Forget for a moment that we now all have a supercomputer in our pockets... having a desktop computer that we can program ourselves in BASIC was amazing in itself... but when those computers became hand-held was pretty close to a miracle.
That's an amazing little computer! It reminds me so much of the Tandy/Sharp pocket computers but... I mean... it's PDP-11 compatible! Hypothetically that thing can run UNIX!
I still have two of the pocket computers from back then! A tandy PC3 and a sharp PC1403 (If I recall the model right of the sharp). The PC3 was an almost perfect form factor for the time. I love that little machine. I've actually been considering building something similar using a modern risc chip and an old, low power matrix LCD.
Neat. I definitely think this qualifies as "original" rather than a clone. Externally, it reminds me of the (deservedly) short-live Texas Instruments CC-40 that I had in High School. PDP-11 compatibility in a pocket PC, though? That's really cool. My high school had a PDP-11 (until I fried the core memory by shutting it down in the wrong order), but it was a full-size 19" rack. Until now, the smallest PDP-11 I knew of was the PDP-11/03, which was a tower PC format.
Well, this is not totally a PDP-11, more a compatible machine, but here we agree it is not a clone, although this was very much inspired by Sharp devices.
The power supply connector looks like the same kind that was used on a lot of Elektronika calculators in the 80s and 90s. I have an MK-61 with the same power connector and it came with a D2-10M 5 volt power supply. Thanks for making these videos, it's rare to find such comprehensive information about these fascinating computers in English!
Oh, I like that. I'll have to try finding myself one. It looks heavily inspired by the sharp pocket computers Thank you so much for all your work, stay safe
I love how it says BEJSIK (phonetically) in the menu :) The looks reminds me of Sharp portable computers of the 80s and I would not be surprised if it would be at least a visual copy of a western machine, or if it would be inspired by one. The Электроника Б1-011 turntable was inspired by the Thorens TD-125 + SME-3009 turntable and tonearm combintaion, and the Электроника 004 (and Олимп 005) were pretty much the clones of the Revox A700 reel to reel deck, released with a slight (about 10-12 year) delay :)
Awesome! It seems someway a Pocket PC from Casio or Sharp, even the memory bank powered by an internal battery. In example, the Casio PB-100 (about 1982/83... I received mine in Xmas '85, and it still works) used a memory card powered by a small battery. It was quite slimmer, compared with the ones shown in the video, and came in 2k and 4k bytes flavor. Also the connector for the dock station etc. is (almost?) identical to the Casio ones. However the display of this soviet beauty is much bigger.... and the keyboard is a nightmare, you're right, it took me a good time to find the "C" character LOL Very enjoyable and nice video, please don't stop!!! 🙂
This is probably one of the coolest items of soviet tech. :o If I was in high school or whatever, coming in with something like this to use in math class would be quite amusing. University is obviously fully standardized on Ti calculators though. The desktop computers are neat but they're not quite as unique as this thing. Stuff like the BK-0010/0011 are cool too but probably a good bit more involved to get going, needing different power than the US and I imagine being SECAM standard for color applications. I've messed with those in an emulator and they're definitely neat, but i think this calculator is even more interesting.
There were some very nice Russian analog multi-meters (VOMs) on the market in the 80s, the repair kits they came with were quite comprehensive, enabling people in remote places to repair a broken meter.
Glad to hear that! You are warmly welcome - there is a lot more. Do not forget to check the other episodes of the series, they are even more interesting.
Some dude called Artem uploaded a video today playing "bad apple" on one of these, which ran surprisingly fluid and even had sound. YT randomly recommended me his video and that's how I ended up here
You know, no offense, but such comments pretty much demotivate me. I have no idea who CuriousMarc is (or better to say I have been on his page once when someone mentioned - opened and closed). Just once again this comparison... What we do is a result of a work in the Zone (which I find a pretty special background), and I'd like to show you guys e.g. a walk through the Red Forest, but I cannot, because of the war information policy. Therefore, for now - tech videos based on what we have seen there.
I would love the see a teardown of this beauty. Maybe a full teardown, not on this one, but on one with a failed/broken LCD. It would be a bummer to damage the LCD connections on this perfectly preserved specimen.
In a couple of hours we'll finish uploading a Patreon version, there will be some details about internals we could find. The thing is, even with broken display this costs ±200$, and that is The Unicorn to find even in that condition...
I had an MK52, which was programmed in machine code directly. May sound terrible, but playing with it in high school was great fun. I could only dream of a BASIC pocket computer like this.
That's a great looking little portable computer! It's a shame about the keyboard, but not uncommon for handheld devices to have an alphabetic keyboard in English speaking countries during the 80s and 90s. I remember having an electronic organiser during the 90s that did, and it was really annoying to use too!
