How it was in Leningrad - computer history: 1988. First acquaintance

How it was in Leningrad
 by AmoNik

 1988 First acquaintance

My first acquaintance with personal computers took place in
1988 in the Detsky Mir store on Nauki Avenue. In one
a small corner was allocated from the departments of the store, where
rich pinocchios could easily part with
a significant amount of money to play on the computer
simple games. I don't remember the exact model, but I'm fine
I remember the inclined buttons START, RESET, etc., as well as the gray
body color. Most likely it was ATARI b5XE or 13OXE. Himself
the computer stood behind the counter so that it could not be reached
reach with playful little hands, and on the counter stood a large
Soviet color TV.

Of the games that you could play, I remember River
Raid, Ninja, International Karate, Montezuma's Revenge. Moreover
you could ask for a specific game if there wasn’t any
others who want to play. And the games were loaded from the tape recorder.
It cost about one ruble for 10 minutes of pleasure.
Therefore, there were people willing to part with such a significant amount
a little, and most likely the children of the sellers and their friends were playing, and
the rest could gawk for free. Yes, and bring the treasured ruble
there was no way to the countersimple, because in front of the entrance to the "Children's World"
Gypsies stood and sold Donald chewing gum for a ruble apiece.
It was hard to pass up such pleasure :)

A little later, but in the same year, a boy from
a nearby school. I don’t remember the reason for the transfer, nor his name, but
He and I quickly became friends. The boy turned out to be very big-headed and
when he was less than 10 years old, he became interested in radio electronics and
programming. One day during recess I saw on his
on the table a notebook with pages covered in foreign words and
drawings of electrical circuits. I asked what they mean
these words and numbers. It turned out that this is a computer program
in BASIC. The boy explained to me that he goes to a neighboring school in
computer club, where they and other guys write programs
and after that they play computer games. And they play
free. I immediately remembered “Children’s World”, and I also wanted
play games. I asked to go with him next time
this very circle and just in case I copied one on a piece of paper
from programs from his notebook.

On the appointed day, I took with me a notebook with already copied in
her program and we went after school to this very circle in
a nearby school. I remember how we entered the classroom and I saw
several rows of computers. What kind of models were these? I'm absolutely
I don't remember, but SKCorp, many years later, convinces me that it is
were BC. There was definitely a computerSoviet, and as monitors
We used a small TV with a black and white screen.
All computers were connected to a network, and the network was completely managed
other PC. I don’t remember the model either, but he had a huge
monitor with green letters on the screen. And it was built into the case
two disk drives.

I don't remember being told or shown anything, but
everyone involved, and they were all much older than the two of us, something
they did it with enthusiasm. During the first lesson, I also pretended
what I’m doing and typed a program from a notebook. What next?
I didn’t know what to do and sat and just stared around. Came up to me
teacher and suggested running my program and seeing
what is she doing. I agreed. But the program didn't work.
Apparently, I didn’t copy it into my notebook very accurately. Teacher
started asking where I got this program from and what I think
why doesn't it work? I answered honestly that I was the program
I copied it from a classmate and don’t know anything about it. Then
the teacher tried to show me with hints what was wrong in my
program. But I made a sour face on my face and asked if it was possible
should I play? The teacher laughed good-naturedly and asked
what games do I like best? I could only describe in words
games from Children's World. Apparently, there were no such games for BC, and
I was downloaded some kind of Klademainer. Floors were drawn on the screen and
stairs. Some people were running around the floorsand tried
get to me. And my task was to run around the level and
collect either boxes or piles of gold. I don't have other games
I remember.

I only managed to attend the club’s classes a few times, until
One day I was late for the start. I entered the class, said hello and
I went, as usual, behind the closet where the dressing room was organized and
there were hangers. While I was changing my shoes, one of the
high school girls and asked me why I didn’t apologize for my
late? I lowered my eyes to the floor a little, and when she left, I
got dressed again and ran out of the classroom. I'll never go there again
was returning.

