The Agat-9 has six slots (according to sergey these slots are NOT compatible with Apple II carts!). There were a lot of add-on carts for the Agat-9 like memory expansion, FDC, parallel/serial cart and even network carts. The Agat machine was designed as an educational computer but it was also used in research laboratories as a cheap process control machine. A Agat-9 network called "KUVT Agat" was used in educational environments. It has a KR580VV55A (i8255A clone, 3-channel PIO chip) and a KR580VV51A (i8251 clone) built in.

Mac Buster told me a slightly different story about the Agat: Some days ago I have been reading an article in a book about soviet personal computers and found that Agat wasn't actually made as an Apple ][ clone. Engineers made it just similar to it. Soviet Union never produced 6502 clone and so developers had to buy these CPUs from India and Mexico (this can be resolved from writings on the CPU). 580WW55A is i8255A clone, 580WW51A is i8251 clone. These chips are not CPUs. Whole KR580 serie of ICs is set of 580WM80A CPU (older version has been marked 580IK80) and chipset for this CPU (clones of i82xx serie by Intel). There are only one exception - 580WM1 an advanced i8080 which has no analog in original Intel's serie. I heard some people used this CPU to replace old 580WM80 because it was 100% pin compatible, utilised same structure and commands set, but had ~100 new commands and one extra 16-bit register.

Technical Overview:
Year: 1983	CPU: ??? (6502)
RAM/ROM: 128kB / 16kB	Clone: Apple II+
Colors: b/w - 16	Resolution: 512x256 - 128x128

Электроника БК-0010-01 (Elektronika BK-0010-01)
The BK-0010-01 was very much the same machine as the BK-0010 but it has a "real" keyboard. The BK-0010 / BK-0010-01 also have a ROM-Slot like the BK-0011M.

According to Paul Romanchenko the BK-0010-01 has a total of 32kB RAM that is divided into two regions: 16kB user space and 16kB screen area.

The 32kB ROM contains built-in BASIC interpreter (dialect Vilnus Basic). It has 4 colors in "low-res" mode (32 col x 24 rows), 2 colors in "hi-res" mode (62 col x 24 rows). BK-0010-01 is built after BK-0010, which has the same characteristic, but has only 8Kb ROM and hasn't built-in Basic. The FOCAL language was distributed in separate ROM block which connected via special socket.

Электроника БК-0011M (Elektronika BK-0011M)
In 1990 the BK-0011M was released as an extended version of the BK-0010. The main difference from the earlier models was that a disk drive could be connected to the BLK-0011M. It was now possible to run ANDOS.

The BK-0011M has a very basic kind of "ROM-Slot" on the left side - after the plastic cover is removed two eproms/roms can be inserted directly into their sockets (see detail picture). If you take a closer look at the PCB you will see that there is only one empty socket whereas the detail picture shows two of them. This is due to the fact that the empty socket on the PCB is connected via a ribbon cable with the two sockets from the detail picture.

Serge Timakov provided this infos:
"- FOCAL (FOrmula CALculator) where operators were single letters ( F for "FOR", etc.). This language was interpreted.

- Vilnius BASIC. Vilnius is a Baltic city you know. It was a quite advanced version of BASIC that featured runtime compiler (your entire program would be synthax checked and compiled as you type 'RUN') as well as operators to save/load programs and data to/from the tape recorder.

It really had 32KB RAM onboard but by pressing 'Expanded memory' button you could send it to the mode when only 4 lines of text were displayed on screen, and saved video RAM was added to available memory.

There were quite lot of programs distributed on tapes by half-legal 'cooperatives'. I bought a word processor and even a rudimentary C compiler (!) this way.

TV set was used as display but on most Soviet-made TVs video-in jack was missing so you had to take a soldering iron and make it yourself. Upgrade schemes for most popular TVs were published in press around. "

Technical Overview:
Year: 1985	CPU: K1801BM1-3
RAM/ROM: 16kB / 32kB	Clone: -
Colors: b/w or 4	Resolution: 512x256 or 256x256

According to Igor Stratienko the Elektronika MC1502 is an XT-clone. Based on KR1810VM86 CPU(i8086) and have specific, specially developed chipset(system memory shared with built-in CGA compatible adapter and many other funny things). This MSX-like case is originally developed for MC0511/UKNC(УКНЦ) education computer system. For more pictures have a look at the web pages [Sergei Frolov].