Love it! I collected some old Sharp devices similar to this, for example the “Memowriter” which has a little thermal printer. I bought several on eBay and managed to make one working one from the parts. Imagine a word processor with calculator buttons which would print on receipt paper. These “pocket computers” were kind of absurd because of their tiny keyboards, but I still love the concept.
I have a Sharp PC-1350 which looks sort of similar albeit a smaller display. It runs interpreted BASIC in addition to calculator mode. Could save programs to tape and has serial port and could print out to a little thermal dot matrix printer.
This absolutely reminds me of one of the pocket computers the 8bitguy had on a while back, one model I swear had almost the exact same functions (quick keys for basic commands, alphabetic order keyboard) but I think the screen was different, could be this was a clone of one of those with a better screen or something
The design style looks like the pocket computers Sharp made, but they didn’t produce anything with a screen close to as big as that. That’s a really cool computer!
What a such nice mini pocket computer. I watch your videos for a bit long and giving you likes but I subscribed your channel in this one. You and your partner are so great presenting old soviet tech stuffs in a lovely and humble way. Congratulations. Please make a video about Nixie tubes, as I am a nixie enthusiast and I have so many nixie clocks projects that will come soon in my channel. Thanks! Keep it up!
Thank you! We have a couple of videos about nixie-based devices, such as Dina weighing scale and RKb4-1eM radiometer. Check them out! However, soon will be something more :)
My university professor has that computer he won it in his student year USSR (Lenin order gift). it worked "basic" and OS excellent optimized with hardware.
As others have said it's reminiscent of Sharp pocket computers of that era. It looks like an original design influenced heavily by the Sharp products. I bought a Sharp EL-5500II and docking printer in the early '80s. I instantly recognized the stamped aluminum cover, buttons, sliding cover and even the docking plotter ( 10:34 ). The MK-90 is obviously a much more powerful machine. The EL-5500II had a smaller display for lines of text only, ran Basic, and as I remember, had 2K of internal memory.
Would be interested to see your "Soviet Design Top 10" to recognize features of Soviet-designed computers/robotics that you think are elegant, beautiful, or even worth repeating as design concepts. Everyone knows about the "overengineering" and it's easy to make fun of it. What is more interesting is when Alex and Michaela give praise to certain designs. Such a list could even function as an inspiration to those who might want to preserve the best aspects of Soviet/Slavic computing for new devices.
To be honest, it is a tricky question. We are not fans of Soviet tech, however, we explore it as it is a context field of our research environment. Nevertheless, some things can form such a list; let us think.
How much better the world could be today if the engineers, scientists, artists, musicians, and other creators across the political divide would have been allowed to work together without interference from the politicians. Whatever it was that fascinated me about tech growing up in the 70s that led me to a career in engineering, it included a thirst for anything Soviet. Being in America, I had to settle for rumors and vague and rather bad Western artists renderings. Now, several decades later, I'm finally able to scratch that itch thanks to this wonderful channel. Thank you Alex for bringing this to us.
ABOUT! I remember this computer! At our place of work, in our department (late 80s), one guy bought it, and everyone envied him. Did you ask if it's a clone, or an original design? A few years earlier (circa 1984) I bought myself an Elektronika engineering calculator (the size of a credit card, in a plastic case), designed in exactly the same style. And many other products of this corporation looked similar, so I think they had their own technical design department, and they tried to maintain their laconic style.
Having a PDP-11 in a pocket must give a strange feeling.... Never heard of this architecture being implemented in a such small form factor, at least not commercially. But it's a wise choice for a basis for making scientific instruments. Also, the screen looks pretty nice, sharp, wide viewing angle.
I came back to rewatch this video and it makes me curious what the target market for the device at the time was. Like what type of person in the USSR would have been seen using one when it was new? Similar things in the west were popular with middle class businessmen like my dad. I remember being fascinated with his folding Casio Digital Diary as a kid. Thanks! This is definitely my favorite new channel!
Disclaimer: only a guess here. Suppose they counted very much on that interface connector, and creating various devices on its basis, which not that much happened. Using a term "target market" would be a bit questionable for a socialistic country prior 1986-7, however, back in the times when this was created, state factories were moving to self-financing and they could consider that some organizations would be interested in that, so they could get profit.. About individuals... some maybe could afford that, but supposedly it was the same as with industrial-made computers, as e.g. Poisk computers costed comparable, but they nevertheless were sold. Not en-masse, but sold. This is really interesting question. Very different times these were. PS: check the latest video - I believe you will love it :)
@@ChernobylFamily Thank you for the info. I really appreciate the added context. Watching your newest video about the market in Kyiv is actually what brought me back to here. I really hope I'll have the chance to visit there someday and find something fun to bring home. Please keep up the great content. I'll be joining your Patreon soon.
