Der sowjetische Heimcomputer (Podcast auf englisch)

00:00:00: My name is Martin Wolff and I am the official podcast representative of Golem.de.

00:00:10: This podcast is the English original version of a talk with Eugene Bolzakov about his Soviet

00:00:15: home computer.

00:00:17: We made a translated version with a machine learning tool.

00:00:20: This German version is available on the same platforms as this podcast.

00:00:24: It will be linked in the show notes as well.

00:00:26: My guest Eugene Bolzakov agreed to this experimental translation.

00:00:31: I am now sitting in my office with Eugene Bolzakov.

00:00:36: Eugene we met at VCFB which is like the vintage computing festival Berlin where I saw you

00:00:43: with Russian, no a Soviet small computer like a home computer.

00:00:49: Eugene first where did you come from and how did you get to own this computer?

00:00:56: I was born and grew up in Uzbekistan.

00:00:59: That time it was Uzbek SSR so I was born in the Soviet Union.

00:01:04: And this computer I ordered but I had a Soviet home computer, another one when I was a kid.

00:01:13: When I was around nine it was 1991 and I was interested in that and my mom got me this

00:01:21: computer.

00:01:22: So I grew up with those computers.

00:01:26: There were no community or I didn't know about that so I was alone but that was something

00:01:31: to start and maybe if I didn't have it I wouldn't work as an IT specialist now.

00:01:40: That's a story.

00:01:41: That's often how it starts.

00:01:43: You see something, you see this computer and you think okay I should do something.

00:01:46: So what could you do when you had this computer in your early age?

00:01:50: I just could program on basic.

00:01:53: Most of those, I think all of those or most of those home computers, they have basic inside.

00:01:58: If you just turn it on it runs basic and you can program on basic.

00:02:02: Basic was I think the only one language on those computers.

00:02:07: The second one was assembler but of course assembler is very complicated for beginners

00:02:12: and usually we start from basic.

00:02:15: We program on basic, we learn how to program, we learn how to use computer.

00:02:20: There were some games on the tape which I could load from the tape recorder and it was

00:02:25: like a very long story.

00:02:28: You need to load them from four minutes or even longer and then I could play some games

00:02:33: but I am a person who didn't like playing.

00:02:37: I liked creating, I liked programming.

00:02:40: So that's what I was doing on this computer and what people usually were doing on that

00:02:45: home computers.

00:02:46: We will come to the exact model and what's the story behind it later.

00:02:51: Now when I imagine the ex-Soviet Union in '91, this is a hard time.

00:03:01: Whenever I see pictures from them or hear stories from the 90s in Russia, it always

00:03:05: was a very bleak time for the normal people.

00:03:09: Some people really got very rich but the rest they were like desperate times.

00:03:15: How did you experience that?

00:03:17: That's true.

00:03:18: In Uzbekistan, I lived in Tashkent and Tashkent is a capital and in Uzbekistan it was a bit

00:03:25: easier with food because they could grow something there.

00:03:31: The earth gave us food and fruits and stuff like that but people were losing jobs.

00:03:39: Some people had to go for shopping to China and bring stuff and then get money.

00:03:45: It was hard.

00:03:47: It was hard but in some places, maybe in Russia, where far from cities like a Russian countryside,

00:03:57: it was much harder.

00:03:59: There it was more or less, I couldn't say okay but not so bad.

00:04:07: But still, if you read from the Russians, they always refer, they have a special name

00:04:11: for these 90s.

00:04:12: Do they say the rough 90s, the wild 90s?

00:04:15: I don't know.

00:04:16: They have a special name for this, I think.

00:04:20: In Russian it would be "lyhiyye" but maybe the translation would be rough or wild.

00:04:28: That was because some people were very poor and some people started making money on this

00:04:34: and they were shooting on streets, no law.

00:04:42: That's why it's called like this.

00:04:44: My only, if we could do this podcast in Russian, it would be very short because I could say

00:04:50: "meniazabut Martin Wolf, ja živu na ulicy vorysstraße".

00:04:54: I know that "dien razdienja" is birthday and I know, the other word I know is "dastapli

00:05:01: bechartya nosti" because everybody who learned Russian has, this is the only word they know.

00:05:06: If they don't know anything, they know this.

00:05:08: That's true, that everyone who learned Russian somewhere outside, that's maybe what you learned

00:05:15: and everyone learned.

00:05:17: Yeah, we did.

00:05:18: We did.

00:05:19: And it's a bit sad that the only thing that stuck with that is this, but this is because

00:05:24: we learned the language, like from books, there was no real, you know, we didn't talk

00:05:31: to anyone in Russian.

00:05:33: We hadn't, we didn't write letters or anything, so we had no communication.

00:05:37: It was very abstract.

00:05:38: The whole thing was very abstract.

00:05:40: That was the same with English in post, in Soviet Union and post-Soviet countries.

00:05:44: We also learned it from books and we could read something, but we couldn't talk.

00:05:49: I just, it was really, it was maybe the same as you had, but English started to be like

00:05:58: common language, very international and of course people who needed to like even work

00:06:04: and when the country got a bit open, then people needed to speak at least a little English

00:06:11: to understand people coming from other places and to like cultural, technical exchange.

00:06:18: So I had to have special courses for that and also thank you to my partner because she

00:06:25: once banned Russian in our house.

00:06:28: We were speaking only English.

00:06:32: That was hard.

00:06:33: That was harsh, but it worked.

00:06:36: That's very great.

00:06:37: And in the end, and now we can sit here and speak English.

00:06:40: I didn't have English in school until 1990, until the war came down.

