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Pravetz Computers
- mobilio 6y agoThis was first computer i was using in school.
- flemhans 6y agoMine was the RC759 PICCOLINE: https://rc700.dk https://rc700.dk
- YuriNiyazov 6y agome too. Uzbekistan 1988
- ivankolev 6y agoYup, distinctly remember we had programming lessons in second grade on one of those, right before the regime fell. I am not sure if that was the reason I ended up writing software for a living but it sure did not hurt. Emphasis on science, technology and proper education was one of the very few positives of an otherwise deeply corrupt and nepotistic regime.
- smeldel 6y agoHere you can find all the different models of Pravetz http://www.pravetz.info http://www.pravetz.info it's in bulgarian but it's the most complete source of information
- konjin 6y agoOdd that the wiki page doesn't mention that the 8 bit series of computers were clones of the then current generation of apple computers gotten through industrial espionage. We had a friend in the security bureau who had some funny stories. Like the part that was most difficult to manufacture were the rainbow ribbon cables because the petroleum industry only produced primary color wires.
- smeldel 6y agoRead the history section, it's mentioned couple of times that the computers were clones of Apple II and IBM PC
- konjin 6y agoClones and industrial espionage are slightly different things.
- ColinWright 6y agoFirst line of the "history" section: "... developed by Ivan Vassilev Marangozov ... rightfully accused of cloning the Apple II"
- pvg 6y agoWags used to say the name of the prototype IMKO stood for 'Иван Марангозов Копира Оригинала' - 'Ivan Marangozov Copies the Original'
- duskwuff 6y ago> gotten through industrial espionage Espionage? Hardly. The manuals for most Apple II computers included full schematics.
- smeldel 6y agoAnd here you can find software for Pravetz computers: https://www.sandacite.bg/%D1%81%D0%BE%D1%84%D1%82%D1%83%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%BD%D0%B8-%D0%BF%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B4%D1%83%D0%BA%D1%82%D0%B8-%D0%B7%D0%B0-%D0%BF%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%B2%D0%B5%D1%86-%D0%BF%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B3%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%BC/?fbclid=IwAR2feV_sL7_OiYSwX_2jfli7WmO_KchuUY0ccRt1lG_07UmbgZCCy9oAXzA https://www.sandacite.bg/%D1%81%D0%BE%D1%84%D1%82%D1%83%D0%B...
- nexthash 6y agoThis line of computers is really a testament to the ingenuity of people from the Soviet Bloc at a time when resources were few. There's so many stories of them harnessing the limited computing/calculator power they had to play games, run simulations, and more. This era minted a generation of techies that formed the foundation of the tech industry there today. Here's some examples of the clever tricks these hackers did to push their machines to the limit: https://hackaday.com/2014/12/15/home-computers-behind-the-iron-curtain/ https://hackaday.com/2014/12/15/home-computers-behind-the-ir... https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/gaming-iron-curtain https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/gaming-iron-curtain https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-history/silicon-revolution/how-programmable-calculators-and-a-scifi-story-brought-soviet-teens-into-the-digital-age https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-history/silicon-revolution/ho...
- trianglem 6y agoThey literally cloned the Apple II, I think you’re giving them a little too much credit.
- nexthash 6y agoWith the resources they had (almost nothing) in the stilted, moribund economy of the Soviet Bloc, cloning the Apple II is quite an incredible technical achievement.
- pvg 6y agoIt was an eminently cloneable (and already old) computer, evolved from a hobbyist design. With state-level support, this is not by any means an 'incredible technical achievement' even for a small COMECON country (which had already produced things like IBM/360 clones, etc).
- nexthash 6y agoYeah, if you have the fab, circuit board manufacturing plant, and assembly plant then it is. Keep in mind that you are economically isolated from the rest of the world, forcing you to do things like copy designs to save time and limited resources for building the machines.
- karavelov 6y agoYes, this is how I learned programming Basic, assembly, Turbo Pascal (CP/M) and C on Pravetz 82M and 16. It was fun time. Some models of Pravetz 16 had a NEC CPU clone that was running substantially faster, if my memory serves me well 12 MHz vs 4 MHz for the Intel. They were widely available in the education system and there were optional classes to learn programming. Edit: I forgot the Pravetz 8D a friend had - they were available for purchase fro individuals. It had 4 channel audio synth and I programmed on it a drum-box for my teen rock band.
- somesortofsystm 6y agoStill got that 8D drum-box? ;P I have sort of a thing for the synth used, its also in the Oric-1/Atmos line of machines.