Well, a detail is it is a consumer/business computer actually, its use as a part of a gamma-spectrometer was more a weird case (not the single example, but industiral use was more an exception)
I love these small computers. I used to have one in the late 80s. But it was CASIO or something. For the sound in this computer, try the BEEP command. This should produce a default beep. Sometimes the BEEP accepts more arguments, for time and frequency. Maybe you can use the integrated HELP command to get more information?
Thank you for your help! This is a pretty old video (so check also our newer!) so we don't have this device anymore, but if we get one again we will try that for sure - as we swill would love to have MK-92 dock station.
Some comparable American and Japanese models had many of the same shortcomings of this one. The screen size seems to be a huge improvement on western equivalents.
I can't find the twin of the MK-90, but the MK-85's twin is the Casio FX-700P. The MK-90 screen size, but not the layout, reminds me of the Casio FX-7000G.
So, MK90 by itself is a cool toy, but there is literally 0 reviews/videos or even texts somehow touching the topic of SEG-M and SEG-2ML spectrometers. If ya'r able to make one it would be extremely interesting due to the fact that each and every machine that utilize MK90's top I/O port is extremely rare and hardly even mentioned. I have seen one or two pics of full complects of the SEG spectrometers in the net. Also, 0 documentation available about it, but i have seen pics once that technical documentation in printed form does exist for those devices. If you is able to obtain docs, scan them and share it would be decent also, cuz it is interesting part of history of early independence era attempts of production of such devices which were forgotten nowadays.
I had several Sharp Pocket Computers back in the '80s, and this device seems to have a very similar concept, at least in physical terms. Evidently the architecture is quite different, given the choice of CPU, though. A notable quirk of the Sharp units was the use of BCD floating point arithmetic, a very calculator-like way of doing things - I would imagine that the MK-90 probably didn't go down that path.
Mind that the Sharp pocket computers had much less powerful CPUs, e.g., the PC-1211 ran on two 4-bit CPUs. A PDP-11 on-a-chip based design would have been insanely expensive in the West, as well. Regarding BCD arithmetic, I've read somewhere that the MK-90 used this as well, which, while avoiding floating point rounding errors, also made this slower than you may expect. (This should be very appropriate for a spectrometer application, though.) But I may confuse this with another Elektronika BASIC pocket computer that mimicked a Casio pocket computer, but was actually based on a PDP-on-a-chip, as well, which involves some hilarious over-engineering, if you think about it. (I think, the BCD arithmetic was a carry-over from DEC BASIC, which is the ancestor of most BASICs around, incl. MS BASIC.) Having said that, while there wasn't even a faintly similar machine in the West, the industrial design owes much to the Sharp PCs. (Just look at the sides! The docking unit, however, is very much not like anything sold by Sharp.)
Well, this is from Belarus, as far we know, not Russia :) I'll be honest, I never ever wrote anything on BASIC, so for me it is a little bit hard to say with confidence; there were 3 versions of BASIC for this, it has kinda 60 operators implemented.
It looks pretty similar to some calculator my dad had back in 1990. He also had a small ”reciept” printer on it which required some special heat sensitive paper. Not sure of the brand.
@@ChernobylFamily That hefty price of over 1,000 rubles is retail for retail stores, where ordinary customers could purchase goods. When businesses making orders from wherehouses they're getting perks: wholesale prices, discounts, sales tax exemption, etc. Nuclear power station getting a lot of perks for sure for being a unique.
@@ChernobylFamilyAt ChNPP a head of supply chain department made a phone call to a corresponding ministery and order delivered ASAP, nobody concerned about prices then.
@@ChernobylFamilyWhen I was in junior college in our IT department were a various programmable calculators. Actually, we studied FORTRAN computer language using programmable calculator Elektronika MK 61, which department had at least 300, I'm even not mentioning other models on solar elements. But somehow our IT department had 0 [zero] PCs, because some people in charge at ministery had decided to invest resources into a various calculators. I don't surprise if department had a few of these expensive MK 90. I would to add that our collage belonged to an industrial ministery, not educational
I hope you removed the batteries from the memory modules and cleaned the PCB. At 7:31 the battery looks quite leaky. I have come across so many Soviet devices etched by leadked batteries...
Привет приятели, Are the MK-90's easy to find on the market in Ukraine and Russia ? I want to buy one for my self and ship to Bulgaria if it's possible ? Great video !!
We can say only for Ukraine. They sometimes appear for 250-550€ depending on a condition here. I found one for one our subscriber, but it took nearly half a year of search of something that is working.
@@ChernobylFamily I do! I program computers since 1977, and these subjects are incredible for me, like a parallel world or a multiverse. But never would have I thought about a PDP-11 compatible pocket computer. That's insane. Or genius!
