🇸🇰 SMEP PP 01: Part 1 (First Look) [TCE
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 28 ก.ย. 2024
- Let's have a look at another Czechoslovak 8080 based machine, the SMEP PP 01, using the Tesla MHB8080A clone.
SMEP = Systém Malých Elektronických Počítačov (Small Electronic Computer System), and
PP 01 = Personálny Počítač (Personal Computer).
It is quite a large machine, however not too heavy. It appears that it should have a top lid (like a typewriter ... wot dat?), and could be carried like a briefcase with a handle on the front.
The keyboard is expansive but doesn't feel like much fun to touch-type on as the key switches don't have much travel. Perhaps a clean & lubricate might help?
It comes with a decent number of interface ports: colour RGB video output, cassette recorder, V.24 serial, parallel, two expansion ports plus an additional edge connector (for additional ROMs?) on the top of the machine.
It includes 64KBytes of RAM and 16KByte of ROM, curiously implemented by a mixture of 1KByte EPROMs (of both Czechoslovak & Soviet manufacture) and masked ROMs. The ROM apparently contains a monitor and BASIC.
Most of the logic uses Tesla chips.
It was developed at the Computing Technology Research Institute (Výskumnom Ústave Výpočtovej Techniky = VÚVT) in Žilina and manufactured at the Computing Technology Plant (Závodoch Výpočtovej Techniky = ZVT) in Banská Bystrica (now in independent Slovakia).
There still is a company called ZVT in Banská Bystrica, specialising in PCB manufacture: www.zvtprint.sk/
A good source of information & emulator:
pp01.borik.net...
![🇸🇰 SMEP PP 01: Part 2 (Power Supply) [TCE #0466]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/NfITtOfTcOM/mqdefault.jpg)
![🇸🇰 SMEP PP 01: Part 2 (Power Supply) [TCE #0466]](/img/tr.png)
The wood looking thing at 28:30 is made of textolite, a cotton sheet - phenolic resin composite. Rather common in soviet land. The typical glass fiber - epoxy composite as seen in PCBs for example is called glass textolite (стеклотекстолит) here too..
I like the videos for, like you say, seeing exotic computers and your stabs at repairing them (putting in 90% more effort than I would).
Since you ask... I hate how you call slotted screws "flat", but I can live with it. 😉
Slotted screws, eh? Never heard of them! As a compromise, how about we settle on calling them "flatted slot screws"? :)
@@Brfff 😅
I knew this existed but never saw this computer in real. At school we had PP06 (slow 4.7Mhz 8086 or 8088 PC clone) which was used as a server to fast-load programs to the PMD-85.
Textolite, stil used for low speed gears and levers in machines.
Cheap and reliable.
Nylon plastic of mid 20th century.
Those 'standoffs' seem to be that phenolic board often seen as the backing panel in older electrical panels, it is very rigid with excellent electrical insulation properties.
It's okay, I forgive you for being a middle aged man :P
I quite like your presentation style, it's become part of my morning routine :)
I find it quite interesting just looking at the soviet components, I like that you're going through your mental process aloud.
Never thought I’d see what looks like a mechanical or at least dome keyboard with almost as little key travel as the spectrum.
Yeah, it's ... hmmm. Let's see if I can improve it any, but at the moment I'd hate to have been a secretary having to type documents & letters all day long on it.
PP 01 is one of my favorite 8-bit computers! I remember playing with it in my father's office where he had kept by some accident about six of these, of course without any good use for them. Now I have two of these myself, one is still waiting to be repaired. There are some modern peripherals to be had that will allow you to replace the usually problematic ROM board with a more reliable one; another one makes it possible to load programs from an SD card an yet another one lets you have SAA1099P sound output and joystick for games. Unfortunately the software library is not that great. I am looking forward to seeing some Czech made computers featured on the channel now that you have explored a great part of the Slovak ones of the former Czechoslovakia. Would be cool if you could get your hands on e.g. Ondra SPO 186 or IQ-151. This is basically what I like about your channel: you take interest in these former Eastern Bloc and Soviet computers that are not covered elsewhere and explore them for the rest of the world. I also wish I could make cables with DIN connectors the way you do :-)
Six! Wow :) I like hearing these little snippets of history from "back in the day", thanks!
Yep, I'll definitely be checking out if I can build the SD interface (I put the link in the video description) ... but fingers crossed the machine works without too many problems! I'll take a look at the power supply today and maybe try to wash some of the boards to clear that fine silt or whatever it is.