- pdimitar 6y agoI had Pravetz 82 (1MHz CPU and 64KB RAM, some of which used by the system) with 1-2x 5.25" floppy drives. It was between 1992 and 1996, and I was 12 to 16 year old during the period. Having small competitions with several boys in my small hometown that were about who is going to write the fastest program to calculate all 16-bit prime numbers (in machine code, obviously) will forever remain one of my sweetest and fondest memories. I am not a highly impressive programmer these days; in fact I am fairly mediocre and the only thing that might put me above the crowd -- occasionally, not all the time! -- is that I am an efficiency maniac with an excellent eye for simple and readable code. But in general and in terms of commercial programming, I am nothing special -- and I am OK with that. But, having a Pravetz 82 at such a young age definitely shaped my thinking in ways that help me in my life to this day.
- jacquesm 6y ago> I am an efficiency maniac with an excellent eye for simple and readable code That puts you well above the crowd.
- pdimitar 6y agoThank you for the very kind words. It seems my problem is that I am unable to monetize those skills. Everywhere I go, people want stuff yesterday and care not about quality. It's likely my fault for not aiming well when looking for employment.
- jacquesm 6y agoYes, but monetization of a capability is value capture, not value creation and you are clearly good at the second but not so good at the former. This is not at all uncommon, in art (in all its forms) it is even so common that it has become a stereotype: the artist that is starving whose works command insane sums after they pass away. It is also tied in to humility, and an inability to translate to others what the benefit of that attention to detail and quality will yield. I think the tide is turning though: Moore's law was the cheap way to devalue those skills: why bother optimizing something if you can wait for just a short while to get a better ROI than by spending the time getting it right? But now that Moore's law is at an end and software is more and more messy and fragile we may see a recurrence of attention to detail, quality and performance. I would consider the web a 'dead' zone for anything related to that other than at the very highest levels where the economies of scale are such that that attention to detail still gives an advantage. But software is so much larger than just the web. One domain in which quality is the make or break feature is in security, a small flaw will render a whole castle of work useless, similar attitudes are present with people working on medical hardware/software combos, avionics, rocketry and so on. If you can look wider than just the web and try to find a field which still operates closer to the metal, preferably in non-networked stuff, that's where there is still a market for your skills and there are fewer and fewer people that can do this.
- malkia 6y agoHoly - wasn't expecting this here. My father bought me in the 90s Правец 8Ц (Pravetz 8C), which was Apple ][ E clone (or something like this). Had 80 columns (PR#3), 128kb banked memory - awesome machine... and was more expensive than a russian car (according to my father). Growing up in Bulgaria, not really knowing what sold software means - we end up having most of our games cracked, and you'll be like - "Hey another cool game by the Merchant!" (no it wasn't the "Merchant" that made the game, it was "EA", or some other real company.. ."Merchant" were one of the hacking groups, replacing the original game logos with their own...) A bit later, round when communism fell or maybe later - even Bulgaria started producing it's own games... not really - same thing - "KARATEKA" - in cyrillic, or "MOON PATROL" as "Лунен Патрул" - and I think it was claiming it was done in my country (could be wrong though, they might've got the license after all!) It was so much fun to use it!
- malkia 6y agoHoly again - was curious whether someone has preserved cracking screens, and yes - http://artscene.textfiles.com/intros/APPLEII/kq2.gif http://artscene.textfiles.com/intros/APPLEII/kq2.gif - aha! whole list of them - http://artscene.textfiles.com/intros/APPLEII/ http://artscene.textfiles.com/intros/APPLEII/
- pdimitar 6y agoSo many sweet memories with Karateka and Moon Patrol -- and "The Fortress" I think, which is akin to Angry Birds / Crash the Castle. Wouldn't replace that part of my young adulthood for anything else! Also I was in a fairly small town and the community around computers was very supportive and hardcore.
- ununoctium87 6y agoAll the Bulgarians coming out in this thread Also had an 8C as a kid
- vittore 6y agoI remember those 7-colored green-on-green granpas, my school had them, and it was quite fun to work on them
- dzink 6y agoThe Pravetz 8 and 16 were the first computers I ever saw and used on school. We programmed in Basic and Turbo Pascal as well. This was around 1992. The 16s were attached to robotic arms that could be manipulated by the system.
- mobilio 6y agoRobco-1 was connected to 8bit computers
- marcodiego 6y ago"Pravetz 8М - Integrated second CPU Zilog Z80A at 4 MHz to be able to run CP/M and its software." I'd love to be able to buy and ARM cpu card, mostly a RPi with a pci car form factor, to plug into my main computer and run android programs without emulation. Considering development benefits of such a system, specially more complete ones with video output, why isn't it used these days?