00:33 Omg... That screen again. Every time I see it I always think it's been post edited in. Those colors. I have a higher end Sony 74 inch OLED 4k with Dolby vision and hdr10+ hanging on the wall: but your screen catches my attention more lol. Would you mind telling me the model number and any information you have on it? We spoke a bit in some video a week or so so about this screen if you remember :p I'm fascinated by all the other things you discuss, don't get me wrong: I'm just puzzled by the CRT screen. It holds some secret.
Totally understand and share the feelings..) It is CM-322 EGA produced by the Polish MERA factory, it is claimed to be a clone of AOC CM-322MG (the tube in our one is original from Taiwan). This is all we could find about it, unfortunately.
@@svendevarennes520 sometimes these Mera display appear on sale in Ukraine, if we'll see we will grab one for you. In worst case, we'll have a second one :)
@qwerty keyboard i meant exactly what I meant. A glass ceiling is a term that describibes a limit that is not possible to breach no matter which efforts taken; given that in our work we have a first-hand insights from the actual developers of all these cool things, it looks for us like soviet technology in the conditions of a soviet approach to management and implementation of projects would stick to the "ceiling" in a pretty short-term, as it did with microelectronics.
@@ChernobylFamily The problem is "glass ceiling" isn't a term used over here in North America and I was confused by you writing "Easy can." in the beginning or your comment. Something that would be considered "grammatically wrong" over here. Something that I contributed to english being not being your primary language.
could you test some radiations on it or something. To say something similar. I have seen this form factor and button configuration on some other things in the 80's
Forget for a moment that we now all have a supercomputer in our pockets... having a desktop computer that we can program ourselves in BASIC was amazing in itself... but when those computers became hand-held was pretty close to a miracle.
So true.
But ou cannot do the same with a phone. There are no programming languages there.
That's an amazing little computer! It reminds me so much of the Tandy/Sharp pocket computers but... I mean... it's PDP-11 compatible! Hypothetically that thing can run UNIX!
Hypotetically yes, but will requre full reflashing of its ROM...)
It reminded me of my dad's old Sharp pocket PCs as well, but it doesn't seem to be a direct clone of any from that series that I've seen.
I thought about Sharp too
I still have two of the pocket computers from back then! A tandy PC3 and a sharp PC1403 (If I recall the model right of the sharp). The PC3 was an almost perfect form factor for the time. I love that little machine. I've actually been considering building something similar using a modern risc chip and an old, low power matrix LCD.
Neat. I definitely think this qualifies as "original" rather than a clone. Externally, it reminds me of the (deservedly) short-live Texas Instruments CC-40 that I had in High School. PDP-11 compatibility in a pocket PC, though? That's really cool. My high school had a PDP-11 (until I fried the core memory by shutting it down in the wrong order), but it was a full-size 19" rack. Until now, the smallest PDP-11 I knew of was the PDP-11/03, which was a tower PC format.
Well, this is not totally a PDP-11, more a compatible machine, but here we agree it is not a clone, although this was very much inspired by Sharp devices.
Неймовірно круті відео! Дякую за вашу творчість!!!
Дякуємо! Буде ще!
The power supply connector looks like the same kind that was used on a lot of Elektronika calculators in the 80s and 90s. I have an MK-61 with the same power connector and it came with a D2-10M 5 volt power supply.
Thanks for making these videos, it's rare to find such comprehensive information about these fascinating computers in English!
Thank you very much for your support and motivating words!
Other than the bizarre keyboard, this is a very nice little machine. I like that so much real estate is given to a half decent display.
Yes, it is lovely!
Oh, I like that. I'll have to try finding myself one. It looks heavily inspired by the sharp pocket computers
Thank you so much for all your work, stay safe
Thank you! We will! Yes, the opinion about Sharp is pretty popular, and we'd say the same, actually.
I love how it says BEJSIK (phonetically) in the menu :) The looks reminds me of Sharp portable computers of the 80s and I would not be surprised if it would be at least a visual copy of a western machine, or if it would be inspired by one.
The Электроника Б1-011 turntable was inspired by the Thorens TD-125 + SME-3009 turntable and tonearm combintaion, and the Электроника 004 (and Олимп 005) were pretty much the clones of the Revox A700 reel to reel deck, released with a slight (about 10-12 year) delay :)
BEJSIK
Other commenters suggested that this might be inspired by one of SHARP devices, which sounds pretty reasonable.
Awesome! It seems someway a Pocket PC from Casio or Sharp, even the memory bank powered by an internal battery. In example, the Casio PB-100 (about 1982/83... I received mine in Xmas '85, and it still works) used a memory card powered by a small battery. It was quite slimmer, compared with the ones shown in the video, and came in 2k and 4k bytes flavor. Also the connector for the dock station etc. is (almost?) identical to the Casio ones. However the display of this soviet beauty is much bigger.... and the keyboard is a nightmare, you're right, it took me a good time to find the "C" character LOL
Very enjoyable and nice video, please don't stop!!! 🙂
Thank you!
