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). -------------- For those interested in asking questions about the article above, please email me at: ...uunet!acad!well!crunch John Draper Programmers Network