha were "computer kits" so the best I can say is "probably depends of the one you'll pick"

 

For power supplies, most I've seen use external ones. The AGAT will probably use an internal one.

Mikrosha will almost certainly use an external one.

AFAIK all Soviet computers I have seen use 5V, 12V+5V power supplies, making them easy to replace.

Schools models ( Ш -Sh )may come with a power supply fed with 24V DC instead of 220V AC, making them usable anywhere (if you wanna bother with two power supplies).

 

Edited November 24, 2022 by CatPix

[Turbo-Torch]

1 hour ago, carlsson said:

I think you'd need a step-up converter, assuming it has a built-in power supply, and probably something about the video. Did Soviet run SECAM? I would suppose a few of those do RGB TTL (read: CGA-ish).

 

Is it @CatPix who regularly posts about Soviet computers?

 

Buy from Russia and you'll end up with something like this...

 

[carlsson]

Besides it wouldn't be much of a system to collect for. I'm sure there was software spread around back in the days and some archived online, but not like buying games off eBay, even less so than the MSX systems I already down-voted as suitable for a casual person in the US to collect.

Edited November 24, 2022 by carlsson

[Cebus Capucinis]

But what titles! Collective Turnip Farm Adventure, The Grand Gulag, Trotsky Assassin, Politburo Party (that one was BANNED in 3 oblasts!), Boris Yeltsin's Birthmark CAD program (admittedly just a terrible MS Paint knockoff but with only one color palette)....

[CatPix]

You'll never find any sort of commercial programs for Soviet computers indeed.

It was all "cottage computing" "bedroom programming" call it what you want, but it was a bunch of teenager recording tapes or floppies and selling them in their computer club.

Even "official" software was basically non-existant, everything that wasn't copied straight from Western source was developed in-house and shared between universities and governmental services.

And finding "original" software is hard. Those computers are rare even in Russia so 90% of your sources for games are gonna contain . rom files to be read on an emulator, not WAV files or . img files to be written on a tape/floppy.

[Cebus Capucinis]

Jokes aside, I always wanted to get one of the ol' Soviet computers to have. They seem really weird.

[CatPix]

They are. It's always a surprise. How are they gonna be made? The biggest surprise I got with mine are the keyboards. From the average, to the odd, to the crap, and the utter crap

[carlsson]

Don't forget games like В.Д.Н.Х, Rubleipede, Siberian Trail and in more recent years, Balalaika Hero.

Edited November 24, 2022 by carlsson

[CatPix]

Joke aside, Soviet Arcade machines let us see that... Soviet "official" games (as those arcade machines were produced by the Soviet State) were quite... well. "Atari VCS plain" 😛

 

The ТИА-МЦ-1 (TIA MC-1, most likely the most advanced Soviet gaming machine made) has those games know for it :

Autoracing; Billiard, Star Knight; Fighter Jet; Konek-Gorbunok (1); The fishing cat; Kotigoroshko (2); Dragon Island; Treasure Island (3); The Snow Queen (4); SOS

 

(1)The Humpbacked Horse, a poem/story by Pyotr Pavlovich Yershov (1856 ?)

(2) A fairy tale from Ukraine. Couldn't find much info about it, but it seems to be somewhat popular.

(3) Apparently not any Treasure Island, but Robert Louis Stevenson 's Treasure Island. I couldn't find a ROM of that game or a video to check.

(4) Based on Hans Andersen's tale.

 

Another "multigame" arcade machine are the Фотон (Photon. Really cool name, IMO 😛 ) There are two of them, one based on a Japanese micro-computer(PC8000 ), the other version based on the ZX Spectrum (yes. Really). The Spectrum variant use Western games, the PC8000 may also use Japanese games but the names are so generic it's hard to tell.

Games are : Python; Labyrinth or Treasure; Tetris; (PC8000)

ZX Spectrum : Brodjaga (1) Black Beard; Cookie / Jetpack / Pssst (2)
(1) Inspector Gadget. Yes.
(2) This game is actually a 3 in 1 game, so the names aren't variants but rather the names of the 3 games in the program.