I received this infos about the MC1502: "it seems for me that this computer isn't msx clone, but a dec one..... i worked at home with electronica-60 (and electronica-100) these were DEC PDP-11 clones with RT-11 operation system and son on..... Electronica-100 was with 2 KP1801BM? CPUs ...."

Technical Overview:
Year: 1985	CPU: К1810ВМ88 (i8088 clone)
RAM/ROM: 128kB / ?? kB	Clone: XT
Colors: ???	Resolution: ???

Due to the hand-made nature of this PC it is hard to find a picture of a Micro-80.

according to Kirill Kukarkin the 8-bit CPU K580VM80 used for the Radio-86 is a clone of Intel 8080A. It has 16/32 Kb RAM, 4Kb ROM, 25x80 monochrome display (TV) and used tape recorder as external ROM. Based on Radio-RK schematic the following PCs were industry produced: Microsha, Krista, Electronica KR01…04 with a insignificant modification in electric scheme and BIOS. The additional adapters designed in 1987 – 1992 allowed to produce sound, add color display, attach FDD, attach ROM modules.

According to Sergey in 1989-1991 (during the perestroyka) many of these systems were sold in assembled form as a mass-market product. In the earlier days the RK-86 was mainly available in kit form.

In contrast to the many sinclair clones of this time the Radio-86RK has a Intel 8080 compatible (some sources say reengineered, some say officially licensed ?) CPU called КР580ВМ80А (KR580WM80A) .

(Has anyone a better picture?)

Technical Overview:
Year: 1989	CPU: KR580VM80A (8080A)
RAM/ROM: 32/64kB / 32kB	Clone: RK-86
Colors: b/w	Resolution: text only

It was made by Lianozov Electromechanical Factory. The CPU is a KP580BM80A (8080 clone) running at 1.8 MHz.

Pavel Dovgaluk worte to me: "I have two versions of this computer in my collection: Apogey BK-01 and another one, that you wrote as Apogey BK-01Z. This "Z" (as you wrote it) means "color". Both of these computers are based on the russian clone of the i8080 CPU (KP580BM80). They both have 56.25K of RAM, 4K of ROM, 2.5K of VRAM. They have only one text mode 64x25. The only difference between these computers, that the first one has only two colors (black and white), and the second (color) computer has 8 colors. "

Аркаша (Arkasha)
Nothing is know about this machine besides that it is a "RK-86"-clone.

(does anyone know how the four versions differ?)

Elektronika KR-01 is a "Do It Yourself" kit. Computer has 16k or 32k of RAM and based on KR580IK80A

According to "Mac Buster" the Orion-128 was built in many different versions by many companies and actually this was the reason for its low popularity - different FDC controllers, memory expansions (up to 256k), ROM disks (ROM with software) and sound boards were incompatible.

The schematic was published in 1990 in a magazine for HAM radio enthusiasts called "Radio". I did not find any hints that the machine was ever sold in assembled form as a mass-market product but I think that it was available at least in kit form. (can someone verify this?)

In contrast to the many sinclair clones of this time the Orion-128 has a Intel 8080 compatible (reengineered ?) CPU called КР580ВМ80А. The Orion has a TV-output and uses a tape recorder as mass-storage device. In 1992 a disk-drive extension was available and a CP/M 80 version was developed and so a wide range of software could be used.

(Has anyone a better picture?)

Technical Overview:
Year: 1990	CPU: KR580VM80A (8080A)
RAM/ROM: 28kB / 2kB	Clone: -
Colors: 16	Resolution: 384x256

Igor Stratienko added: "Poisk" - cheap and not fully compatible IBM PC clone. Many hardware functions are emulated via BIOS(e.g. video adapter text mode).

Was the Poisk-System compatible to any other system?

According to an email the Poisk "is an incomplete clone of a IBM XT"

Technical Overview:
Year: 1991	CPU: KM1810VM88 (8088)
RAM/ROM: 128kB / 16kB	Clone: similair to XT
Colors: b/w - 4	Resolution: 640x200

According to Kirill Kukarkin the electric scheme for the Specialist was published in the “Modelist-Konstruktor” (“Models-Construction”) magazine. Some small companies started the industrial production of this PC. RAM 32/48 KB, display 25x80 text, 384x256mono graphic (TV connected). Used tape recorder as external ROM.

