17 ms·

Great article. Wish he named some of those "obscure Eastern European computers". I know there are good communities around the Japanese microcomputers, the Sharp

• flohofwoe 8y ago
  You can check out some of the East German 8-bit computers and games for them on my tiny emulator page https://floooh.github.io/tiny8bit/ https://floooh.github.io/tiny8bit/: - KC85/2 to /4 these were 'original' designs, even though some ideas (like the pixel/color attribute RAMs) were inspired by the ZX Spectrum. A slower Z80 CPU (1.75 MHz) but higher pixel and color resolution (e.g. a 320x256 display, compared to the Spectrum's 256x192) - Z1013 was a most minimalistic Z80 home computer sold as a assemble-yourself-kit (the only East German computer that was really available and affordable for 'normal people') - the Z9001 (aka KC85/1, aka KC87) was somewhere inbetween the Z1013 and KC85/2 models - the KC Compact was an East German Amstrad CPC clone, but without custom chip (the custom gate array was 'emulated' with standard chips) The Soviet Union built a very interesting PDP-11 compatible 16 bit home computer (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronika_BK https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronika_BK), and impressive demos are still written for it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_pdp1QSp70 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_pdp1QSp70. There were also surprising number of ZX Spectrum clones built in Eastern Europe because they didn't require custom chips, some of those designs also improved on the original Spectrum design (for instance a higher color resolution) Bulgaria built an Apple II clone (and also built their own MOS 6502 and Motorola 6800 clone chips): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pravetz_computers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pravetz_computers ...and there's probably at least a dozen more computer models I have never heard of :)
  • bopbop 8y ago
    Ah, that's awesome! thanks!