 

Actually Soviet "official" games are pretty mundane affairs. It's hard to tell why, but there are probably two reasons :

- 1) The Soviet Union in the mid-to late 80's was lagging behind tech wise (what a surprise) but that included chip manufacture. As an example, I remember seeing an IBM PC-compatible computer that had a daughterboard almost as large as the motherboard, entierely populated with 16 or 32 ko chips of RAM to make up the required 512 Ko of RAM. Because the SU simply couldn't manufacture larger RAM chips in a reliable way. Making arcade games in large quantities, even if they were all 8 bits, was simply too costly for what was considered a frivolous activity (the reason why people think Soviet arcade games were military training devices is because until the end, microprocessor/computer manufacture were in "closed cities" heavily in the hand of the Soviet Military)

2) Producing any propaganda product in the SU was a risky business. Even when State-sponsored. As an example, many Soviet filmakers and actors that produced Stalinian propaganda movies were shunned and/or banned from working in the movie industry, simply for doing their job. So, for minor things like video gaming, people stuck to mundane, safe topics whenever possible.

 

But we're straying very off-topic here... SO I'll stop here and just laught at your fertile imagination 😛 And go play a game of Workers & Ressources Soviet Republic.

[Cebus Capucinis]

56 minutes ago, CatPix said:

The fishing cat

I'm sold. Where can I get such a game?

 

In addition, as I'm sure you know, the SU (and, by extension, modern Russia) seems to have always had a love affair with Treasure Island. It seems to have been one of the few books the government consistently allowed from "outside." The SU even produced cartoon versions of it (which was generally unheard of - cartoons in general, let alone cartoons of Western stories.)

[CatPix]

If you implies that the SU produced little cartoon, that is absolutely the opposite of the truth. The SU produced a wealth of cartoons and animations, with quality ranging from execrable to astonishing. Just very few that were exported.

After looking a bit, it seems that the Cat Fisher May be from a cartoon, too :

The game is apparently available on MAME as well as a few other TIA MC1 titles.

 

How many Western books and authors were allowed is debatable, but the Soviet Union produced wonderful cartoon adaptations of the Jungle Book; they also made a TV series about Sherlock Holmes that is considered as one of the best ever made (haven't watched it fully yet, but I agree. It's well made). Jules Verne was almost as famous in SU than in France.

20th century authors from the West were much less common, that's for sure. I do know that Ray Bradbury was studied and relatively know as well. (if you want to have nightmares tonight, go watch the Soviet adaptation of "There will come soft rains" ) It's a complex topic that I know too little about, tho, but it's not as simple as "anything non-Soviet is banned".

Edited November 26, 2022 by CatPix

[Cebus Capucinis]

Huh. Very cool - I had no idea. Thanks for the info!

[+x=usr(1536)]

On 11/24/2022 at 12:42 PM, Cebus Capucinis said:

I'd go with an Agat or Mikrosha. In Soviet Russia, computer plays you!

All I want for Christmas is a Leningrad-2

  

On 11/24/2022 at 3:52 PM, Cebus Capucinis said:

But what titles! Collective Turnip Farm Adventure, The Grand Gulag, Trotsky Assassin, Politburo Party (that one was BANNED in 3 oblasts!), Boris Yeltsin's Birthmark CAD program (admittedly just a terrible MS Paint knockoff but with only one color palette)....

The first thing I'll make it do:

 

10 PRINT "Gorbachev sings tractors!  Turnip!  Buttocks!"

20 GOTO 10

 

It's a moral imperative.

 

[Cebus Capucinis]

How prevalent were Speccy clones in the SU and other nations in their sphere? Looking on eBay it seems there's at least quite a few in former Eastern Bloc nations, more than I'd expect compared to other personal computers. Admittedly it appears a few are incorrectly described, and you can certainly see the non-commercially made nature of them mostly, but given the small sample size, I'd expect to see less available in this day and age. Or rather the same tiny number as everything else (so, say 1 or 2 of them vs. 1 or 2 others listed at any moment).