• LIK-02 has 2k ROM
• LIK-03 has 6k ROM
• LIK-04 has 12k ROM

Early versions of the LIK come with an membran keyboard (see picture) - I am not sure if this membrane keyboard corespondes to any special version of the LIK.

Technical Overview:
Year: KR580WM80A 2MHz	CPU: KR580WM80A
RAM/ROM: 32k or 48k kB / 2k, 6k, or 12k kB	Clone: none
Colors: bw	Resolution: 384x256

Some facts: 128kB Memory, support for floppy disk, same case as Корвет (Korvet), external power supply

Technical Overview:
Year: 1987	CPU: KM580VM80M (8080)
RAM/ROM: 64-386kB / 96kB	Clone: none
Colors: ?	Resolution: ?

Here are some interesting notes from "Hard Wisdom":
4 simultaneous colors from a palette of .... quite hard to describe: here the source to compute actual color from four screen colors and a 8-bit palette index.

// - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 
enum {BLACK=0, BLUE=1, GREEN=2, RED=4}; 

// - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 
int LVOV20_PAL::ComputeColor(int PalettePort, int LvColor) { 
 int Result=BLACK;        if   (PalettePort&0x40)  Result^=BLUE; 
                          if   (PalettePort&0x20)  Result^=GREEN; 
                          if   (PalettePort&0x10)  Result^=RED; 
 switch (LvColor) {default:                                       break; 
  case 0:                 if (!(PalettePort&0x08)) Result^=RED; 
                          if (!(PalettePort&0x04)) Result^=BLUE;  break; 
  case 1: Result^=GREEN;                                          break; 
  case 3: Result^=RED;    if (!(PalettePort&0x02)) Result^=GREEN; break; 
  case 2: Result^=BLUE;   if (!(PalettePort&0x01)) Result^=RED;   break; 
 } return Result; 
} 

Technical Overview:
Year: 1986	CPU: KR580WM80A or KR155
RAM/ROM: 64kB / 8 kB	Clone: none
Colors: 4	Resolution: 256x256

Нейрон (Neiron)
The Neiron was a very interesting machine designed as a workstation with a graphical user inerface and a mouse! Mac Buster: I remember one talk to a man about soviet computers and he said: "If we compare Macintosh and Neiron, then Macintosh developers will be shamed". The base model has 4MB of memory and was based on an advanced version of 1801WM1 CPU running at 18MHz.

Sounds interesting! I would like an further infos and especialy a picture

• 1987: Вектор-06ц (Vector-06C)
• 1991: Вектор-06ц.02 (Vector-06C.02)
• 19??: Вектор-06ц 1200 (Vector Start 1200)
• 199?: Вектор-06ц-a (Vector-A) [unconfirmed]
• 199?: Вектор Турбо+ (Vector Turbo+) [unconfirmed]

From Viacheslav Slavinsky I got these infos:
"It was a pretty computer. It had nice soft keyboard, somewhat similar to high end soviet computers of the time.
The ROM was very small and it was copied into RAM upon startup. It had no BASIC interpreter so you should have loaded one from tape, but you were not limited by ROM manufacturers. With full 64K of RAM there was plenty of software - several versions of BASIC, Forth and such.
The graphics (I do not remember the resolution) was amazing. It could display 16 colours at once out of 256 colour palette. For a home computer of the time it was mindblowing.
If I'm not mistaken, this computer was not a clone of anything, thus no software could be easily ripped. There were groups of enthusiasts who developed software for Vector. A vast range of development tools was available as well as games. Some of them were clones of popular games, some were original."

According to Jüri the Vector Start-1200 series was available in 1991.

"I can tell, that it was really nice computer in these days. It uses a KR580WM80A CPU and had 64kB RAM. 32KB were available for software 0h-7FFFh, even less, because as I remember somethere from 7...-7FFFH was OS called Monitor that was loaded there from ROM on startup Video - 32KB (8000h-FFFFh) was arranged as 256x256x16 or 512x256x4

First 100h of RAM was for 8 CPU interrupt commands adresses 00h, 20h,40h.... Basic interpreter itself took from 100h-2x00h something memory. Max basic progam length was something around 18kB. Good graphical text editor was also included in monitor Output was RGB, that I connected to 22' TV, parallel port for printer

There was also good manual for asm programmiing, i.e. descriptions of all entry points of Monitor. functions."