00:06:45: We only had Russian before that and we started with English later, but I found English to

00:06:49: be much, much easier.

00:06:51: Also I learned a lot of English from computers, from reading the text and the demos and in

00:06:57: the games.

00:06:58: You know, I had a very good amount of computer game English, which made it easier.

00:07:05: So now we go back before the war came down and before Soviet Russia went down the drain

00:07:11: and there was a combine, which is like, you say if I say something wrong, you do, okay?

00:07:20: Like a combine is like, it's like a brand, but it also is like a conglomerate of different

00:07:28: companies or branches which produce different things under one name.

00:07:35: And then they are all like in communist, yeah, the communist country, they are all like in

00:07:41: the combine.

00:07:42: So Elektronika was one of these combines in the Soviet Union.

00:07:47: In Eastern Germany, we had Robotron, which were producing computers.

00:07:54: They were producing radios, like I don't know, watches, no, no, no, no, but clocks.

00:07:59: I know that they produce clocks and everything like quite a lot of electronic stuff.

00:08:04: And also Elektronika did the same in Russia, didn't they?

00:08:08: They did.

00:08:09: Elektronika was, I think that was just a name.

00:08:13: Most of devices, any devices, not only computer, they started producing computers much later.

00:08:20: Most of devices, they were TVs, they were radios, they were clocks, also hand raised watches

00:08:26: and music things.

00:08:30: That was a name and different factories were producing them because everything belonged

00:08:36: to the government and they just didn't put a name and they even had a, I found it quite

00:08:44: recently, they had a naming convention, how to call devices.

00:08:50: There was an Elektronika, then there was a number and the first digit meant this, the

00:08:56: second digit meant this and they even had it.

00:08:59: That was, I think, most of things produced in Soviet Union called Elektronika.

00:09:05: There was also a factory called VEV in Riga.

00:09:08: Now it's closed and they were producing more, they produced some radios, they produced telephones

00:09:16: and some other devices for home, but they had their own name, VEV.

00:09:22: But mostly Elektronika and VEV were, I think, two common names and Elektronika was like

00:09:30: everything.

00:09:31: Yeah, and it even came to Eastern Germany because I remember vividly that the Soviet

00:09:36: soldiers which were stationed here during the Cold War, they brought stuff from Russia

00:09:42: and sold it in second hand shops because they got more money because it was stuff that people

00:09:47: didn't have here.

00:09:48: And for example they had LCD games, like small handheld games with LCD screens on it, which

00:09:55: could beep and there were watches and all that.

00:09:59: And Eastern Germany didn't have something like that, but it came from Russia and they

00:10:03: sold it and you could buy it in the second hand store for 100 mark, which was a lot of

00:10:08: money for a kid back there, but it was like probably, I don't know, I don't know what

00:10:13: is a small amount of money then.

00:10:15: I like 30 roubles or something.

00:10:17: I mean it was much, much cheaper in the Soviet Union, but they brought it here and it sold

00:10:21: it.

00:10:22: It was called Elektronika.

00:10:23: It was also called Elektronika and I had that thing in 1987.

00:10:28: Yeah.

00:10:29: And that was like really for kids to play like we now use phones.

00:10:34: We could play it during commuting to school for example.

00:10:38: It was not safe because our parents said that not to bring it to school, they hit you and

00:10:43: they steal it from you, but that was a nice thing just to play for a kid.

00:10:50: And it really had an LCD.

00:10:53: Actually it was a replica.

00:10:55: I don't remember which exact thing.

00:10:59: Nintendo.

00:11:00: Yeah, but it had different characters.

00:11:04: It had the rabbit and the wolf, which were like these are the main characters.

00:11:08: Everybody knew the cartoons with the rabbit and the wolf.

00:11:11: And it had like...

00:11:12: I think I had one with the rabbit and the wolf.

00:11:15: So 1987, I would have been very envious of you because we didn't have this.

00:11:20: I don't know where my mom found it.

00:11:23: Maybe they were already cheaper or I don't know.

00:11:27: Yeah, so they had...

00:11:29: I don't have one of these, but what I do have is a Pong game from Elektronika.

00:11:37: It's called Tournir, which you know, it's like a Pong console.

00:11:41: It's got only one chip.

00:11:42: And if I opened it and the mainboard, it looks terrible.

00:11:46: It looks terrible.

00:11:47: It's all soldered, but not in a good way.

00:11:50: You know, it's all cables and all that.

00:11:52: It looks very, very socialist, like socialist electronics.

00:11:57: We come to if the BK has the same stuff.

00:12:00: But I have this one and I also have an Elektronika clock, ready?

00:12:05: No, not ready, clock, which a friend and colleague gave me.

00:12:10: And yeah, so I have at least two devices and you have the BK0010.

00:12:18: So we already established that the first numbers in that probably have something to do with

00:12:25: the device class.

00:12:28: But what is BK?

00:12:29: What does it stand for?

00:12:30: That's for BK, that number is a bit different because that naming convention came later

00:12:39: and 0010 is a binary two.

00:12:44: The next model was 0011 and that's a binary three.

00:12:48: Why they didn't put binary one, I don't know.

00:12:53: But it's a clever naming scheme.

00:12:54: Yeah, BK is BK is Bytavoy computer.

00:12:59: That means Bytavoy, it's like for household.

00:13:04: So that's not a home.

00:13:06: It's not that I can say home computer, but it's a household computer.

00:13:10: So that computer was made for using at home.

00:13:14: That's why they call it like this.

00:13:16: I have the question, could you as a Soviet household just buy one of those computers?

00:13:23: It's much more complicated.