Alone> We didn’t have this in 1988. Then still at school 
programmed on calculators (UKNTs - probably 1991 or 
later, otherwise how would I have found the calculators). The chewing gum was brought 
probably in 1991. I remember “Donald”, “Turbo”, “Final 90”. It seems 
also for rubles, but I don’t remember exactly (I didn’t buy it myself). This 
sold in kiosks. It’s unlikely that it would have happened sooner, because... Made it to the inserts 
at school play with coins, candy wrappers and stamps. Game room (with 
computers, not automatic machines) probably saw in 1991, with River 
Raid and Freddy Hardest. Unlikely before. 

Well, Final 90 was definitely brought in in 90, otherwise it would already have
the shelf life would have expired by 1991 :) At our school, except
inserts were not played with anything. Well, perhaps in children's cards. But
in 1989 there were already a lot of inserts in people’s hands.

 1990-1991. First acquaintance with the ZX Spectrum

In the early nineties I lived in a communal apartment in the center
cities. For some time now I began to notice that my neighbor
apartment (Uncle Yura), returning home from work in the evening, something
I was enthusiastically soldering in my room. Poking around in disassembled
TV and generally looked very enthusiastic. What was he doing there?
remained a mystery, but one day I was walking in the yard, and
the neighbor's children ran up and started calling home, shouting that uncle
Yura assembled a computer and invites us all (neighbor children) to
play games for yourself. I ran with them to look at it
miracle.

This miracle turned out to be a homemade ZX Spectrum-compatible
computer, most likely based on the Leningrad-1 scheme. The fee was
installed in a small compact case, similar to those in
which Composite computers were later produced, but only the case
It was made of plastic, not metal. The keyboard was
solid rubber with undivided buttons. Games were loaded from
Radiotechnika set-top box tape recorder with removable cassette deck
and a green screen. A small one serves as a video monitor.
color TV Electronics.

We gathered in a small room, sat on the sofa and tried
play in turns, passing a homemade joystick from hand to hand,
on the handle of which a condom was pulled, holding the button
FIRE (actually it wascap from a tube of toothpaste) from
falling out of a tube wrapped with electrical tape. This tube represented
joystick handle and was inserted into the base box made of
metallized fiberglass. Periodically we call this tube
they simply broke it out of the box during outbursts of emotions. It was
it looked like there was nothing holding the phone at all, and it just
was tightly inserted into the box.

The very first games we were given to play were Pac-man
or Ms. Pac-man, Saboteur, Spy Hunter, Target Renegade, R-Type.

Pretty soon Uncle Yura got tired of us with our games, and he already
very reluctantly allowed us to play. And then he moved completely
to a new apartment, and we were left without games. This is how the first one ended
introduction to the ZX Spectrum. But at that moment I didn’t even know that
it was exactly him - after all, there are no inscriptions on the computer case
there wasn’t, and I just didn’t think to ask.

 1991. Luscher test

A rich Pinocchio appeared in our class. His name is Lyokha, and
he is the son of either the director of the Russian Video TV channel, or the son
someone close to the top of the board. He has 6
thousand rubles, and he buys himself friends among his classmates. We
We follow him around and beg for toys from him. He buys us
water pistols, chewing gum and electronic micropianos, which
we squeak from our pockets during lessons, which is creepypiss me off
our class teacher Natalya Poliektovna. She's running
between the rows of desks and listens to which ear is squeaking. But
A lot of pianos have already been distributed, and each time the sound comes from a different place.
Pinocchio buys the most interesting things for himself, for example,
twelve-color fountain pen or pen with built-in
radio receiver An earphone is plugged into the cap of such a pen, and
Pinocchio doesn't get bored during lessons, listening to the radio.

We often go to a thrift store on Five Corners and look
for a set of car models. In a large box there are a couple of dozen different
car models. Lyokha promises to buy, but still doesn’t
buys. In search of new toys, we wander into Vitebsk
station, where there are many, many stalls with new toys and chewing gum,
which for some reason are not sold anywhere else. But absolutely
unexpectedly I stumble upon a computer complex consisting of
which has a large system unit, a large monochrome
green video monitor and an equally large matrix one
printer. Apparently it was the DCK, although maybe the EU. For a small
for a fee they could print out your monthly horoscope, check
how suitable your match is for you, or conduct a psychological
testing.