What sort of DIN cables do you need? Maybe I can make some for you (actually, I do need to order some more of the good quality plugs) ... although I've never made SCART ones, yet. Anyway, send me a message via my email (in the About section)
@@Brfff Oh, no cables needed at the moment. I am able to make my own, it's just yours look much more professional :-)
LOL ... maybe it's the only slightly professional thing I can do! Make sure you have glued heat shrink and a hot air gun - I use glued heat shrink all the time!
Is not the power connector the same as in the PMD 85 power brick? I have seen a lot of PMD 85 and IQ 151 computers, but I do not remember seeing even a single PP one in the Czechoslovakia back in the '80s. I think you are missing a plastic lid, because they were made as transportable suitcases.
I did wonder if it might be the same as one of the Tesla PMD 10 power supplies - one of them has a smaller plug, but haven't checked it yet. And yes, you can see it should have a lid, like a typewriter.
Yep - one of the cables (I've got two types I think) for the PMD 10s fits it perfectly!
I like that computer, can't say why, just a feeling. People have worked for it, in a society where there was not enough of anything, but even though they got it working and I think they can be proud on the achievements. It was a waste of time and money to solder 16 times one 1 kB PROM of EPROM on one board, but I assume the resources were limited and one 16 kB EPROM was not available. It was made in poverty but with the best intentions.
The general opinion seems to be that they'd heard of the machine but never actually saw one. Limited resources is probably also confirmed by the use of multiple types of EPROMs to make up the 16KBytes ... Tesla, Soviet, and masked ROMs. But they still managed to include a serial port, a parallel port, two expansion ports, RGB & TV output and an edge connector!
It is not even a textolite, it is Getinaks, i guess. You can see the corrugated structure of a paper sheets, that is very characteristical for this material.
It is not getinaх. It is textolite, of course! You need to have very good vision to see the paper structure of machined getinax :) Here, the cotton fabric texture of the textolite is clearly visible, definitely.
Younger girls with large personalities. lol
I'm more interested on those older types, like the computers you feature. Please keep it up in your own style.
It looks like someone just sprayed buttons all over the place with very little logic. Somehow though, it does look quite smart. Hope it can be made to run.
Its cousin, the Tesla PMD 85, is kind-of similar ... it has two [EOL] keys next to each other ... ?
ZVT = Závod Výpočtovej Techniky = Factory of computing technik
Indeed! (check the video description) No way I was going to try to pronounce that on video! :)
There should be a way to get those ROMs & EPROMS off & read, then sockets installed.
Yep, it'd be possible to desolder them but would take a while. There is an emulator for this machine so the ROMs is available. Actually, I'm hoping someone has maybe made a modern version with just a single 16KByte ROM (or larger) on a smaller board ... with 16 individual ROMs I'm a bit worried if one, or more, have faults ...
pp01.borik.net/index.php?pg=emul
I like watching you potter around these systems. Feels good. Yeah.. you're not an 18yo girl.. we don't need to see any of that kinda junk .. stick with the old retroleum.
Interesting that a Soviet machine has markings in english.
it is not Soviet.
I was going to say, I know what you mean ... the machines that came out during the communist era ... probably "Soviet era" is better, or "Eastern Bloc" ... don't want to upset any of our Slovak friends 😇
Never really intended for export outside the Bloc, why use English?
Certainly the East German KC85 is quite curious with its mixture of German and English on the case - some discussion in the comments of those videos.
And the Soviets used a mixture of Latin & Cyrillic on their schematics ... component IDs were in Latin (i.e. R for resistor rather than Cyrillic Р) and component models IDs were in Cyrillic.
@@Brfff It is simple answer, Czechoslovakia didnt use Cyrillic at all, why use it on computer? The English words are commands, the programming languages usually used English words derivatives for commands. For some reason the English was seen as the "Computer Language", maybe to have it as a world wide universal language?
The Cyrillic you see on some components means that those components were made in Soviet Union or Bulgaria who used Cyrillic. Fun fact, Cyrillic originated in Great Moravia "constructed" by two orthodox Byzantine priests. Great Moravia spread out mostly in area of today Slovakia....
Why people from Czechoslovakia dont like to be described as "Soviet"? Well Soviet Union actually occupied Czechoslovakia since 1968 openly and since WWII under cover so Soviet Union is not seen as something positive in Czechoslovakia. So communist era or Eastern block is fine, Soviets... not so much.
Oh indeed - I'm well versed in the differences and how the Soviets expressed their love and friendship to their allies in the 50s and 60s. In the West, Russia and Soviet Union were used interchangeably but I always try to ensure I make the correct distinction. Related ... I'm surprised the French never created a French version of BASIC :)
@@Brfff ... you mean Le BASIC?
cutest spacebar 😂
... with the soul of the Devil! It's ... hmmm ... not pleasant to use
Hey, congrats on almost 2k!