 

I did see a Z80 clone as well, which is cool, but I'd say the Speccy clones are at what, a 4:1 ratio? (Which admittedly is like 8 total vs. 2 others). That, to me, implies they were either better taken care of, and thus survived better, and/or there were more to begin with.

 

It totally makes sense that the SU would choose the humble Speccy to clone. Cheap, easier to produce, and given limitations of SU production and tech, it would match up with the capabilities.

 

What were they used for, though? Education and science similar to the in-house stuff? Was there anything done manufacture-wise to prevent compatibility with Western software, like making them just different enough that it wouldn't work? Or was that just not a concern? I assume the latter given they were actual clones, and it's not like the common myth of totalitarian control over everything re: the SU is accurate.

[CatPix]

Many ZX Spectrum clones were made form parts smuggled from Eastern Europe, probably Poland and Yugoslavia which offered more possibilities to travel to Western Europe. So one reason why they are so prevalent is simple : it was more common in Western Europe, thus, parts or old boards were easier to source. Also it meant that if you were to copy a design, you might as well copy a successful one rather than an obscure one that would force you to write more software for it.

Also technically, the ZX Spectrum ALU chip producing the graphics can be simulated with a bunch of very cheap logic gate chips (as in the Orel-BK computer) meaning that making a ZX Spectrum was barely more expensive than making a ZX 80 or 81 clone.

There's the same logic behind the various PDP-11 clones (produced by the State) which replaced almost all Soviet computer architectures during the 70's, with machines like the Elektronika BK made up to 1994, and even declined as a pocket calculator/computer (yes, you can fit a 70's mainframe in your pocket).

 

The clones made in factories were used for computer education mostly. Nothing was done to prevent Western software to work; in fact many clones simply copied the Spectrum ROM bit to bit, parely just removing the Copyright message.

Some clones break compatibility but more "accidentally" by fixing errors in the ROM, or hardware design (the Orel BK for exemple added full cyrillic support, meaning that some Spectrum program using specific memory calls will crash).

 

It may amaze you but the Soviet Union did had "adverts" on television, including for computers :

Clearly advertising toward education in schools and clubs :

 

And more amazingly, advertising for home use, where you can see an educational game :

 

[+x=usr(1536)]

24 minutes ago, Cebus Capucinis said:

It totally makes sense that the SU would choose the humble Speccy to clone. Cheap, easier to produce, and given limitations of SU production and tech, it would match up with the capabilities.

Here's the interesting thing about the machines that I'm seeing crop up on eBay: checking the dates of manufacture on their ICs suggests that a lot (if not most) of them were made post-Soviet Union.  There might be individual components here and there with pre-1992 date codes, but the majority seem to have been made after the collapse.

 

The machines with Goldstar Z80s in them are a good example of this: those would have been unobtainable in the Eastern Bloc, or at least unobtainable without going to a great deal of difficulty.  Most likely the CPUs would have been Soviet, East German, or Hungarian clones, but anything out of Japan, Korea, or the West would have been unusual to say the least.

[CatPix]

There's that aspect too. Last Speccy clones, sometime with crazy improvements (over 256 Ko of RAM, floppy interfaces) were made as late as 1996, I even heard 1998 but couldn't find if that one was ever made or just something planned that collapsed.

There can be confusion as in many cases, people used Soviet computers or parts from kits to made their post-Soviet machines, making them look older than they are.

Edited November 26, 2022 by CatPix

[Cebus Capucinis]

8 minutes ago, x=usr(1536) said:

Here's the interesting thing about the machines that I'm seeing crop up on eBay: checking the dates of manufacture on their ICs suggests that a lot (if not most) of them were made post-Soviet Union.  There might be individual components here and there with pre-1992 date codes, but the majority seem to have been made after the collapse.