This is probably one of the coolest items of soviet tech. :o If I was in high school or whatever, coming in with something like this to use in math class would be quite amusing. University is obviously fully standardized on Ti calculators though. The desktop computers are neat but they're not quite as unique as this thing. Stuff like the BK-0010/0011 are cool too but probably a good bit more involved to get going, needing different power than the US and I imagine being SECAM standard for color applications. I've messed with those in an emulator and they're definitely neat, but i think this calculator is even more interesting.
Oh yes, this is the gadget :) By the way, that MK-92 dock station had a planned TV output, it was never implemented. SECAM, of course.
There were some very nice Russian analog multi-meters (VOMs) on the market in the 80s, the repair kits they came with were quite comprehensive, enabling people in remote places to repair a broken meter.
@@joefish6091 since this video I've gotten my hands on one of these and I've been writing a game for it. :P
Glad to hear that!
I love your channel! When I get paid again, I'm going to get the extras. So cool
Glad to hear that! You are warmly welcome - there is a lot more. Do not forget to check the other episodes of the series, they are even more interesting.
Some dude called Artem uploaded a video today playing "bad apple" on one of these, which ran surprisingly fluid and even had sound. YT randomly recommended me his video and that's how I ended up here
Cool!
But this is super old video. Check please our newer ones!
Wirklich ein Pitboy 😅
Okay dieses Gerät kannte ich auch noch nicht 😅
Was mich fasziniert das diese Technologie überhaupt noch funktioniert 😮
Two Videos in one Day? Now that is something! 👍
One had to be yesterday, but our internet channel decided different.
I like this channel. It's almost the equivalent of Curious Marc but in the evil side of the Iron Curtain.
You know, no offense, but such comments pretty much demotivate me. I have no idea who CuriousMarc is (or better to say I have been on his page once when someone mentioned - opened and closed). Just once again this comparison... What we do is a result of a work in the Zone (which I find a pretty special background), and I'd like to show you guys e.g. a walk through the Red Forest, but I cannot, because of the war information policy. Therefore, for now - tech videos based on what we have seen there.
I would love the see a teardown of this beauty. Maybe a full teardown, not on this one, but on one with a failed/broken LCD. It would be a bummer to damage the LCD connections on this perfectly preserved specimen.
In a couple of hours we'll finish uploading a Patreon version, there will be some details about internals we could find. The thing is, even with broken display this costs ±200$, and that is The Unicorn to find even in that condition...
I had an MK52, which was programmed in machine code directly. May sound terrible, but playing with it in high school was great fun. I could only dream of a BASIC pocket computer like this.
I am MORE than understanding why it was fun ))
That's a great looking little portable computer! It's a shame about the keyboard, but not uncommon for handheld devices to have an alphabetic keyboard in English speaking countries during the 80s and 90s. I remember having an electronic organiser during the 90s that did, and it was really annoying to use too!
Wow! Did not know that (but well, our experience with pocketPCs is pretty minimal)
Love it! I collected some old Sharp devices similar to this, for example the “Memowriter” which has a little thermal printer. I bought several on eBay and managed to make one working one from the parts. Imagine a word processor with calculator buttons which would print on receipt paper. These “pocket computers” were kind of absurd because of their tiny keyboards, but I still love the concept.
Very cool!
I have a Sharp PC-1350 which looks sort of similar albeit a smaller display. It runs interpreted BASIC in addition to calculator mode. Could save programs to tape and has serial port and could print out to a little thermal dot matrix printer.
Thank you for this interesting insight. We thought that this was Sharp inspired.
This absolutely reminds me of one of the pocket computers the 8bitguy had on a while back, one model I swear had almost the exact same functions (quick keys for basic commands, alphabetic order keyboard) but I think the screen was different, could be this was a clone of one of those with a better screen or something
Hmm! Need to check that, thank you!
The design style looks like the pocket computers Sharp made, but they didn’t produce anything with a screen close to as big as that. That’s a really cool computer!
Thank you! Yes, though about sharp as well.
The cyrilic system messages are unbelievably funny - "Ош" = Ошибка = Oshibka = ERROR etc...
But after all those are just shortenings.
What a such nice mini pocket computer. I watch your videos for a bit long and giving you likes but I subscribed your channel in this one. You and your partner are so great presenting old soviet tech stuffs in a lovely and humble way. Congratulations. Please make a video about Nixie tubes, as I am a nixie enthusiast and I have so many nixie clocks projects that will come soon in my channel. Thanks! Keep it up!
Thank you! We have a couple of videos about nixie-based devices, such as Dina weighing scale and RKb4-1eM radiometer. Check them out!