00:13:25: They were made for households and they were in Elektronika shops so that electronic devices

00:13:33: were sold in a special Elektronika shops with the same name.

00:13:37: But of course, it's not like now.

00:13:41: It was as a communist way.

00:13:43: You had to order it and wait and in some places if they're far or not.

00:13:51: So in big cities it was shorter waiting time.

00:13:56: In farther places it was longer waiting time.

00:13:59: It could be even a year.

00:14:01: And then they order it so and you get it.

00:14:05: About a price, so it's also you had to pay for it.

00:14:10: About a price it was 600 rubles.

00:14:13: Now it says nothing because in the communist country the currency was different, but it's

00:14:22: better to calculate for the salaries.

00:14:25: It's maybe three and a half monthly engineer salaries.

00:14:32: So to buy this, the person had to pay three and a half their monthly income.

00:14:38: I am tempted to look up what a Volga did cost, like the car.

00:14:44: Because that was a luxury car in Russia.

00:14:49: Volga was really expensive.

00:14:52: I know that Lada, my grandpa had it.

00:14:57: And I remember that he said it was 5000 rubles and it's around 25 monthly incomes.

00:15:11: It's like two years.

00:15:13: You need to work, don't eat and then you can get Lada.

00:15:17: Then you could get Lada, but Volga was maybe it was even 10,000 so it's four years.

00:15:24: We had them as taxi cars here.

00:15:25: Oh really?

00:15:26: In Germany there were the taxi cars.

00:15:28: They seemed very luxury.

00:15:30: They were mostly used as a taxi car.

00:15:34: They were not used so much just by people.

00:15:38: So people didn't buy them because they were expensive.

00:15:43: Which brings us back to the home computer, which was expensive, but did people buy it?

00:15:49: I mean obviously you had one, so someone must have bought them.

00:15:53: Or where did they go?

00:15:54: Did they go to educational schools or where could you find them?

00:16:00: People bought them.

00:16:01: People who are interested.

00:16:02: So that was not for everyone because the computer was not so easy to use because of this tape

00:16:10: recorder.

00:16:12: You needed to connect the tape recorder.

00:16:14: So that was not for zero level.

00:16:17: And usually people who got them, they were maybe educated but also interested in computers.

00:16:29: They were engineers.

00:16:30: They were also radio emitters.

00:16:36: Mostly the community came from people who were making radio devices.

00:16:39: So they needed to understand something.

00:16:41: But those people, they just got, they ordered them, they waited, they paid this money, they

00:16:49: may keep some money if they wanted to buy their computer for some time and they got

00:16:56: it.

00:16:57: Also, those computers were sent to schools because why did they start producing computers?

00:17:08: Because they wanted to computerize the country and they wanted people to learn how to use

00:17:18: computers.

00:17:20: And they decided to make the subject informatics in school.

00:17:24: It was 1984.

00:17:27: And after that, they started sending computers to school.

00:17:31: They started organizing computer classes in schools.

00:17:35: In schools, in universities, in college, we can say the college.

00:17:41: So that the place where people were, the place where people got a professional education.

00:17:50: So they mostly, it also depended on the place.

00:17:54: In some places, far from civilization, very far places, they didn't have computers.

00:18:00: But they tried to send them to universities, to the bigger cities, to colleges and to schools.

00:18:06: So where people first time saw the computer.

00:18:11: I also saw the computer first time in the school.

00:18:14: My school got that computer class.

00:18:17: I don't remember when I started school in 1988.

00:18:22: I think it was already there.

00:18:24: But they got it just a year ago or maybe even the same year when I started.

00:18:30: But I was a kid and I was interested.

00:18:33: And then I came to, my mom and me came to the teacher and she asked me if I can come

00:18:39: to use, to like to try something with a computer.

00:18:44: So the people who could not get them, they first used computers in schools.

00:18:51: So that's also giving us a timeframe.

00:18:53: So I'm looking at a document that you presented at VCFB, which I photographed.

00:18:59: So I can always cheat and look ahead what is coming.

00:19:03: So they started developing it in the early 80s, like 83, and then they introduced them

00:19:09: in 85, which I mean, the Soviet Union, even more than Russia, was a very, very big country.

00:19:15: So until it comes to the last corner, it takes a while.

00:19:19: Also, because it's so big, the numbers have to be much higher than, let's say, Eastern

00:19:24: Germany, where if you have like 10,000 computers, it's like quite a lot.

00:19:28: But if you have 10,000 computers in Soviet Russia, it's like nothing.

00:19:32: So they produced quite a lot of these devices.

00:19:35: Actually, not.

00:19:37: They produced, I don't remember exact number, but it's also somewhere in it.

00:19:43: It says here, that's what I mean.

00:19:44: It's over 100 and I think 125,000.

00:19:51: I think it's 162,000.

00:19:55: Around 100, 100.

00:19:56: That sounds like a lot to me.

00:19:58: It's a lot, but the country had 250 million people living there.

00:20:05: But that number is only for electronic BKE computers, but they were other ones.

00:20:11: But they were not so...

00:20:15: They were a bit less popular, but they were factories producing only them.

00:20:20: And I tried to find more accurate numbers, but I couldn't.

00:20:25: So we can't say exact amount of computers produced now.

00:20:31: But if even we double it, if we say that they were 160,000 of BKEs and 160,000 of other

00:20:40: ones, that could be 320.

00:20:44: And that's for that big country.

00:20:47: It's really not so much.

00:20:49: Okay.

00:20:50: So I'm probably a bit off with that because I just read that the Eastern German

00:20:55: home computers that they had, like the KC85, and I had these numbers in my head that were

00:21:02: under 50,000 pieces of them were produced.