Technical Overview:
Year: 1987	CPU: КР580ВМ1
RAM/ROM: ?kB / ?kB	Clone: none
Colors: ?	Resolution: 512*256 (?)

The Hobbit is a russian clone of the Sinclair Spectrum - even the CPU is a russian clone. It has some additional features like: a CP/M mode, a "Shadow mode" containing the BASIC extensions (the default "BASIC" configuration was Basic with traps from the Shadow ROM, allowing TR-DOS, networking and internationalization to work). Additional EEPROM configurations were possible - either LOGO or FORTH system. The hottest thing about Hobbit is, doubtless, its FORTH-system mode, which was not there in the older machine. [Hobbit-Page]

The early version of the Hobbit is a very limited "edition" of Hobbit. It was stopped being manufactured around early 1990, when InterCompex totally switched to the later version with the numeric keypad.

One of the machines Roelof owns has a mainboard with only one dedicated CMOS chip that contains all necessary parts for a Spectrum Clone. The technologie used is much more advanced than the ULA technologie and looks like it came from spaceflight.

Some has TurboMode (7MHz, Z80B or Z80H), modem, CMOS-clock, kempston mouse, 2x AY, SoundDrive or Covox (first soundcards in russia), TurboMode for B-Disk Interface, 2HD format and so on... A 8 or 16K cache is also available to speed-up the disc operations. The new Beta-128 controller also use the HD disks with 1,7M capacity.

The current standard configuration is a Pentagon 512 Turbo, with 2 FDD (5.25" or 3,5") and Kempston mouse is standard. The most advanced version comes with a 7 MHz CPU (Z80B or Z80H) and 512K RAM. Two disc drives and a mouse comes as standard with this model.""

The HCM has a ver similair looking machine namen Парус ВИ-201 (Парус = PARUS = "Sail") in its collection - this machine produces a startscreen that looks like it was made by "Didaktik Skalica" (TLINK) - war was a just a ROM-Transfer?

Another very interesting fact Roelof Koning mentions is that russian spectrum clone often contain white ceramic eproms - these eproms are military products and far too expensive to be "regularly" build in. Does that mean that all these machines are build in so called "side-rooms" (German: Nebenräume - what mean something like "inofficial")?

Tomasz Orczyk kindly translated the very interesting auction text by TzOk:

The Triumph of the Soviet engineers for year 1991 - at last they have managed to copy (maybe not perfectly) a great personal computer - the famous ZX Spectrum (by the way - made by the "imperialists" 9 years earlier).

Russian scientists went even further - they have equipped their PC in Russian diacritical signs - cyrillic and because of that, typing the command BORDER 8, results in displaying an error message, but not ILLEGAL COLOUR, instead we get "oshibka svieta".

Anyway, there is a possibility to turn this computer into "normal" mode, where messages are being displayed in English. For fans of Spectrum I'll mention that original circuit, managing (mosly) picture displaing, so called ULA (Uncommited Logic Array) was cleverly replaced by "just" two dozens of different UIC (Unidentified Integrated Circuits). Display circuit is working hardly satisfactory - displayed picture has even worse quality than on original Spectrum (maybe you need to use "Rubin" TV set), however this computer has an RGB output - ther's certainly better picture eith it (yet, I had no chance to check it).

Developement of Russian electronics caused leaving vacum tubes behind and letting integrated circuits to do the job instedad, yet they are not very integrated, because the dimensions of the chassis are determined by the dimensions of the mainboard, on which they have placed 80 (eighty) chips!!! Keyboard makes a professional look (but in fact after typing 1 kByte of text you start feeling your fingertips overexhausted), well minimal pressing force was probably adapted to the timberman (I'd ever say - Russian timberman) - about 20 times more than in average keyboard.

Manual gives us essential information for correct operation - we may find out, that computer weigh 4,5kg (with power supply unit - about 6kg), consumes 30 Watts, has a computing power of 875e3 and what is absolutely essential - how much gold, silver and palladium does it contain (with an accuracy of 0,0001g).

Technical Overview:
Year: 1991	CPU: UA800
RAM/ROM: 48kB / 16kB	Clone: Spectrum
Colors: 8	Resolution: ?