However, soon will be something more :)
@@ChernobylFamily Ok! Regards from London-UK! 🇬🇧
My university professor has that computer he won it in his student year USSR (Lenin order gift). it worked "basic" and OS excellent optimized with hardware.
Thank you for the story!
I didn't know that BASIC was a soviet programming language. Thanks for the video.
Well, it was not Soviet, but used widely in the USSR. You are welcome! Check other episodes on our channel!
The basic command is usually SOUND A, B A=TONE B=DURATION
Super thanks!
As others have said it's reminiscent of Sharp pocket computers of that era. It looks like an original design influenced heavily by the Sharp products. I bought a Sharp EL-5500II and docking printer in the early '80s. I instantly recognized the stamped aluminum cover, buttons, sliding cover and even the docking plotter ( 10:34 ). The MK-90 is obviously a much more powerful machine. The EL-5500II had a smaller display for lines of text only, ran Basic, and as I remember, had 2K of internal memory.
Thank you for sharing!
Very interesting pocket PC
Thank you!
Would be interested to see your "Soviet Design Top 10" to recognize features of Soviet-designed computers/robotics that you think are elegant, beautiful, or even worth repeating as design concepts. Everyone knows about the "overengineering" and it's easy to make fun of it. What is more interesting is when Alex and Michaela give praise to certain designs. Such a list could even function as an inspiration to those who might want to preserve the best aspects of Soviet/Slavic computing for new devices.
To be honest, it is a tricky question. We are not fans of Soviet tech, however, we explore it as it is a context field of our research environment. Nevertheless, some things can form such a list; let us think.
Sexiest handheld micro I ever seen Big screen, a bit chunky. PERFECT !!!!!
;)
Awesome computer, I wish I had one of those!
Sometimes appear on eBay.
How much better the world could be today if the engineers, scientists, artists, musicians, and other creators across the political divide would have been allowed to work together without interference from the politicians.
Whatever it was that fascinated me about tech growing up in the 70s that led me to a career in engineering, it included a thirst for anything Soviet. Being in America, I had to settle for rumors and vague and rather bad Western artists renderings. Now, several decades later, I'm finally able to scratch that itch thanks to this wonderful channel. Thank you Alex for bringing this to us.
You are welcome! Get ready for a new episode this weekend!
@@ChernobylFamily Good to know. I'm a subscriber and I look forward to being one of the first to see it. Slava Ukraine.
Gerojam Slava!
the styling reminds of 80s sharp stuff
Thought so
ABOUT! I remember this computer! At our place of work, in our department (late 80s), one guy bought it, and everyone envied him. Did you ask if it's a clone, or an original design? A few years earlier (circa 1984) I bought myself an Elektronika engineering calculator (the size of a credit card, in a plastic case), designed in exactly the same style. And many other products of this corporation looked similar, so I think they had their own technical design department, and they tried to maintain their laconic style.
Thank you for the story! This one looks very much as Sharp-inspired device.
Having a PDP-11 in a pocket must give a strange feeling.... Never heard of this architecture being implemented in a such small form factor, at least not commercially. But it's a wise choice for a basis for making scientific instruments.
Also, the screen looks pretty nice, sharp, wide viewing angle.
It is not really a fully-implemented architecture, but rather a compatible one. I wonder why, but Soviets loved PDP and used that nearly everywhere...
I came back to rewatch this video and it makes me curious what the target market for the device at the time was. Like what type of person in the USSR would have been seen using one when it was new? Similar things in the west were popular with middle class businessmen like my dad. I remember being fascinated with his folding Casio Digital Diary as a kid. Thanks! This is definitely my favorite new channel!
Disclaimer: only a guess here. Suppose they counted very much on that interface connector, and creating various devices on its basis, which not that much happened. Using a term "target market" would be a bit questionable for a socialistic country prior 1986-7, however, back in the times when this was created, state factories were moving to self-financing and they could consider that some organizations would be interested in that, so they could get profit.. About individuals... some maybe could afford that, but supposedly it was the same as with industrial-made computers, as e.g. Poisk computers costed comparable, but they nevertheless were sold. Not en-masse, but sold. This is really interesting question. Very different times these were.
PS: check the latest video - I believe you will love it :)
@@ChernobylFamily Thank you for the info. I really appreciate the added context. Watching your newest video about the market in Kyiv is actually what brought me back to here. I really hope I'll have the chance to visit there someday and find something fun to bring home. Please keep up the great content. I'll be joining your Patreon soon.
@@collectivepitch1989 You are welcome!
For the industrial computer it is design excellent for that time , except the keyboard layout .
Well, a detail is it is a consumer/business computer actually, its use as a part of a gamma-spectrometer was more a weird case (not the single example, but industiral use was more an exception)
I love these small computers. I used to have one in the late 80s. But it was CASIO or something.