00:21:06: So of course, it sounded like much if I see 162, but of course, you're right.

00:21:11: If there's...

00:21:12: Yeah, it's nothing compared to the number of people that should be catered with these

00:21:18: computers, especially if they're in schools and all that.

00:21:21: But they started producing another one for schools, that U-KNC, which I had also, it's

00:21:27: not working, mine is not working.

00:21:30: And they produced 300,000 of those, but those were sent only to schools.

00:21:35: So then they started when they made it.

00:21:38: I think those ones were for homes and those ones were for schools.

00:21:43: So that's how they maybe fixed this problem and more schools got computers.

00:21:49: Okay.

00:21:50: Right.

00:21:51: And not only them were in schools, they were different models of those computers and some

00:21:57: of them were in other schools.

00:21:59: So they were not completely compatible.

00:22:02: Like each school could have their own computers.

00:22:05: Each school could have their own software or write.

00:22:08: Teachers could write this software, could make this software at their school.

00:22:13: And they were not compatible.

00:22:15: And like the teaching process was quite complicated because I read about that they were textbooks,

00:22:23: but they were different textbooks for different computers and which computers had a particular

00:22:28: school.

00:22:30: So I heard this, someone said this and it stuck with me, that in the 80s with computers

00:22:37: in the West in the US, sometimes the state acted like or they acted like socialists,

00:22:45: like communists with sharing all this with the networks, with the university connecting

00:22:50: with all having one standard and that the Soviets behaved like capitalists because

00:22:55: they were always in, you know, there were several different models that you couldn't

00:22:59: buy and they had like, they were in opposition to each other and competition.

00:23:03: The companies were in competition with each other to one up themselves or to have these

00:23:07: computers and that it was like, yeah, it's like the opposite of what you would expect

00:23:13: it to be, you know, because if you look from the outside, you would say, okay, this is

00:23:17: a communist country and they have a centralized economy.

00:23:21: Everything is centralized.

00:23:22: There's someone is saying all this.

00:23:23: So why don't they centralize this?

00:23:25: Why don't they say this is our computer?

00:23:26: But they didn't.

00:23:28: And everybody seemed to build their own computer.

00:23:30: Yeah, they didn't and they, not everyone, they were a couple of known models.

00:23:37: I think they were like less in 80s.

00:23:43: They were really few models of computers.

00:23:46: There were some computers based on Intel 8080, 8 bit computers and we gave 16 bit computers.

00:23:53: But later, when already, I think it was 1987 when they allowed cooperatives, when they

00:24:02: allowed a kind of a private small companies or so and they started making clothes of everything

00:24:13: and each that small company, company, I mean, like three people in the room, they sold their

00:24:20: their own computer.

00:24:22: But of course, they, what they started from, they started from the DIY thing.

00:24:29: They printed the schematic, they printed everything and they said, you can make the computer.

00:24:35: That was the first, I think that was the very first thing how people and that of course needed

00:24:41: a lot of understanding how to make the computer.

00:24:46: And also they needed to order the chips and it was hard to order them also like waiting

00:24:51: and stuff like that.

00:24:53: And they were notorious for being faulty.

00:24:55: You didn't order one, you ordered like a pack because you never knew what you got.

00:24:59: Of course.

00:25:00: Yeah.

00:25:01: And they, there were many faulty, I think on the RAM, I had another computer, they say

00:25:08: it's like, no, it's wrong.

00:25:10: They say the half of them are faulty.

00:25:13: If you need two, you need to order at least four, but better to order 10 and the two will

00:25:18: work.

00:25:19: Like this and there were really a lot of faulty things.

00:25:25: But because they didn't want to throw them out, they tried to use them even the faulty.

00:25:31: They tried to use half, half of them.

00:25:33: For example, if there's a RAM, which is 16K, but if it's faulty, if 8K is working, then

00:25:40: I can put it as 8K.

00:25:42: So how they did some of those computers, I think have those faulty.

00:25:46: But that was a usual thing to do in the best two and they knew they were faulty.

00:25:50: They also did that.

00:25:51: But as we are at the technical aspect, so now what do we have?

00:25:54: We have this electronic BK0010, yeah, not underscore, but 01.

00:26:01: Now the CPU is, as you just said, it is 16 bit.

00:26:07: What is this, what kind of CPU is this?

00:26:10: That's a Soviet replica of PDP11 compatible CPU.

00:26:15: So they chose the PDP11 architecture because it's a CPU, it's a chip.

00:26:22: I think it's closer to LSI11, it's closer to the smaller PDP computers, but the architecture

00:26:30: is PDP11.

00:26:35: It doesn't have a floating point commands.

00:26:41: But as I remember, it has a full set of commands which original PDP11, I think 003 has.

00:26:53: Maybe it has even one or two more.

00:26:58: It doesn't have multiplication division and it doesn't have a floating point commands.

00:27:03: So that's a PDP11, not the lowest one, I think I can say.

00:27:10: But maybe the lower one.

00:27:13: And it doesn't have a memory, how to say, memory management.

00:27:19: So it just has a flat memory addressing.

00:27:25: The bigger, larger PDPs, I think PDP11, 40, 70, they have memory management that memory

00:27:33: different modes like a user mode, kernel mode like we say now, but this one, it of course

00:27:39: doesn't hurt.

00:27:40: But it's clocked at three megahertz, which isn't too shabby for the ADS.

00:27:45: And it's quite good.

00:27:48: And that PDP11 architecture, it's very simple.

00:27:52: And maybe why they chose it.

00:27:56: So obviously they copied the CPU from the West.

00:28:02: But you told me where VCFB, that the CPU is in this computer twice.