 

The machines with Goldstar Z80s in them are a good example of this: those would have been unobtainable in the Eastern Bloc, or at least unobtainable without going to a great deal of difficulty.  Most likely the CPUs would have been Soviet, East German, or Hungarian clones, but anything out of Japan, Korea, or the West would have been unusual to say the least.

Interesting! I know there was a sort of cottage industry of fake Soviet toys and counterfeit items post-collapse. I don't know how prevalent it was, just that it existed. I have a couple of them - people would bilk tourists by manufacturing (or importing cheaply from China) toys and other goods, which while copies of certain Soviet toys, were new manufacture but made to look like they were from a prior era. (A friend in Russia got them for me, and told me the tale.)

 

I wonder if that's the case with these eBay sellers - not on the same scale, but whether it's just ignorance of the manufacture date or a conscious attempt to boost price by claiming something is Soviet and from an earlier era. (Admittedly they're not brand new, but nonetheless).

 

EDIT: CatPix posted at the same time and shed some light on this question already!

[+x=usr(1536)]

32 minutes ago, Cebus Capucinis said:

Interesting! I know there was a sort of cottage industry of fake Soviet toys and counterfeit items post-collapse.

It was happening pre-collapse as well, but it always seemed like China was going for the more mass-appeal items - handbags, clothes, shoes, etc.

 

What I mean by this is that it used to be possible to walk into the crappier cut-rate appliance / electronics shops in Dublin and see Soviet knockoffs of things like the Nintendo Game & Watch games for sale, as well as ones in Nintendo packaging but containing the Elektronika versions from the USSR.  One of the benefits (sort of) of living in a neutral country was that the usual trade embargoes didn't necessarily apply in our case, so we'd occasionally get all kinds of weird shit like this cropping up.  North Korean towels made from Vinalon or East German alarm clocks also stick in my head for some reason.

32 minutes ago, Cebus Capucinis said:

I wonder if that's the case with these eBay sellers - not on the same scale, but whether it's just ignorance of the manufacture date or a conscious attempt to boost price by claiming something is Soviet and from an earlier era. (Admittedly they're not brand new, but nonetheless).

I suspect that a good chunk of the people selling these may not have been alive (or were very young) when the Soviet Union still existed, and they just don't know the history - or how to verify the history, or don't care - of these machines.  That confusion could come from a number of them having origins in the USSR as published plans in magazines for DIY computers, but ultimately becoming mass-manufactured items based on those designs post-collapse.  My understanding is that there was some at-scale manufacturing of the Spectrum clones in the USSR, but nowhere near what it was after that point, and the majority of the ones we're seeing on eBay are clearly mass-manufactured. 

[Cebus Capucinis]

22 minutes ago, x=usr(1536) said:

North Korean towels made from Vinalon or East German alarm clocks also stick in my head for some reason.

Isn't it funny how it came full circle? Now at metro and train stations in Russia you'll sometimes see people putting out goods for sale that are fake knockoffs of Soviet fake knockoffs, trying to pass them off as authentic Soviet knockoffs. What a time to be alive!

 

It would be hilarious if someone had an authentic Western item, say a Nintendo, but then awkwardly scrawled DENDY!!!!11!! on it and then tried to pass an authentic item as a (post-collapse) Russian knockoff item. I'm sure it happens!

 

EDIT: I should probably move this to another topic, as it's derailing the main topic. I just find Soviet computers such an enigma!

[Cebus Capucinis]

Sorry for double positing but wanted to move the convo to my first ever "Official"* thread! (Mods, if you could move our posts to that one, I'd appreciate it!)

 

*I think we all know my thoughts on "official" threads. LOL

 

 

[ClausB]

1 hour ago, x=usr(1536) said:

North Korean towels made from Vinalon or East German alarm clocks also stick in my head for some reason.

In the 70s I bought two East German Praktika 35mm SLRs, one in Michigan and one in Hamburg, West Germany. Still have them.

[Frozone212]

well, that was unexpected