One such test was the Luscher test, which I was once able to
observe. The subject sat on a chair, and in front of him
multi-colored cards were laid out that needed
choose in a certain order. Color numbers were entered fromkeyboard, and at the end of the test the printer spit out a large roll of
papers with the result. I was impressed and periodically ran after
school just stand next to the computer.

We never got any cars, and my mother soon took Pinocchio
from school, forcing them to first collect from classmates
gifts. I was not present, and therefore the piano remained
with me, but then they told me that Buratin stole this money from
mother. And later I exchanged the piano for model UAZ cars.

 1991. Computer Literacy Club and AGAT-9

In the fall of 1991, when I was in seventh grade, on the wall,
near the board with the schedule on the first floor, an announcement appeared
about the recruitment of everyone to the Computer Literacy Club, and was
the address where to come is indicated. The ad interested me and
Thinking that I didn’t need competitors, I unnoticed this ad
I peeled it off the wall and hid it in my pocket.

At the appointed time, my classmate Antonich and I reached
the desired address. It turned out to be the Children's and Youth House
creativity of the Central region. I've never been there before. B
There were four computers in the room called Agat-9. Big
such a box is gray-blue in color with a black and white monitor on top.
Classes were held once a week and took place in the form
self-study. We sat at the table two or three at a time
person per onecomputer and ran the training program.
We simply read the description of BASIC commands from the screen and did a short
notes in notebooks, looked at examples of use and at the end
answered control questions. After the theoretical part
came the practical part, in which we most often asked
let us play. And less often we were given inspection work and
were given assignments to write simple programs based on the completed
course. I remember one of these tasks - we were asked to write
a program that paints the entire screen with vertical lines
different colors. At that time I did not understand at all how to
write programs, and so I honestly stole the program from the neighbor
computer, modifying it slightly and introducing several
mistakes so that it can be seen that I tried and wrote everything myself.

But the most interesting part of our classes were, of course, the games.
We were given floppy disks with games, and we loaded them ourselves.
These were the following games: Lode Runner, Karateka, Xonix, Conan,
Moon Patrol and our favorite Mario Bros. Generally play on
Agatha could and needed two. The whole point is that
the game controller consisted of two boxes with a wheel
potentiometer on top and one button on the side. Manipulators needed
was to take it in one hand and turn the wheel with the other hand.
In this case, one person, for example, set the movement left-right and
jump, the second player controlled the movementup and down and fire.
It was very exciting, and the two of us could play games together,
designed for one player. It turned out to be peculiar
cooperative multiplayer.

Unfortunately, our computer club did not last long.
After a couple of months, the room where the circle was located was
bought with some money bag (so they explained to us), and the circle
closed. During the last lesson I tried to beg for a memory
any floppy disk with the game. But they refused me, explaining the refusal by the fact that
floppy disks are included with the computer and will be required
return with the computers.

>It’s not entirely clear what Uncle Yura’s joystick looked like (he was 
reed switch?). 
I still don’t know what the Composite case looked like - on the Internet 
there are no photos of him. 
Our joysticks were made by the Ryazan metal-ceramic plant 
devices, reed switches, two options: in the first there is a small handle on 
ball stuck into the box, and buttons on the sides of the box. In 
the second is a regular aviation joystick with one button on a stick and 
two from below. The first father tried to connect to Radio-8bRK, 
I soldered the second one to the Spectrum, but played with it and unsoldered it - it’s inconvenient 
I should play with a joystick. He played mainly in Metal Army. 
But I saw the two of us playing Commando on the Spectrum 
58-key keyboard :) 
The first games I played on the Spectrum were Elevator Action, Stop the 
Express and some kind of screen-by-screen about a flying robot, with 
teleports - then Ifound it and lost it again (there is even 
sketches on paper, but no name - what kind of game is this?). 
First loaded from the Romantika radio - from a 4-track 
coils. 

