crunch@well.UUCP (John Draper) (02/20/89)
I have another interesting article from the Soviet union, describing
some of their computers, and giving us a historical look at some of
their early computers and their industry. Please note, it was written
by "Dima", a 16 year old student in Moscow, who was the first Soviet
to come forth and write this very interesting article. Also, please
excuse the typos and/or spelling and grammar. He is in the process of
learning enough english to come up with this. I hope that this
wont be the LAST article. We are reciprocating by writing some articles
on Telecommunication, and how to do business, as well as reporting
on trade shows. The Soviets are inexperienced at hosting trade shows,
and they are very intersted in doing business and setting up joint
ventures.
If anyone else wants to publish non-technical articles on things
that can help promote joint ventures, please let us know. I will
try and arrange to sent it to those Soviets that are interested.
Dima's article is short, but it describes rather candidly, the
early historical development of a particular type of computer.
Overview of personal computer models in SU.
by Dima, a 16 Yr old
Computer student in Moscow
Nowdays there are several clones of personal computers being developed
in this country.The first clone is DVK (its translation is
dialog-calculation complex) It was launched in mid 70th with DVK-1 .This
model is rare now because today it could be concidered to be a toy for
guys-starting-with-learning-Basic.This "computer" had less then 64K of
RAM,two floppydrivers (one side,normal density), and display only for
text mode.DVK-1 was followed by number of models which are ussualy
refered as DVK-2.It used the same processor and the same RAM but still
was better then DVK-1.Basic cassete system chip was introduced in some
models. DVK-2 remained the most wide spread model in research
institutes and labaratories Pascal,Basic,Assembly Language tools was
created for it,but still it was difficult to use it for many kinds of
calculations because of internal and external memory limits.Next to
DVK-2 came DVK-3 models.One of it's advantages was the possibillity of
using graphic display (color display is optional).This machine is spread
for high school education purposes and different researches.But it's
quality is very low,many breaks can occur.Todays model is DVK-4 (but
I've never even seen it).A small (5M)hard disk is used.Different local
networks were created for DVK nets and connecting with big machines as
terminals. The second clone is BK (could be translated like computer
for home).I wish you ever try it,John.It's not a real personal computer
,but a termial for playing games.It was desighned for schools and every
day at home use.It's terrible(only 32k of RAM)!I dont think that you
could imagine somebody using such computer for children education.It's
not even worth to be spoken about. It can run in local nets under DVK
as fileserver.The majority of software for it is games and tutors.(Do
not think that they have anyting in common with PC or Mac tutors).It has
FOCAL interpreter chip (or Basic chip),and could be programmed in
machine codes directly.A tape is avaliable for saving\loading
programs.Forth system was developed for it. To opinion of many people
(programmers and nonprogramers) to much attention was paid to developing
DVK clone.Since DVK has a great number of limits for using in several
branches.By all means itsn't a brilliant PC. Three or four years ago a
new computer was launched.It uses processor like Z80 with a few changes
and runs under CP/M.By the way it can be used as a telecom terminal,and
a simple dumb terminal emulation software has been written. Also there
are computers which are compatable (but not 100%) with IBM PC. This is
ES1840 clone.There are no very serious problems in compatibility ('I'm
not sure its a right word),but some bugs usually occurs because it's
proseccor is not an original Intel 8086,and display adapter is not
standart (looks like monochrome but isn't a real monochrome).
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For those interested in asking questions about the article above,
please email me at: ...uunet!acad!well!crunch
John Draper
Programmers Network