00:28:08: Why is it?

00:28:09: No, in this computer, there is one CPU.

00:28:11: Two CPUs are in school, that school computer, UKNC.

00:28:16: And that's a very peculiar configuration they invented.

00:28:21: They put one CPU for computing.

00:28:24: So the main CPU, which runs the program, running on the computer, and the second CPU is managing

00:28:34: the peripheric devices.

00:28:36: Like it's managing video, it's managing keyboard, it's managing, I think, also timer or something

00:28:42: else.

00:28:43: So that configuration is very weird.

00:28:45: Everyone finds it weird.

00:28:47: And the programming for this, it's quite complicated.

00:28:50: And they actually read that they are connected only via the parallel port chip.

00:28:57: So you can send, you can exchange the data.

00:29:01: They even don't seem to have the same bus.

00:29:05: They have their, each of the CPUs has their own bus.

00:29:10: It's compatible with Q-Bus from DEC.

00:29:13: But they have this chip, which allows the CPU to communicate.

00:29:19: So where two buses kind of meet.

00:29:22: And that's also unique.

00:29:23: So is it, like, can I imagine it like this?

00:29:27: So the small ones, like the BK computers, they are in the classroom and the teacher has one

00:29:32: of those bigger computers with those two CPUs or is this completely different?

00:29:36: It could work like this, but mostly when they invented this, who can say that computer with

00:29:41: two CPUs, the whole class had them, even the teacher and the students.

00:29:48: But the teacher had a floppy controller and a printer.

00:29:51: And sometimes there, I think, gets it.

00:29:56: And that network, so they were connected.

00:29:58: to a network, a kind of a network. And the teacher computer had that main network controller

00:30:06: which could control all those student computers. So, but I remember maybe there was a configuration

00:30:14: when the teacher had this, it's also a school computer with two CPUs and students had this,

00:30:22: but mostly they put, with those they put that Devaka, that bigger sister of this,

00:30:30: that computer which was used for organizations. Ah, okay, so I mix them a bit up because the whole

00:30:38: timeline and also if you look from the outside into Russian computers, it's quite complicated

00:30:42: because there is not many sources in the English speaking web about all of this, at least that I

00:30:47: know of. Do you have any hints? Because we could put it in the show notes. So, if you have something

00:30:52: that you could share like where we could find some info that would be great, I would put that in

00:30:57: show notes. I think I can share, I made my own timeline. I tried to collect this information

00:31:04: and made my own timeline when it started and it started, there is an urban legend, I can also tell

00:31:10: it when it started and then I can send it and you can share it because there are really different

00:31:18: because they have different computers and they were produced in parallel. For example,

00:31:24: this BK was produced, I mean BK10 was produced from 80, 95 until 1990, then they started BK11.

00:31:37: You can say that school computer, they started producing it in 87 and until

00:31:45: later, until 95 even and DVK, those bigger organization computers, they had also different

00:31:53: models and they were produced some models in parallel, also dependent on the factory.

00:31:58: So, there was a DVK123 even 4 and at 4, I think it had already, I don't remember about

00:32:07: the amount of CPUs, but it had that memory management and the different modes and the

00:32:13: multitasking, so it was quite powerful thing. So, that's why the timeline is so complicated.

00:32:19: And then I just talked about this PDP11 compatible computers because other computers,

00:32:26: they had the different timelines and there was mostly, I think one computer produced from

00:32:32: 1980 something until Soviet Union was broken. So, what's the urban legend?

00:32:39: As an urban legend that the Soviet military found a sank American submarine and there were

00:32:49: two PDP8 computers on the board and they got them, scraped it and then made a copy.

00:32:55: That's an urban, no one knows if it's true or false, that's why I say that's a legend.

00:33:01: How they started with PDP architecture. I heard on the UBCFP, you told me another legend.

00:33:09: And that one is about the Soviet computers, that part of them had a significant amount of gold

00:33:18: in them, so they were all scrapped, so there's none left.

00:33:20: That's not a legend. Unfortunately, that's completely true, that's not a legend because

00:33:25: for this no one knows if they really found a submarine or not and that was confidential,

00:33:31: they classified, but this is not the legend. This computer, it doesn't have so much gold.

00:33:38: So the BK doesn't have it? BK have, but it still has capacitors made of palladium.

00:33:44: For example, if we cut all capacitors from this computer, there will be two or two and a half

00:33:51: grams of palladium and that of course can be sold, but DVK that computer made for organizations,

00:33:58: they really had a lot of gold. One of them, I think the DVK two, so one and two,

00:34:06: they were the most valuable three and four, they had less. I think they started already,

00:34:12: they already learned how to produce cheaper things and they started to put cheaper things

00:34:16: into them. But for example, I especially found that DVK two, it had the board and that cables and

00:34:24: that stuff, 72 grams of gold, 120 grams of silver and some platinum and palladium.

00:34:32: And of course, a case was made from iron and the cables, I mean the connecting cables were made

00:34:39: from copper and of course you can imagine how much money you can get if you scrape this computer and

00:34:45: I think the whole village could eat for months or so. So that's a Soviet computer for you,

00:34:52: which is even worth its money after decades, you know? And in the West, I mean, look at your phone,

00:34:59: it's not going to be worth anything in three years, but if you had such a computer,

00:35:03: it might even be worth more than when you bought it. So even if it's not working?

00:35:08: Yeah, doesn't matter. I don't know about the PDP original PDP, I think they also have a lot of gold.