The composites were in such cases
http://zxspectrumЧ8.i-demo.pl/clones_pliki/Composite.jpg

The joystick had buttons like these
http://radiokot.ru/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=58173

Do you remember the old Soviet toothpastes in tubes? There are caps
They were small, and not like they make big lids now. This one
the cap was inserted into the tube, inside of which there was apparently a reed switch
or something else. The cap was spring-loaded from below and so that it would not
jumped out of the tube after release, on top of the cap and itself
tube, a condom or finger guard was put on.

And we had very nice Composites in the kit
joysticks, Competition Pro clones(https://commons.wikimedia.org/
wiki/File:Joystick_Competition_PRO.JPG)
- only the buttons were yellow and the connector was a round Soviet one.
I've never even played Metal Army :(

 1991. Virtual technologies

Winter has come, December has come, still fresh in my memory
memories of Agatha-9. I was wandering around the DLT storeand discovered on
computer keyboard shelf. I asked the seller to put it aside for
I took one keyboard and ran home to get the money. For some reason I
I thought that this was a computer and that I just needed to buy it
monitor. Later I found out that this is just a keyboard for
UKSC computer, but at that moment I was incredibly happy with my purchase.
I brought the keyboard home and started playing with it.

I mentally imagined that I was sitting in front of Agat and pressing
buttons on his keyboard. I also mentally launch my favorite games and
I play them. To make it at least somewhat similar to a computer, I
cut out a system unit from cardboard with two slots for
cardboard floppy disks with games, and also put a cardboard one on top
monitor, on the screen of which I drew a screensaver, which
Agat gave out when turned on (there were five floppy disks drawn there).
I cut a lot of floppy disks with games, I insert them one by one into
floppy drives and play games. I was interested and I connect to
this game of his neighbor in the communal apartment, Sergei.
It’s interesting that he never even saw a computer, but neither did he
I like it. I draw game levels for him on sheets of paper and
I'll tell you how to play here.

 1992. My first ZX Spectrum

I'm starting to get bored with virtual games because there's no
diversity and I'm starting to get interested in programming.
I buy it in the "Book for Teachers" store onZagorodny Prospekt
about Five Corners a book about the use of programmable
microcalculators at school. There are many examples in the book and although even
I don’t have the simplest calculator, I read a book with
with great interest. Then I buy a book about languages
programming. It's called something like "BASIC, FORTRAN,
Pascal". The book provides an overview and history of the emergence of these languages and
examples of the same programs are given, but implemented in
different languages. I'm starting to slowly get into programming.
and after a while I start writing my own small programs.
I choose BASIC as the main language, since it was already
I know him from Agate. I run programs on my virtual
car, i.e. in my head.

The very first program was a guide to the location of apartments in
home. You could enter the apartment number, and the program would display
what entrance and on what floor is this apartment located? to me
I urgently need a real computer to run my
programs. I start shopping and choosing what to buy.

The first such store is Eridan on Five Corners. Immediately
Opposite the entrance there is a consignment goods department. But
They often sell completely new things that people
purchases abroad and transports to our country. Me and my friends
we often come to stand in front of the counter and watch movies on
videotapes. There I first watched the comedy "Cannon Racing"core" and "Hot Shots", as well as "Terminator". In the main hall
The store has a large department of household home computers. There you can
buy all sorts of Microshas, Vectors, Soviet Spectrum clones and even
Atari 800 branded models. Variety of computer models
unusually large and I think there were definitely a dozen and a half there.
But the cheapest, and therefore the most purchased and popular, was
Dubna-48K. It cost exactly one thousand rubles and people actively
sold out. Seeing such activity, I also stop my choice
exactly in Dubna.

So what? I didn’t understand Spectrums at all then. Moreover,
I didn’t even know that Dubna is Spectrum-compatible (although
little) computer. It was cheap and looked decent, unlike
a certain Spectrum in a nearby thrift store, which
there were few buttons and it was almost the size of a video cassette.
Ugh, I don’t want one like this, I thought and went to beg my mother for money
Dubna. But there was no money. I persuade my mother to borrow from
rich friend, but mom refuses and eventually starts
save money to buy.