For the sound in this computer, try the BEEP command. This should produce a default beep. Sometimes the BEEP accepts more arguments, for time and frequency. Maybe you can use the integrated HELP command to get more information?
Thank you for your help! This is a pretty old video (so check also our newer!) so we don't have this device anymore, but if we get one again we will try that for sure - as we swill would love to have MK-92 dock station.
Some comparable American and Japanese models had many of the same shortcomings of this one. The screen size seems to be a huge improvement on western equivalents.
It would be interesting to find out where else this display was used. I hardly believe it was designed for MK-90 only.
Coool I love computers and look at that! I missed all those Soviet systems....
There will be more here:)
I can't find the twin of the MK-90, but the MK-85's twin is the Casio FX-700P. The MK-90 screen size, but not the layout, reminds me of the Casio FX-7000G.
Many commenters suggested to look towards Sharp.
Unbelievable 😮
The phrase 'socialistic flash drives' was worth the price of admission alone... Great video.
Thank you :)
Thanls, great video. I'd love to find one , one day, for a reasonable price.
Well, wish you luck!
Very interesting video. Tech Tangents got one recently.
Thank you! Check also our newer episodes :)
@@ChernobylFamily I will!
So, MK90 by itself is a cool toy, but there is literally 0 reviews/videos or even texts somehow touching the topic of SEG-M and SEG-2ML spectrometers. If ya'r able to make one it would be extremely interesting due to the fact that each and every machine that utilize MK90's top I/O port is extremely rare and hardly even mentioned. I have seen one or two pics of full complects of the SEG spectrometers in the net. Also, 0 documentation available about it, but i have seen pics once that technical documentation in printed form does exist for those devices. If you is able to obtain docs, scan them and share it would be decent also, cuz it is interesting part of history of early independence era attempts of production of such devices which were forgotten nowadays.
I will check if we still have SEGs in the Zone. Will take time, but maybe there are some to see.
It's look like miniaturized version of БК-1001 where the blue connector was mapped to 16-bit word of some address.
That is a cracking bit of kit of well. Its infortunate they put an abc keyboard on it, but its some bit of kit for 1988.
Yes, that keyboard is something.
Fuckin cool dot matrix...So fantastic..
Yeah!
I saw this on a fair in the 80s. Still would like to get my hands on it but they are really unabtainable and too expensive just for the fun.
They appear time to time here in Ukraine for 300-500$. We got one for a subscriber in the past.
I had several Sharp Pocket Computers back in the '80s, and this device seems to have a very similar concept, at least in physical terms. Evidently the architecture is quite different, given the choice of CPU, though. A notable quirk of the Sharp units was the use of BCD floating point arithmetic, a very calculator-like way of doing things - I would imagine that the MK-90 probably didn't go down that path.
Thank you for the story!
Mind that the Sharp pocket computers had much less powerful CPUs, e.g., the PC-1211 ran on two 4-bit CPUs. A PDP-11 on-a-chip based design would have been insanely expensive in the West, as well.
Regarding BCD arithmetic, I've read somewhere that the MK-90 used this as well, which, while avoiding floating point rounding errors, also made this slower than you may expect. (This should be very appropriate for a spectrometer application, though.) But I may confuse this with another Elektronika BASIC pocket computer that mimicked a Casio pocket computer, but was actually based on a PDP-on-a-chip, as well, which involves some hilarious over-engineering, if you think about it. (I think, the BCD arithmetic was a carry-over from DEC BASIC, which is the ancestor of most BASICs around, incl. MS BASIC.)
Having said that, while there wasn't even a faintly similar machine in the West, the industrial design owes much to the Sharp PCs. (Just look at the sides! The docking unit, however, is very much not like anything sold by Sharp.)
Amazing!!! Having a lot of pocket PC like sharp etc I’ve never thought that Russia would produce one as well. Is the basic fully implemented?
Well, this is from Belarus, as far we know, not Russia :) I'll be honest, I never ever wrote anything on BASIC, so for me it is a little bit hard to say with confidence; there were 3 versions of BASIC for this, it has kinda 60 operators implemented.
It looks pretty similar to some calculator my dad had back in 1990. He also had a small ”reciept” printer on it which required some special heat sensitive paper. Not sure of the brand.
Ah, and now imagine me as a child in earliest 90s seeing that kind of things you talk about in foreign magazines. Looked like a dream to have.
ChNPP could afford to order a few of a pocket PCs to support their engineers.
Back then unlikely, however, now - pretty much yes.
@@ChernobylFamily That hefty price of over 1,000 rubles is retail for retail stores, where ordinary customers could purchase goods. When businesses making orders from wherehouses they're getting perks: wholesale prices, discounts, sales tax exemption, etc. Nuclear power station getting a lot of perks for sure for being a unique.