00:35:17: They made those, I think for those connectors on the board that, how to say,

00:35:26: those connectors were made of gold. So even not the whole connector, but the gold was on the top

00:35:31: to reduce the resistance, to prevent the corrosion, so why they used gold. And palladium,

00:35:39: I think it was used for capacitors because it's that capaciting material which worked well

00:35:45: and it's still working well. Those palladium capacitors, they are very, very good and they work

00:35:52: for 40 years or even more. So now we went on a wild tangent, but that's power for the course

00:35:59: on this podcast. So right now we are still at the technical specifications. What's the RAM

00:36:05: on this computer? This one has 32K of RAM, just 32K and 32K of ROM. They put basic and basic

00:36:15: was quite big and basic takes three ROM chips and it's 24K and the monitor, like a base monitor

00:36:25: system, it's 8K and only 32K of ROM of RAM is available. And that's of course not enough for

00:36:33: programs. That was the bigger, I think that was one of the biggest disadvantage of this computer.

00:36:41: For example, those Intel 8080 computers, they just had a small monitor and basic and they could have

00:36:48: like 50, the whole RAM and ROM together 64K and if they put just small things, they could have

00:36:57: more RAM. But this one, it has only 32K. We got basic, but is it Russian basic? Is it too? I

00:37:08: write my stuff. I mean, I can see the characters on the keyboard and it's Cyrillic and it's also

00:37:15: not Cyrillic. It's both. It's both and the basic is the same as everyone knows. With normal basic

00:37:24: commands, so English-based basic, they learned the same basic and also they had vocal from deck

00:37:35: and they learned the same vocal and even the assembler mnemonics, they are the same as deck has.

00:37:42: So there are no Russian. It's not completely true. There was a Russian, like a computer language

00:37:53: based on a Russian, but I think that was just for kids and it was not so popular. So they

00:38:00: they didn't do it. But why would they print the keys on the keyboard, which is terrible,

00:38:06: by the way, I tried it. It's very hard to type. I mean, that is a bit to be expected from a

00:38:11: Soviet keyboard. Did you really have to now push the buttons? But why would they print the keys

00:38:18: with Cyrillic when all you do is write in Latin? I think because that the Soviet computer, it

00:38:28: supports Russian and it need they they were also how to say that computer is not only for programming,

00:38:37: they were also making other stuff on it. Not I am not talking about games now, but for example,

00:38:44: if you work with documents, if you work with some accounting that you need so that it has a Russian

00:38:52: character set inside, it's like, I forgot how it's called. But yeah, so it has two languages,

00:39:02: it has two character sets, I mean, English and Russian, Latin and Russian. That's why they put

00:39:08: both to the keyboard so that you could put could type in Russian if you need to. And of course,

00:39:17: not not all people actually almost know people new English in that way to have the computer

00:39:24: completely in English. And that's also a problem that the software which this computer has, it's

00:39:30: mostly in Russian. So it has a Russian messages on the screen. And if a person who uses this

00:39:39: computer doesn't understand a little Russian that it's hard to use. So if you can't read

00:39:43: your book, you're out of luck. So the peripherals, you can obviously, you said already, you have

00:39:53: cassettes, so it's a date, but you don't have a data set, you just use a normal cassette player.

00:39:57: Yeah, that was because that was a home computer, it was supposed to use the normal home cassette

00:40:04: player, tape recorder and the tapes like this, and the normal TV, which people use for watching,

00:40:12: like TV programs. Some of those computers had just an antenna output and you put just to,

00:40:19: you put a cable to an antenna. And this computer has a video output RGB. And it was also not so

00:40:28: easy because not all TVs had them. And on the TV, people needed to solder to connect this computer.

00:40:35: But the idea was that people just got this as a computer. So the board is inside and the keyboard

00:40:43: and the power supply and they didn't need anything else. They supposed to have the cassette player

00:40:50: for listening to music and they supposed to have a TV for watching and they could use this computer.

00:40:56: I can't imagine it with a Vef recorder. I don't know. Vef, do you said they produce radios? I don't

00:41:02: know if they produce tape. I think they did. I think they did. And then as a TV, you have the

00:41:08: Unost, which is a small, very round, small black. I used to have one of those. So then you could

00:41:15: you could watch it and it's on the Unost, it would be black and white, but the computer can produce

00:41:20: color. This computer has four colors. Wow. It can produce color, but it has only four colors,

00:41:26: red, green, blue and black. So there is no white. If you turn on the color, if you switch to the

00:41:35: color, but how to say switch this computer has just that it has two separate outputs for black

00:41:41: and white and color on the black and white, letters will be white on the color. The letters will be

00:41:49: red, this green or red. So the red is the main color, that red is the color one.

00:41:55: I don't know why they didn't make white. It cannot display yellow. So this computer,

00:42:03: as it is, cannot display the flag of the Soviet Union. That would have been like a case for the

00:42:11: Gulag for the engineers if that would have been 30 years before. But of course, there is a life hack.

