Peters story

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Some time ago, someone was interested in the history of the Peters company. Below is an article from the magazine
Spectrum Progress #1:

(C) Alexey Goryachev, 1996.

The history of the PETERS company dates back to 1989
Two Leningraders, Nikolai Noskov and Igor Bo-
risov (now the commercial director of the company
PETERS), who want to realize themselves in domestic computer business, have noticed an increasingly
increasing interest in inexpensive home computers. Having become involved in the process of computerization of the country that had begun, they launched the production of cases for the ZX SPECTRUM computer, which was becoming popular. These were epoxy
black boxes, with rounded shapes and so durable that they are still found today, storing various fillings inside.

Things were going well and, when in the summer of 1989
an offer was received to assemble a small batch of
ZX SPECTRUM from ready-made components, enterprising young people launched a new production, organizing a small team of hardware specialists. This is how the first
tape computers appeared under the PETERS brand,
assembled according to the COMPOSITE 48 scheme.

Convinced that selling its own ready-made
computers was a worthwhile business, the companycompletely
switched to assembling computers and began
increasing the volume of products. Not forgetting, of course, about quality. The circuit
has undergone some changes, which has made it possible
to place the power supply in the general case of the computer. The now familiar fifty-eight-button keyboard has appeared. A test bench was developed and created to test finished machines.

By 1993, PETERS had already fully mastered the market for home personal computers and began to pay more attention to the variety of models it produced. The number of manufactured SPECTRUM 128 with a music coprocessor has increased. It has become possible to equip a computer with a very successful TV signal modulator that supports PAL or SECAM standards. In 1993, the demand for computers with a disk drive increased and the company's specialists developed their own circuit for connecting a disk drive controller. The variety of models, of course, has led
to a variety of prices for them. But clients could, having purchased a computer that was affordable, exchange it (with an additional payment) during the warranty period for a more advanced machine. The company still practices this service today, finding it mutually beneficial.

By the way, it would not be amiss to clarify when PETERS became a company.
Since its inception, PETERSwas located relatively close to the city center, in the Krasnogvardeisky district. By 1993, the team of specialists was already fully formed and in April 1993, the PETERS company was officially registered. Since almost all the company's specialists lived in the Krasnoselsky district, in the fall of 1993 PETERS moved there, one might say to the outskirts. But the company did not find itself on the outskirts of the market for household computers - in stores in St. Petersburg you could always buy any model of PETERS computers.

In the spring of 1994, there was a decline in demand for home personal computers. This, of course, could not but affect the manufacturers of Spectrum-compatible computers. The 1994 crisis also played a certain role in the fate of the PETERS company. The ELSY Co group, which by that time had developed a very successful design for the disk drive SPECTRUM 256, did not dare to start independently producing computers in the current situation and agreed to offer their developments to the PETERS company. Thus, since 1994, the ELSY Co board has become
the basis of floppy drive computers produced
under the PETERS brand.

It is no secret that one of the reasons for the fall in demand
for home computers was the decline in the standard of living
of potential users. Many dream of acquiring more advancedSpectrum models were forced to look for less expensive tape computers. And here the Service Monitor developed by the company for such machines came in very handy, allowing you to quickly load the most frequently used software from the additional ROM into RAM.

PETERS 64 computers with a Service Monitor appeared in the fall of 1993. The first version of the monitor was designed for users
writing their programs in assembler. It
included GENS4-MONS4, a television image test and a tape copier.

But the most popular since April 1994 was the tape computer
PETERS 128 with the second version of the Service Monitor. It included the "Tetris" toy, a TV image test, a tape copier and a text editor TLW2+. The computer also had a printer port, which was not often found on tape-recording computers. In addition, PETERS, having purchased a batch of small inkjet printers, could offer a whole complex: a computer with a word processor and an inexpensive printer compatible with it.

It was the sale of PETERS 128 with the second version of the Service Monitor that allowed the company to stay on the market in 1994, while some other manufacturers of home computers curtailed production due to a decline indemand for
its products.

In 1995, PETERS began to look for new ways of
development. In August, the development of a computer class for a secondary school based on the ZX SPECTRUM was completed. The basis of this complex was the CONTACT network board. The complex included
a teacher's disk drive computer and 15
student computers that did not have disk drives, but
capable of accessing the teacher's disk drive.
The network software was developed at ISKRASOFT. In the summer of 1995, the first classes were sold to schools in the Pushkinsky district of St. Petersburg.

In the fall of 1995, another direction of the company's work emerged. PETERS received the rights to the CONTACT trademark and to produce computers of this brand, pledging to provide warranty and post-warranty service for already produced machines. CONTACT computers are very different from
PETERS in their design and have a slightly different
cost. At present, very few of them are produced.

It is necessary to note that, having seriously engaged in
educational complexes, the company for some time
made this area a priority. She seemed to be “ripening”, preparing for a new leap in her development. There was an understanding that Spectrum was no longer able to satisfy the needs of the majority of its users. Wasthe desire
to create a new compatible computer, but there was no
definite concept of the new Spectrum.

The production model
PETERS 256, which appeared in the spring of 1996, did not claim to be a fundamentally new computer. Although, the third version of the
Service Monitor, with
IS-DOS included in it, was able to please fans of this operating system. A computer with 256K RAM and the ability to instantly load a progressive OS, of course, better meets modern requirements, and it is not surprising that today this model is the main product of the PETERS company. The latest production model was created in parallel with the production of educational computer complexes. It was the work on creating computer classes and cooperation with the ISKRA-SOFT company that helped determine the direction of development of Spectrum: to increase the popularity of Spectrum-compatible computers, they, first of all, needed more powerful hardware capabilities.

Having concentrated its efforts in this direction, the company in a surprisingly short time was able to develop a fundamentally new home
computer with many advantages. But
the main thing is that, breaking away from the conservative
architecture of the Spectrum, the new machine did not break away from the numerous (still!) Spectrum users.

WithWith the appearance of a new computer, a new stage in the work of the PETERS company begins.

Perhaps this is where the history of the development of the PETERS company can end. But only the story is over, and development continues.

P.S. I thank Nikolay Noskov for agreeing
to answer the questions.

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