Meanwhile, my friend is being bought a certain unit called
The Hobbit. It was a Spectrum, made in the form of a game console. U
It doesn't have a keyboard at all. The only button on its body is
This is Reset, when pressed, the computer enters boot mode
programs. Games are loaded into it from a tape recorder. The games are bad, but
we even play games like thisgames. The Hobbit is subsequently sold, and
Composite appears instead, but that will come later. And I am the same
In the meantime, I continue to look for a computer.

Somewhere in March 1992, I walked around the Bolshoi Gostiny Dvor and
I came across a small computer department. There on the counter
There were only two models - Spectr-001 and a certain Enterprise-128.
The joystick built right into it looked very impressive.
keyboard. But it cost so much money that it was even scary
think. But Spectr-001 looked pretty decent, and it was worth it
much cheaper, around 900 rubles. Those. cheaper even
cheap Dubna. We must take it.

By that time, my mother was already able to save a certain amount of money, and
soon my father and I go to the department store to buy Specter. Father like
maintainer, not as a computer specialist. But
It turned out that he saved me from wasting money. We
came to the department store, I pointed my finger at the Spectrum and said, “Here
this one." The father showed common sense and did not immediately buy
computer, but asked the seller only two questions, after which we
left the Department Store without purchasing anything. And the questions were: “With what
Is Spectrum compatible?" and “Where can I get programs for it?” On the first
The seller answered the question: “It’s not compatible with anything, it’s on its own.”
And to the second he answered “All the necessary programs are included.”
on cassettes. There are no other programs for it." I think my father
someone taught me to ask such questions before purchasing.I would
He’s unlikely to have guessed it, since he’s still in control of the computer.

I went home upset. Father said he would consult with
friend, what will he say about this. Nikolai turned out to be a friend
Kotov, an old friend of our family, with whom my father worked together.
Kotov at that time was engaged in assembling Spectrums and subsequent
selling them at the Juno market.

Once I lived in my father’s apartment for two days (we didn’t live together), and
I took my favorite keyboard with me so that it wouldn’t be boring. I poked
buttons, made some sounds, and the father, seeing this, agreed with
Kotov about a meeting to look at the computer. On the next
the day we went to his house, and I took the keyboard with me. Kotov
showed his computer and said that he was going to sell it and
if I want, I can buy it.

It was again a Spectrum based on the Leningrad-1 board and assembled
together with a power supply in one housing. Later I saw in such
cases of the Contact-48 and 128 models. While he and his father are talking about something
we were talking, I was playing the game Joe Blade 2. I saw what it was like
then a clone of that hated little computer from the thrift store
a store I studiously avoided. However, during the game
it became clear that Uncle Yura had the same one, and this is already for me
I liked it, but I still doubted it. We discussed the possibility
connecting my keyboard to the computer, and when it turned out
that it is quite possible to connect it, all my doubts were dispelled,
and medecided that I would buy this particular computer, and Kotov
will help connect it to my TV.

Then Kotov came several times, tinkered with the TV, and
In total, the connection lasted approximately two months.
During this time I managed to buy at the Dom Knigi store on Nevsky
prospectus his first book dedicated to Spectrum. She
was called "ZX Spectrum for users and programmers",
publishing house Peter. After reading this book from start to finish, I
I realized that Spectrum is cool and they would quickly connect it to
TV. I don't care that I don't have any games or games for him.
programs. The main thing is that I can write my own programs.

In July 1992, something happened that I had been waiting for so long.
By switching the installed magic toggle switch to position
VIDEO screen of my TV Rainbow 716 D lit up with a splash screen
(c) 1982 Sinclair Research Ltd. I was incredibly happy about this and
I immediately sat down to study the computer keyboard. Holiday several
was saddened by the news that while connected to the TV
The computer suddenly went up in price by as much as 500 rubles. What is the final
there was a price, I don't remember. And later it turned out that the image on
there was something strange on the screen. First of all, the colors were not
correct - instead of yellow there was blue, instead of red there was
blue. But I found this out when the first games appeared and
Something in their picture seemed to me not as it should be.
Secondly, onThe screen lacked pure white color. Instead
there was something with a greenish tint. Black couldn't either
boast of saturation and was rather a dirty dark gray. K
Moreover, lines ran across the screen in waves. From the weather on Mars
the direction and speed of movement of these waves across the screen depended.
Then it became clear that this is a built-in power supply so
interfered with the images. But at first I didn't pay attention
This is no attention and I diligently typed the program.