00:42:18: Okay. If you put a, there are some demos and you can see it even on the demos. I usually show the

00:42:24: demos and say this computer has only four colors and people don't believe this because if you put

00:42:30: a dot of red and a dot of blue, you will see violet. If you put a dot of red and a dot of green

00:42:38: together, you will see like maybe kind of a yellowish color. And there are demos which really show

00:42:45: many colors, but using only four, they just put the dots together and that's how it's,

00:42:52: on the demos it works and even the games, some games use it, that life hack. But this one,

00:43:01: it has only four colors, but the next one, 11, it had a palette switching. So each palette had four

00:43:07: colors, had four colors, but you could switch them and the colors were, I think, hard, like

00:43:16: hard-coated. I think palette one was the same and palette two had a kind of the color cyan and

00:43:25: magenta or, I don't remember all of them, but there is a, there is a demo which shows all of them

00:43:33: and you could switch them and really that was like a revolution of color. People could make the demos

00:43:39: mostly the photographic quality. As you're talking about demos, so there obviously was kind of

00:43:48: a scene of people who produced software for that. I could imagine in the subject union,

00:43:54: there was not a software distribution house like and they were selling it in the shop,

00:44:00: in the shop, the software. Where did you get your software from? There were not

00:44:04: distributing house and there were no market. There were magazines like paper magazines when

00:44:10: I think it was a bit later, it was already end of 80s and maybe 90s and the first

00:44:18: publications about computers were in the radio magazine. The magazine was made for radio emitters

00:44:27: who made radio devices and before they organized the magazines about computers, they were public,

00:44:34: they were putting that stuff to the radio magazines and there were people who were making

00:44:41: software at home and they could send like an ad to the magazine. I am making games

00:44:50: that the picture like a black and white picture or just information. You can send me five

00:44:58: rules by post and you get the tape full of games so that how the software was distributed.

00:45:05: Of course they were, I can't say computer class but maybe there were some interest clubs

00:45:11: where people met and they also exchanged the software but they were like people into computers so

00:45:19: they were all making something. Yeah, I mean it makes sense because nobody except for those

00:45:25: people had a computer. I mean if you had such a computer you were determined to get something going.

00:45:30: This is not something you should, I mean and if you see it in the west you maybe you say oh

00:45:35: I would love to have a computer for Christmas because all my friends have a computer and maybe

00:45:40: when Easter rolls around you go like okay I don't use that computer anymore, I want to do

00:45:45: something different but in the Soviet Union or E-Sem block in general because it was so scarce

00:45:49: that all the you know you really had to want that and if you do you take care of getting software

00:45:56: getting like people get to know people who also have it to share with them. Yes that's true so that

00:46:02: mostly people who really wanted to have this they got this and some people were using this

00:46:11: also engineers also to make their thesis in the university that what those home computers were

00:46:18: used for. And as you said that there is a demo scene or I mean is there still a scene for this?

00:46:24: There is, there is a they participate in the global demo scene they send their their demos to

00:46:35: the bigger contests even international even if people don't have those computers but they accept

00:46:44: everything and there is a Russian speaking community which is it's a bit bigger than demo

00:46:52: scene but they also make demos and they show those demos on the contests they I don't know if they

00:47:02: now it's harder to come here I mean to Europe but I remember that people even came to Europe to

00:47:10: show their demos but usually they have their own demo parties to show demos but for example if I

00:47:18: make a demo I can bring this computer to a demo party in Berlin or in other city and show this demo.

00:47:26: And I also see that a poet.net which is like an online resource for the demo scene.

00:47:33: Yeah they send you can search. I will put that in the show notes there is pages upon pages of

00:47:40: of the demos and there's also there's an actual that's one from 2024 and it's it's called BK3D Arena

00:47:48: from Dimitri Pratsim. That's a game. That's a game. That's a game but it's there because it's a

00:47:55: 3D game like a very simple kind of doom when you move and hit some enemies. The problem is that

00:48:09: it's a very small it's only 8k I think I don't remember I have it I even played it but the idea

00:48:15: was the question which Dimitri asked himself am I able to make a 3D game on the BK. I think that's

00:48:24: the first and that's not only one game produced in 2020 in 2020s. There are some more games produced

00:48:32: for example there's a clone of Pong. It's called Pong Charged. It's actually the new Pong but

00:48:38: it's for two people you can connect two joysticks or you play with computer. That was just I think

00:48:45: one game and this 3D arena and I think something else. Games but people in most cases people make

00:48:53: demos. The demo is beautiful. A demo you can show just you and people can see what you could make in

00:49:01: 256 bytes. Which is impressive all the way and then I mean we're getting soonish we're going to be at

00:49:12: the end of this podcast. We could talk for hours because even right now you said like the joystick.

00:49:18: I saw the joystick and it actually looks like you would you would suppose a Soviet joystick would

00:49:23: look like. I said terrible this thing looks terrible it doesn't look like fun at all. It's

00:49:27: like a gray box with a small metal rod which has like a white ball on top. I don't know is it that.

00:49:33: It worked bad because it I actually fixed it. The problem was that that thing with white ball

00:49:44: it there was a one millimeter more plastic on the right side. When you turn the right

00:49:51: it was not enough to make a contact and they just needed to cut this one millimeter of the plastic

00:49:59: to make it working and now it's working really well and I can play games even the modern games

00:50:05: with this joystick. So that's why I wanted to go I wanted to say this there's a lot of more aspects

00:50:11: to this than we could cover right here but what we could say is that there is an emulator that's

00:50:16: what I wanted to get at. You can try this at home and you should there is an emulator we'll link it

00:50:23: in the show notes so you can try the demos you can try games and you can look for software is that

00:50:27: right. That's right there is even more than one there are more I think even four emulators

00:50:37: there that one which is the best it emulates really the best of I think it also has a different

00:50:44: models of those computers it has a different floppy controllers and but it's in Russian

00:50:51: the interface is in Russian and it's hard if you can't read Kirelik it's hard to get into it.