Honestly, I like your videos the way they are. I usually turn them on while busy with my own electronic stuff, love to hear you chatter, see your findings. Keep it up!
SMEP is a grand producer of all those ticketing systems which were installed at train and us stations. Also those were used as a military teletype terminals and the post office terminals. I do not remember any monitors plugged in...there were printer based output UIs. Anyways, it was not something that a worker class kid could play with ((( So I never had an opportunity to hack one.
Those Soviet EPROMs are marked with an 'Э' which means they were made for export and are made with the standard Western 2.54mm pin pitch. They probably used export types to match Tesla's use of 2.54mm pin pitch.
The chips marked "CEMI" were made by Unitra CEMI in Warsaw. We got a good number of their 7400 series logic imported to the US back in the early 1990s. I see a couple of chips which look suspiciously like Fairchild ones but are marked MEV which is a make I am not familiar with.
Ahh - well spotted. I just assumed it was all Tesla with a handful of Soviet. I'll take another look. I need to figure out how best to do the close-up filming of the boards as I think hand-held is a little too shaky for you guys? Although you guys do seem to keep noticing things that I miss!
There's an expansion called MUSE which adds an SAA1099 for sound generation.
Yep! I'm hoping someone has remade the ROM board and maybe the RAM board ... could be made a lot smaller these days. That EPROM board is WIIIIIIIIDE!
Your Russian pronunciation is fine. Your pronunciation of "pronounciation" on the other hand...
😂😇
@29:45 solder blob
@30:22 solder bridges? Also a joint that could use a touch-up on the IC to the right of the TESLA MHB8255A on pins 10 & 16.
@31:16 A lot of corrosion on the pins. Are those black areas around the pins conductive? And the #16 pin on ICs 4 & 5 of the bottom row don't look too solder-y. Probably the bottom is fine though.
Whatever that dust is (reminds me of what concrete power would look like and do to electronics), it's having an effect on the solder. Expect it cause problems with the switches.
Started replying but the reply got lost. But I had another look at your blob in Part 2 - you may have already seen. But yes, it's basically just a selection link it seems between A-B-C, with A-B selected.
For the solder bridges ... you're talking about those header-like pins? That's just how the Slovaks connected header pins ... I think :)
I've given some boards a clean - the motherboard will be a pain as I need to de-solder the DIN connectors (riveted to the case) ... but I think the keyboard has copped the worst of ... whatever it was!
@@Brfff Yeah, for whatever reason A-B are connected, it's probably the right choice. Memory select maybe?
Yeah, not an issue, just an oddity. And there is at least one example where it does, and does not jump over a trace on the board. But why route the holes to a jumper footprint and then buy the pins and jumper when you can simply bridge it using scrap? Actually makes sense.
Ages ago I did a repair on an elevator in a concrete plant in Colorado. The elevator's "Crow's nest" was on the 11th floor and there *still* was concrete dust in every nook and cranny. What you have isn't concrete dust but it's close. Grout? Mortar? Something worse?
So I wonder how well your key caps would fit on a Cherry switch?
@@MrWaalkman I'm not confident the key caps would fit, but the legends are generic enough that you could get away with using standard modern key caps for most keys ... no dual Cyrillic/Latin to worry about ... although I assume they must be available somewhere (just never seen where I get my usual ones from)
Asking your existing audience what they like isn't necessarily the best way to expand to a new audience... but having acknowledged that my input is probably useless, what I uniquely love about your videos is how eclectic the machines you're restoring are.
I'd love to see more footage of the machines in operation, more history, and maybe a little less cleaning and speculating about where this particular dirt came from :)
And, I like a pretty face as much as anyone, but the electronics is table stakes. I mean, if I wasn't after the electronics I wouldn't be here.
Ha, maybe true. I guess the more important part was if I'm doing anything that irritates people, or they're not so interested in ... I'll have a 30min video with an average watch time of 3min. I'm not really worried about that - I see my videos more as documenting these exotic machines so that someone can jump to the point they need to (i.e. which screw went where?)
My goal is to always get the machine to a working state and to load some software ... but it is sometimes a bumpy road and when I get stuck on a machine then it tends to get neglected, although sometimes for good reason ... like waiting for parts or PCBs to arrive so I can continue.
I'll also try to include more history about the machine and less about the possible stories behind the different types of dirt and grime! 😆
BTW - I do put a lot of information in the Video Description, not really a full history but there are some further details including links to sources of info, emulators, etc. But I will do a bit more research BEFORE recording the video so I can include it as I examine the various bits of fluff, hair, dandruff, etc. :)