Other Spectrum Clones:

"Поиск", "Вектор" - 200р. "БК", "Электроника", Искра, ЕС - 1840/41, Нейрон, Искра, Байт, Квант, Агат, Апогей, Бинар

АПОГЕЙ БК-01	APOGEE BQ-01
СУРА	Sura
Нейрон	Nerion
Радио-86РК	Radio-86RK
ЮТ-88 [дополнительная информация]	UT-88
Специалист MX	Spetialist MX
Орион-128	Orion-128
Вектор-06Ц [дополнительная информация]	Vector-06C
Пылдин-601 [дополнительная информация]	Pyldin-601
Пылдин-601У	Pyldin-601U
Пылдин-601А	Pyldin-601A
Пылдин-601М	Pyldin-601M
Пылдин-601Т	Pyldin-601T
Специалист	Specialist
Лик	Lik
Микроша	Mikrosha
Партнёр 01.01	Partner 01.01
Микро-80	Mikro-80
Апогей БК-01	Apogey BK-01
Башкирия-2М [Улучшено] [дополнительная информация]	Bashkiria-2M
Львов ПК-01	Lvov PK-01 CPU= 580ВМ80

Орион-128
ЦП - КР580ВМ80А (аналог Intel8080); Разрядность - 8 бит; Быстродействие - 500 тыс.операций/сек; ОЗУ - 128(256)Кб (для пользователя); ПЗУ - 2Kб (загрузчик и монитор); Графический режим - 384x356; Текстовый режим - 25 строк / 64 симв.; Цвет - 16 цветов; Устройство отображения - телевизор; Внешняя память - кассетный магнитофон и дисковод; Операционная система - СР/М-80 (дисковая), OR-DOS (магнитофон);
Orion-128 TSCP - KRSHCH80VM80A (analog Of intel8080);Word length - 8 bits;Speed - 500 tys.operatsiy/sek;OZU - y28(2shch')Kb (for the user);PZU - 2Kb (charger and monitor);Graphic regime/conditions - e8yakheshch';Text regime/conditions - 25 lines/of 64 simv.;Color - 16 colors;Display unit - television set;Auxiliary storage - cassette tape recorder and disk drive;Operating system - Sr/m-80 (disk), Or- pill box (tape recorder);

Infos from Igor Stratienko:

• UKNC(УКНЦ) - "Учебный Комплекс Научного Центра", educational network computer system. Based on MC0511 computer(but UKNC-01 based on "Korvet").
• MC0511 is very advanced(for 80`s) computer: it have two 1801VM2 16-bit processors(CPU and graphics/peripheral processor), 192KB RAM (96KB system and 96 video), 640x288 8-color graphics, nice sound. In short: "Russian Amiga". But low production quality makes it unreliable and then unpopular.

Infos about electronica-60 / 100

WS> Were the electronica-60 / 100 you mention small Home-Computers or larger WS> computers? It's hard to classify cleanly. UK-NC was targeted as a computer for schools, it was more expensive then BK-0010 (and others), but it was available for usual men at stores. So.... yes, it was a de luxe home computer. As for PDP-11 architecture at the USSR it was presented by broad range of computers from large ones like CM-2, CM-4, CM-1600 to small ones like DVK-2, DVK-3, DVK-3M, Electronica-60 and so on. (Even large models like CM-2 (clones of DEC PDP/VAX line) were smaller then mainframes like EC-1020, EC-1033 (clones of IBM 360/370 line)). BTW, CM stands for "small series" in russian or "serija malyh". I can't describe cleanly directions of computerisation at USSR cause there was no clean direction :-(((

Infos about DVK

DVK series (these can be threated like de lux home computers too, but I never seen them in stores... maybe these rather intelligent terminals/large personal computers ? dunno, but schools had these too) were with pluggable tape recorders, 5" floppy disks, hard drives, but without the graphical mode. MC-0511 UK-NC was with graphical only mode (VT-like text mode was emulated by the secondary CPU), 5" pluggable floppy drives and tape recorder, monitor was pluggable too. MC-0511 has 64 kB RAM (which can be extended to 296 kB ?). As I said before, it has 2 CPUs, one for real work and one for emulation of PDP peripherals (even graphic primitives where emulated through terminal I/O ports and ESCape language). HW> it seems for me that this computer isn't msx clone, but a dec one..... I was mistaken, MC-1502 seems to be IBM PC clone and MC-0511 is DEC PDP clone. So, a small change in digits on case can reflect vast change of internals inside.

Electronica UK-NC: Industry produced PC. Had 2! CPU K1801VM2. 192 Kb RAM, 32 Kb ROM. Connection to tape recorder, adapter for FDD drive.