00:50:57: There are more which are easier to use and they are in English and I also I I particularly

00:51:06: mentioned here the emulator for Android which is really really good too it was made by Viktor

00:51:12: Antonovich Antonovich I think he's from Belarus and it emulates really good on the phone you can

00:51:21: even use you can look into this at your phone and it supports really a lot and it's in English

00:51:28: so the interface is in English but the software could be in Russian and that could be hard it

00:51:33: can be just installed from the Google Store I think it's called PKMU but we can put a link

00:51:41: we'll put the link in the show notes now if you what I the problem that I had years ago I looked

00:51:47: into all of this Russian Soviet computer thing because I wanted to know more about the like

00:51:53: how the history unfolded over there and to all the listeners if you if you are a bit confused by

00:52:02: all the models and numbers and all that imagine that it's always the same and imagine that on

00:52:07: Russian but now we have thanks to you Eugene we have it in English but if you want to look this up

00:52:13: it's it's very complicated because everything is in Russian and even though you have the the the

00:52:18: translation tools right now that you're disposing it's it's it's complicated anyway to to just to

00:52:24: make out okay which model was it which company which factory was it produced in the city and all

00:52:29: of that so where where I wanted to get it is I tried to actually buy one of these I don't want

00:52:37: I didn't want to have an emulator and that is very complicated in the West isn't it

00:52:40: it's quite complicated most of them I think 90 or even more than 90 percent of them are I understand

00:52:51: that many of them were just destroyed and I don't know no one knows how many working computers

00:52:58: are in the world but more than 90 percent of them are in Russia and it's not possible to get anything

00:53:04: from Russia now and I actually don't suggest to do this there are some in Baltic countries because

00:53:12: there was a factory in Shaula in Lithuania producing them maybe they have some the factory

00:53:18: is not working for a long time I think it's closed since 90s but they could have those computers

00:53:26: there are some some of on ebay there are people who brought them from post-soviet countries

00:53:33: also from Ukraine and you can buy them it's not so easy and you could I think it's not possible

00:53:42: to find the find all models so what that guy could bring he brought or maybe there was a computer class

00:53:51: they wanted to destroy those computers but that guy paid them and got them it and it's quite

00:53:57: they're quite expensive here I think the working one is it can be more than 200 euros and it's also

00:54:06: delivery and but people people even get them I know a guy in the US who got it from Slovakia

00:54:14: I don't know I think he paid really quite a lot because of the delivery from the EU to the US

00:54:22: but yeah that's hard to get them now and also if you have one it's not guaranteed to work so for

00:54:30: example the one that you brought into the office which is looking very nice actually is not working

00:54:37: because there is stuff in there that is prone to breaking isn't it? Good question there is stuff

00:54:46: there which is more into but that actually was my fault because the keyboard it has cables and

00:54:56: those cables were so old and they got physically broken and when I tried to fix them there was a

00:55:05: static electricity and I broke the keyboard controller which is the ULA and that ULA's

00:55:11: are not produced for 30 more than 30 years that's a proprietary piece of that's that this computer

00:55:18: has a proprietary those proprietary ULA's and I think all of those pdp11 compatible computers

00:55:28: they have it and if that thing is broken it's hard to find them because they're not produced

00:55:35: at all and people who sell them there are some people selling them they sell leftovers and they

00:55:42: also can't be sure that that one you get is working of course they are like honest people and if it's

00:55:50: not working they return your money but it's also hard to get them and they're just of course there

00:55:57: is a FPGA project but you need to also not only solder so there is no like simple replica that

00:56:07: project is the guy from Ukraine he reversed engineered them he even cut the case to see the

00:56:16: the chip through the mic like on the microscope on the microscope and then he of course there was

00:56:24: there was some documentation from from the factories how it works and from from who made them but

00:56:33: if you need to make a replica you need to make very very very close you need to understand

00:56:38: what's happening there and that was really huge work but it's only on the github so to make it

00:56:45: working on this computer you need not only to solder you need to find put FPGA to kind of adapter

00:56:53: and put a proper pins and those pins are different for each of them so you cannot make the universal

00:57:00: one which will work on every so this one has two this one has a keyboard controller and the display

00:57:09: controller so this display and memory so it's like more like now we call it chipset so that one

00:57:15: but another one for example that's cool one I think it has six and three are different

00:57:23: that's the next version of this ula and it's really I actually don't know anyone who can

00:57:31: who can sell them or get them Eugene Boljakov thank you for coming here and for telling us about

00:57:39: this and also to people listening so this is a completely new and uncharted from from our

00:57:47: from our eyes uncharted territory so there's a lot of things you can do with this with community

00:57:53: work and with people supporting or trying to find out more about these computers and to

00:57:59: contact people who already have them I think it's worth looking into and I hope that there's coming

00:58:06: more in like like in English or you know like websites that maybe make this more transparent

00:58:13: to people or even to try to to to find like ones also now people leave Russia more and some of those

00:58:25: people who work with computers they live even more I mean and maybe some of them bring that

00:58:33: computers and there will be more here and maybe there will be a meet-up here there one of well

00:58:41: known guys in the demo scene he's now in Serbia and and I know he tries to show something there

00:58:50: and that's also like he's spreading this knowledge and other people are spreading this knowledge

00:58:55: so that's also I hope we I hope not all of them just will be destroyed for the gold

00:59:06: so thanks again and also I mean I could imagine to to get to to get back to the beginning of this

00:59:13: podcast I could imagine a community meeting of people who have electronic devices you don't

00:59:19: even have to have this computer I mean imagine a meet-up somewhere in Europe where people meet

00:59:24: who have electronic devices I could come with the electronic a pong or with my clock

00:59:28: or someone else could come with a small as a game and everybody could share the

00:59:32: electronic stuff and we would have a nice like communist day I don't know where I'm getting

00:59:38: with that so it's time to end this podcast Eugene thank you for visiting thank all of you for

00:59:44: listening and if you have topics suggestions suggestions and also critiques about my English

00:59:52: not about Eugene's please send them to podcast@guland.de