It took me several days to learn the keyboard. It was necessary
get used to the location of the operators and how to dial them.
I didn’t have a book about the keyboard, so I had to
study using the scientific method. Some of the operators were also in
new, and I studied them on my own, as far as it was
perhaps. The absence of programs on cassette tapes was brightened up by the book,
which Kotov gave me to read for a while. I don't remember how she is
was called, it wasn't about anything at all, but I remember that it was on
Russian and was in hardcover. But the main thing is that
The program examples from this book easily worked on the Spectrum.
Even examples of graphics programs. Those. it turns out that it's more likely
In all, the book was Spectrum-oriented. I remember that I typed
from there the "kaleidoscope" program. She drew lines on the screen with
OVER mode was turned on, which caused the appearance of
beautiful moire patterns.

In general, I wrote for a couple of weeksprogram, and in the meantime Kotov
read my book. Then he asked me to buy an audio cassette and promised
introduce me to my friend who can write down different things for me
programs.

We went to his friend. A friend worked at the Analog cooperative,
whose motto was “Everything for ZX SPECTRUM”. Cooperative
was located in a deserted house on Pushkinskaya Street, building 10. In
Apartment 25 on the second floor was where this same analogue was located. Once every
a week after work that same friend Sergei came there
Vladimirovich. He collected orders, and a week later brought them there
already recorded tapes. I remember that on the walls of the room there were
sheets with printouts of the catalog of game and system programs.
While I was flapping my eyes around, Kotov managed to order a bunch of
programs - as it turned out, he copied the names of these programs from
my book. I gave the tape for recording and we left. And in a week
We went to the co-op again to get a recorded cassette.
Cost of recording one game (or one game level)
was 5 rubles, and the program was 7 rubles. The cassette cost me
at 75 rubles and I gave about 130 rubles more for the recorded
programs. Kotov promised to return half of it to me when I
I will copy these programs. For this he ordered copiers
Copy-Copy, Copy De Luxe, Turbo Comp, Copy-86m. The latter became in
subsequently my favorite copier. But at the time of receipt
order, I wasn’t sure that copiers were really needed. After all, when I come
home,I myself wrote the coolest copier in BASIC. It worked
I have something like:

10 INPUT A$
20 LOAD A$
30 SAVE A$

Only the copier for some reason did not work even after downloading
The program self-deleted from memory.

Along with a blank cassette for recording, Kotov lent me
cassette with the first games. I don't remember exactly what games they are
were there, but my favorite game from that tape was the game
Rick Dangerous. For games I had to buy another cassette, so
how I immediately intended to steal the games for myself. Cassette with those
I don’t have any games, but here is the very first cassette with
programs are still there, and I even downloaded these programs,
though already in the emulator, but from a real cassette. On cassette, except
Copiers had the following programs: Art Studio, A.E. Drums,
Artist, GensЧ-51, MonsЧ, Musi Typewriter, Master File v9, Music
Box, Rus Tasword, Fonge, TLW 2 and a couple of Russian fonts. Part
These programs were carefully described in the book, and I studied them.
I drew pictures in Art Studio. The colors were terrible, and through
for a while I unsoldered the color wires in the TV and a couple
stared at a black and white image for years. And then I called
specialist from a newspaper advertisement, he remade it in 15 minutes
connection, and I had the correct colorimage.

At first I was quite satisfied with the set of programs and games,
which I got. I did something of my own, but soon
programming became less interesting to me than games. And
I started visiting the co-op and recording other games.
I brought friends with me so that they could record for themselves, and then
we exchanged tapes. Also in the co-op it was possible
discuss the passage of Dizzy games. Started appearing in stores
the first books describing walkthroughs. Sergey Vladimirovich
I bought such books and took them with me to the cooperative. We have become
choose games from books. Sergei also brought it himself
printed Dizzy card. He printed on a dot matrix
single-needle printer, game screens on small pieces of paper, and
then I glued them together into a large map. We were just then
became interested in a series of games about Dizzy and often asked
Sergei, how to get here or there. And he brought these homemade
cards, and sometimes advised us by phone if he was not
very busy.