@@jacobsandler438 correct.
@@ChernobylFamilyAt ChNPP a head of supply chain department made a phone call to a corresponding ministery and order delivered ASAP, nobody concerned about prices then.
@@ChernobylFamilyWhen I was in junior college in our IT department were a various programmable calculators. Actually, we studied FORTRAN computer language using programmable calculator Elektronika MK 61, which department had at least 300, I'm even not mentioning other models on solar elements. But somehow our IT department had 0 [zero] PCs, because some people in charge at ministery had decided to invest resources into a various calculators. I don't surprise if department had a few of these expensive MK 90. I would to add that our collage belonged to an industrial ministery, not educational
I hope you removed the batteries from the memory modules and cleaned the PCB. At 7:31 the battery looks quite leaky. I have come across so many Soviet devices etched by leadked batteries...
Yes, all has been cleaned, and remained in a good shape!
Привет приятели,
Are the MK-90's easy to find on the market in Ukraine and Russia ?
I want to buy one for my self and ship to Bulgaria if it's possible ?
Great video !!
We can say only for Ukraine. They sometimes appear for 250-550€ depending on a condition here. I found one for one our subscriber, but it took nearly half a year of search of something that is working.
Cool
Glad that you liked!
Waow!!!
Thank you! Check our newer episodes!
@@ChernobylFamily I do!
I program computers since 1977, and these subjects are incredible for me, like a parallel world or a multiverse.
But never would have I thought about a PDP-11 compatible pocket computer. That's insane. Or genius!
😻
It is intersting that the QWERTY keyboard instead of Russian
Not sure if I undertand what you meant. There is neither QWERTY, nor JCUKEN. It is more a NIGHTMARE layout to type.
00:33 Omg... That screen again. Every time I see it I always think it's been post edited in. Those colors.
I have a higher end Sony 74 inch OLED 4k with Dolby vision and hdr10+ hanging on the wall: but your screen catches my attention more lol.
Would you mind telling me the model number and any information you have on it? We spoke a bit in some video a week or so so about this screen if you remember :p
I'm fascinated by all the other things you discuss, don't get me wrong: I'm just puzzled by the CRT screen. It holds some secret.
Totally understand and share the feelings..) It is CM-322 EGA produced by the Polish MERA factory, it is claimed to be a clone of AOC CM-322MG (the tube in our one is original from Taiwan). This is all we could find about it, unfortunately.
@@ChernobylFamily thank you really really much. I'll do some digging, if I find anything I'll let you know.
@@svendevarennes520 sometimes these Mera display appear on sale in Ukraine, if we'll see we will grab one for you. In worst case, we'll have a second one :)
@@ChernobylFamily wow I missed your reply for some reason. Thank you very very much for being on the lookout for them! They're really cool.
@@svendevarennes520 our pleasure!
Why did the designers lay out the keyboard like that!?
Many, many wonder the same. A strangest keyboard ever.
Looks similar or related to the SHARP PC1211.
Sounds pretty possible.
При Кабае такого уже не будет
i get a sharp calculator which looks like this
Yes, many told that Sharp could be an inspiration, we pretty much agree.
Sembra molto ai pocket computer sharp per esempio 1350, ne ho usati diversi, hanno lo stesso design squadrato.
Thank you!
Sry... That is a honkin' battery cover... They really wanted it to stay in there!
But, it is reliable :)
Imagine the cool shit the Soviet Union would have made if it wasn't illegally toppled in 1991.
Easily can. That's why I have no illusions on that - with that approach they would hit a glass ceiling.
@@ChernobylFamily I don't think what you wrote in english reflected what you meant.
@qwerty keyboard i meant exactly what I meant. A glass ceiling is a term that describibes a limit that is not possible to breach no matter which efforts taken; given that in our work we have a first-hand insights from the actual developers of all these cool things, it looks for us like soviet technology in the conditions of a soviet approach to management and implementation of projects would stick to the "ceiling" in a pretty short-term, as it did with microelectronics.
@@ChernobylFamily The problem is "glass ceiling" isn't a term used over here in North America and I was confused by you writing "Easy can." in the beginning or your comment. Something that would be considered "grammatically wrong" over here.
Something that I contributed to english being not being your primary language.
@@ChernobylFamily Although, your followup comment did clear things up a bit. So thank you.
wtf is chornobyl
A proper spelling of the city's name in Ukrainian, a language of the land where it is located.
could you test some radiations on it or something. To say something similar. I have seen this form factor and button configuration on some other things in the 80's
Unfortunately, we do not have that spectrometer :(
speaker probably died, is on by default - test it.
Thanks!
It looks Japaneesey
Many people told it looks inspired by Sharp