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ACNews
#62
17 декабря 2015 |
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ZX Spectrum in Czechoslovakia - In the middle of the 80's there was already huge community of 8bit computers users.
ZX Spectrum in Czechoslovakia by Ellvis At the beginning of 80's people started to bring first ZX80 and ZX81 computers from abroad. It wasn't anyhow easy and it was pretty rare, because it was not easy to travel to the west, it was expensive plus the payments on the borders (that was advantage of firstSinclair's computers, they've been small so easier to bring without border police to notice:). It wasn't really possible to buy a computer in Czechoslovakia at that time, they've been sold just to schools and companies (and produced in very small series). In the middle of the 80's there was already huge community of 8bit computers users. It was possible to buy them in"Tuzex" - those were special shops where you had to use something like coupons instead of money, they were expensive. People were bringing more and more computers from abroad (mainly ZX Spectrum, but also Atari, C64, Sharp and others). Some computers started to be produced also in Czechoslovakia - PMD85 and IQ151 ( 8080 based), SAPI ( Z80 based) and so on. But they were usually impossible to buy for home use (and expensive). Small companyDidaktik (they produced educational stuff for schools as rulers, tables and so on) started to produce computers. At first, it was Didaktik Alfa and Beta, which were intended for schools (they were compatible with PMD85, so 8080 based). In 1987 they started to produce Didaktik Gama - ZX Spectrum clone. It had original Sinclair ULA, U880D ( Z80 clone from eastern Germany) and was in fact a modified Issue 3 of ZX Spectrum. It had fixed some ROM bugs, added centronics drivers for printers, 8OkB of RAM (2 banks of 32kB) and i8255 as a parallel interface. First version was quite buggy (it was marked always by the year of production, so it was Didaktik Gama '87, '88, '89 had different charset and finally '90 ) but they improved and it is pretty good computer even today. It is 99,99% compatible with ZX Spectrum including perfect timing (port 127 is used for switching the memory) and pretty reliable. Didaktik Gama ended in 1990 and Didaktik M was the follower. It had just 48kB of memory and used PLA (or ULA1 ) instead of original ULA /maybe that was a kind of TЗЧVG1 from USSR - Ed./. Compatibility was worse - the timing is different (no contended memory), but it had nice case and quite good keyboard. The PCB is of bad quality. Production of those ended in 1993. The last computer fromDidaktik was Didaktik Kompakt, that one was Didaktik M with disk drive (D80) in one case. Everything ended in 1994 (I think). Except computers,Didaktik was producing also some peripherals. One of the first was Didaktik Melodik, it was AY interface for 48k Spectrums (including Didaktiks). It had small reproductor and 3,Smm jack as output (in ACB stereo). Next interface was Didaktik M/P, which was parallel interface for ZX Spectrum and Didaktik M (it contained i8255 and ROM with printer drivers so it was not working with Didaktik Gama ). The very famous was Didaktik 40 and Didaktik 80. Those were diskette drives with own operating system (1ЧkB ROM and 2kB RAM). It was most used disk system in Czechoslovakia. Didaktik 40 used 5,25" diskettes formatted to 3бOkB (DS/DD) and Didaktik 80 used 3,5" diskettes. Operating system was calledMDOS (developed out ofSINDOS ), it was possible to connect 2 disk drives and all 2 versions existed. /Later version 3 appeared./ It was based on WD2797 (later replaced by another version causing some compatibility problems) and contained also i8255 as a parallel interface. Lot of various interfaces for ZX Spectrum were produced around the whole Czechoslovakia including disk drive "Dataputer Quick". This one was interesting by emulation of D40/D80 system, but it used also it's own native system. /There were also a couple of schemes for CP/M support: LEC Memory Extension (1987) and Sinsoft's scheme (late 80's), but his mentionedSINDOSwas not CP/M compatible: http://retrocip.cz/uplne-alternativni-spectrum/ / At the beginning of 1989, home made clone Mistrum was published in a popular electronic magazine. It was pretty complicated and had different timing, but it was something possible to build at home. It was clone of Spectrum 48k. Economic situation was a bit different then in USSR. It was even possible to buy "valyuta", but with some complications and not in big amounts. As I wrote already, there was a network of "Tuzex" shops that were selling stuff from abroad for a coupons called "Bony". It was very expensive. As for electronic parts, they've been normally sold to people in electronic shops. But often some of them were hard to get (oscillators, some integrated circuits and so on). All this ended in 1990 were Czechoslovakia transformed into capitalistic country. An article about this is here: http://hackaday.com/2014/12/15/ home-computers-behind-the-iron-curtain/ but I don't agree with it for 100%. * * * WhatFactorб wrote: According former Czechoslovakia, the most common setup in the 80s was a 48K Speccy with a tape recorder and maybe a joystick interface (and a living-room telly or a small b/w telly). No 128Ks, no AYs, no disk drives. After fall of communism borders opened and 128K Spectrums appeared, but in very tiny amount. As well as other computers, so many people (these with money) skipped 128K and went to Amiga/ST/PC. Didaktik was making their very humble Speccy 48 clones since 1987. Then, in about 1991 they introduced a disk drive D40 (incompatible with 128K Spectrums as showed up later) and Melodik - an AY ACB stereo interface. So noone including me even knew about 128K and AY till early 1990s. There were lucky ones like Fuxoft or Busy that they got a 128K earlier in the 80's, but it was kinda exception. I understand that Speccy was considered as a low-end but here it was different in the 80s. There wasn't any chance to import computers legally so everything was black market (until Didaktik and their low quality ZX clones). The Spectrum was a name and its ownership guaranteed a feed of software (in 99% pirated). Who had a different machine, was an outsider, including C64 - there were too few C64 people around here. There was wide Atari XL/XE user base, much bigger than C64. http://www.pouet.net/topic.php?post=506396
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