- spijdar 6y agoHigh complexity and relatively low reward. There have been many attempts at these sorts of dual architectures through history, and they've mostly been abject failures for various reasons (there have been some dual PC/Mac designs from the 90s, those Sun PCI cards with 80386s built on them, etc) At the low end of complexity, you could put a raspberry pi on a pcie daughterboard and just power it off the slot, and maybe fake a NIC to the host for file transfer. That's not really any more useful than just having a separate, dedicated raspberry pi though. To be useful, you need to implement some sort of deeper synchronization. Perhaps you could have a shared memory aperture between the two systems, a virtio style interface (but physical, not virtual!) with the associated protocols for passing through files, visuals, etc. But it's all complicated and expensive, and in the end unless you're doing CPU level debugging and need to sync a debugger with low level CPU state, there's really not much advantage besides some space saving to just having a separate x/y/z on your desk.
- marcodiego 6y agoCool: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SunPCi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SunPCi didn't knew such thing was developed.
- ardy42 6y agoBack in the day, those types of cards were available, though a little uncommon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z-80_SoftCard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z-80_SoftCard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_IIe_Card https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_IIe_Card https://www.applerepairmanuals.com/the_manuals_are_in_here/PC_Compatibility_Card.pdf https://www.applerepairmanuals.com/the_manuals_are_in_here/P...
- ksherlock 6y agoMAME can emulate the Pravetz 82 and 8M. However, there are no known dumps of the character ROM so it uses the AGAT character ROM. If anyone happens to have a Pravetz 82 or 8M and wants to dump the character ROM, you can help end this injustice. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agat_(computer) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agat_(computer)
- stanislavb 6y agoI studied in the high school that was built to produce both hardware and software specialists that were going to further develop and support these computers and their software. It was great. We were studying material and subjects that were thought in universities (i.e. 3-5 years ahead in time). For example, I could work with binary numbers as a 11-12 years old kid as my older cousin thought me. I think 80% of the people that studied in that school ended up owners of IT companies or working as high-end tech specialists. For the record, at its peak the factory in Pravetz was producing 40% of all computers in the Soviet Union. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_computer_hardware_in_Bulgaria https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_computer_hardware_i...
- nspassov 6y agoWhich school is that?
- tammerk 6y agoI remember I loved it's keyboard. I really liked feeling back then, used to type even when computer was not on :) One generation of programmers learned programming with these, I remember schools had these computers, it was a privilege to have computers in schools back then when you think about it.
- rurdaneta 6y agofor more information on cybersecurity and how to keep your company safe, log on to demyo inc, you will find a wealth of valuable information. https://demyo.com/ https://demyo.com/
- helge9210 6y agoI learned Basic when I was in third grade (1988) on Pravetz 8M in DOSAAF. The was Russian analog called Agat without screen and worse hardware. It's funny that during Soviet Union times even Bulgaria was technologically more advanced, than Soviet Union itself.
- buescher 6y agoI remember the BYTE magazine article on the Agat: https://archive.org/stream/byte-magazine-1984-11/1984_11_BYTE_09-12_New_Chips#page/n135/mode/2up https://archive.org/stream/byte-magazine-1984-11/1984_11_BYT... The industrial design of it really stuck in my mind. Red!
- jansan 6y agoPravetz was coincidentally the birth place of Todor Zhivkov, the leader of the People's Republic of Bulgaria. If you know how rampant nepotism and corruption was during socialist time (even more than today), you will now that this was no coincidence at all. Also, here is a nice quote from Zhivkov that he said during the opening ceremony of Bulgaria's first semi conductor factors: "This year - a factory of semiconductors. Next year - a factory of full conductors."
- Arech 6y ago> "This year - a factory of semiconductors. Next year - a factory of full conductors." That's awesome))) Reminds me of one internal soviet joke about soviet-made microchips. That things called in Russian like "сверхбольшие интегральные схемы"-"superbig integral circuts". Don't know if the West used exactly the same term or just "integral circuts", but the joke was around that "superbig" adjective: "Soviet superbig integral circuts are the biggest in the world!". And if a listener didn't readily undestand the salt, one should clarify: "They have not only 16 legs /*connectors*/ but also a 2 carry handles".
- cryptoquick 6y agoI would imagine that's similar to VLSI, Very Large Scale Integration?
- Arech 6y agoWell, almost, I guess. Wiki says that VLSI is a process, and the thing I was talking about is the result of this process, a final product.