electronics bk-0010

Electronics BK-0010 (Электроника БК-0010) is a series of Russian home computers from Elektronika that are clones of PDP-11. They are based on the 11/03 LSI-11 CPU and were available in three different versions. Electronics BK-0010 was the first model. It had a membrane keyboard, 32 kB RAM (half of which was used for the frame buffer), 32 kB ROM with FOCAL interpreter supporting only 512×256 monochrome graphics, a TV connected via EuroConnector (a version of SCART) was used as monitor. A tape recorder was used for data storage. There also was a separate Euroconnector for a color TV. It would display 256×256 graphics in four colours. This mode was accessible to assembly language programs. Although the instruction set and the I/O ports were described in the documentation provided with the computer, the assembly language development tools were not included. A gray market of games and development software flourished. Electronics BK-0010-01 was more powerful with a conventional keyboard and a BASIC dialect p-code compiler that supported color graphics as well as monochrome. Both models were used in high schools, connected to a crude file server with an accessory current loop adaptor instead of a tape recorder. Electronics BK-0011M came in 1990, had 128 kB of RAM, a newer version of BASIC in ROM, and had the possibility to use a disk drive (The disk drive adaptor could also be used with BK-0010 series). The most common operating system was ANDOS. A modification of RT-11 also existed. A 16-bit universal port with separate input and output busses, present in all three models, allowed to utilize a multitude of peripheral devices (joystick, mouse, printers, various sound output devices, etc.) for home entertainment, education, and for data acquisition and monitoring in various industrial and research settings.

Electronics Bk-0010

See also