And one day a certain Pasha, an acquaintance of Sergei, came to the cooperative, and
I brought with me an audio cassette with music from the games. And there was music
from Commodore, Atari and Amstrad computers. He put the cassette in
tape recorder, on which games were sometimes recorded on
cassette and started playback. We listened in fascination.
They asked where such wonderful music came from? They explained it to us. A
then it turned out that Spectrum toocan play music,
but for this you need to install a music coprocessor. And I
I decided that someday I would definitely install one here for myself,
after all, in a cooperative it was possible not only to record games, but also
make any modifications or repairs. I often brought it in for repairs
your Spectrum. Changed the buttons on the keyboard. They often broke down
since I didn’t have a joystick and I controlled games with
keyboards.

I earned money to install a music coprocessor with my
hard work, when in the summer I got a job with my friend as a loader in
Apraksin yard. This was in 1995. By that time the cooperative
has already collapsed, but I still have connections. Yamaha coprocessor
I bought YM-2149F on the Juno market for 55 thousand rubles and more
paid 45 thousand rubles for connection. I called on the phone
Sergei Vladimirovich, and he gave me the phone number of his friend,
who connected the coprocessor to me. The only game with
my music turned out to be Tetris II from Fuxoft, and I listened to it for two days
music from the game. And at that moment my TV wasn’t working.
(there was no picture) and I found the game on the cassette by ear and
uploaded it blindly. From memory I pressed the button in the menu and selected
music playback mode instead of sound.

My first ZX Spectrum 48K served me until 1996 and later
was disassembled for parts. I picked out microcircuits from it for
repairs and modifications of Scorpio.

>Did there really exist a Hobbit with 16K RAM?https://ru.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobbit_(computer) 
What happened to the keyboard from UK-NTs? 
I had a keyboard from Radio-8bRK (homemade reed switch) 
then my father took it apart into buttons, the keyboard board disappeared, and 
I gave the Radio-8bRK board to Shiru (he has a huge collection 
old computers, but not Spectrums). 

Well, that’s exactly how I remember that he was a Hobbit. I'm now
from the person who had it. But he's in touch
comes out rarely, and answers even less often. But I didn’t find it on the Internet
such a photograph. It seems like when you turn it on in the splash screen
popped up like CPS Compex or something like that.

Look here:
https://archive.org/stream/your-sinclair-61/YourSinclair_61_Jan_
1991#page/n71/mode/2up
on page 73 at the very bottom of the first column. They just write there
about the Hobbit in the form of a console.

Maybe there was more than 16K RAM, just all the games included
were very small, like Jet Pac and the like. Perhaps
I'm wrong about the amount of memory.

I still have the UKSC keyboard. I picked it out
buttons and put them on the Spectrum keyboard. They are perfect
fit constructively. Really, where did I put this keyboard then?
I don't remember. So now I have a UKNC keyboard with buttons from
Spectrum.

I discovered the keyboard, or rather the buttons from it. I have them
friend.You need to go pick it up and put it in the UKNC keyboard.

...

I took the Spectrum keyboard from Anton Popov, whose
turned out to be buttons from UKSC. Unfortunately, rearrange them back from
the goal of selling it later, most likely, will not work, because
On the buttons I drew Russian letters in the YTSUKEN layout.

> What about cassettes with branded labels? With or without protection? We have
everyone was without protection and just with a written/printed list
programs.

Well, we were already selling them without any protection at all. Labels themselves
traders drew. On system programs there is just a list
programs with a brief description of the purpose on the double page. And to the games,
as a rule, some kind of picture was made by cutting out a couple of sprites from
games from cassette. In general, from “branded” cassettes (i.e. purchased
anywhere in the store) I have only 4 pieces. And half of them
they were purchased when they were practically not sold anywhere
(1997). The rest of the games were either written to order in a cooperative
(in the early years), or corresponded with friends (rarely). Therefore
I have at most 4 dozen games. I can even do anything
Copy the titles from the cassettes, if you're interested.