Extreme Restoration of a Soviet ES1841 PC. Computers of Chernobyl
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 14 มิ.ย. 2022
- Update: Episode 2 is out, watch it here - • Soviet scientific comp...
ES-1841 is a legendary Soviet i8086 clone-based professional workstation. They, along with their simpler version, ES-1840 have been used by Spetsatom in post-disaster Pripyat. We restored such a machine and this first video is about its design.
Join us on Patreon for the early access, project updates, and bonus content: / thechernobylfamily
Buy us a Coffee: buymeacoffee.com/chernobylfamily - วิทยาศาสตร์และเทคโนโลยี
*The long-awaited second episode is out - check it here: **th-cam.com/video/DI4xEcIxw7w/w-d-xo.html*
15 years ago I've worked on the Minsk factory that produced those PCs , saw few advertising stands with history of plant and materials about that PC also were available on it. On time I worked there, factory was producing the automatic telephone stations (too close to construction of the ES mainframe, the skeleton of what was in the factory unit responsible for assembly/test telephone stations) and all times i've walked through this unit - i've looking on this part of history. Unfortunately, this factory places where sold and reconstructed/under reconstruction now (production moved to another place in Minsk and significantly reduced, produces electronics for cars/tractors now, as i know)
Wow! This is THE story. Thank you so much for sharing it!
As someone who grew up as a teenager in the USA during the Cold war in the 1980s, and who collects vintage computers today, this is absolutely fascinating. We always knew that Russia had cloned popular computers, but I'd never seen any in detail until your video.
I'm surprised at the changes made in the Russian example. Some of them seem backwards and wrong, but some of them seem very clever, like the ability to add multiple 512KB boards. Since the 8086 could only access one megabyte, they must have used a proprietary system for ank switching the third board in and out of address space. Fascinating! Also: That speaker is gigantic!
Please keep up the good work.
Thank you! It actually was a complex and a twisted story worth a thick book. There were two main "schools" in the USSR - the Russian one (originating from Sergey Lebedev and turned to NIICVT based in Moscow) and Ukrainian one (originating from Viktor Glushkov, turned to the Cybernetics Centre of Ukraine based in Kyiv). Somewhere in the middle was MPO VT in Belarus with their powerful chain of microelectronic factories.
These centres had different approach. This very computer is Belorussian product with aт influence of the Cybernetics Centre (which later created expansion units for it - some will be in the next video). Russians had also own practices, solutions, etc., more fitting their factories.
As for i8086 in a particular, the story continued in an unexpected way. In Belarus, at MPO VT they have been trying to slice i80286 to make a clone, because they reached a "glass ceiling" of performance. It is a dim story, as no one remembers now whether it worked apart from literally few cloned prototypes. But the thing is, that after ES-1841 appeared the ES-1842 in a desktop format, running the same processor as ES-1841, but capable to run programs for i80286 with slightly lower performance. That was achieved by adding a custom-designed chip called КА1843ВГ1 (KA1843VG1) that allowed the i8086 to operate in a protected mode.
This "glass ceiling" was a reason, why in the latest ES machines you can find 286 / 386 from Intel surrounded with Soviet ICs -- see the video about ES1849 we have on this channel, that's it.
As for that speaker, in another "dead" set of ES1841 from Nov 1991 we have it is smaller. It looks like they installed what third-party factory production could supply at that moment, and it got changed later. But, it got an unexpected application as well -- there was a speech synthesis board developed for this computer, that allowed to convert text-to-speech with this speaker as an output. Never seen it, but it definitely existed and was referred in all documentation.
So, there are many, many stories like this.
What I like in relation to Chornobyl Zone, that it became a sandbox of testing of numerous types of machines for very special applications. So there will be way more content, and not only about ESes...) So you are welcome to subscribe :)
@@ChernobylFamily Was already subscribed :-D Thanks for the backstory; very fascinating. It is very uncommon for russian/belarussian clones to be seen in north america, so this has been very educational. How amazing that there was this entire industry that developed products in a parallel path but with very different methods.
@@ChernobylFamily ב''ה, how much amphetamine was consumed in its production compared to what USA uses to make one screw?
@@ChernobylFamily ב''ה, by the mid 1990s and 486 era there was DOS text to speech going around using the standard "PC speaker" as output, mpg123 support etc. Lost to time and uncertain of its origins.
@@josephkanowitz6875 actually there was possibility to use pulse-width modulation with this big speaker even on ES-1841. someone granted me diskette with record of Smokie "I'll meet you at Midnight" - that was some kind of miracle for me. Listening real voice of human person (even if it was Kris Norman) on the computer was something unbelievable back in late 80's :)
Hi from Australia, and thanks for the engaging video! Vintage electronics from around the world fascinates me - my partner got me a soviet era core memory panel and put it in a frame for me for a birthday present years ago and it's still on my wall. Needless to say, I'm subscribed and excited for the next video!
Greetings from Ukraine! The next video will come as soon we'll manage with CPU board running - right now, because of the war, the process is slower than we'd love to.
You are welcome to join us at Patreon - as there we will post the project updates as well. As a teaser, the most epic gonna be the Duga OTH Radar mainframe review, that thing rocks :)
By the way, as you mentioned core memory: there is a gorgeous book entitled "Core Memory: A Visual Survey of Vintage Computers", that is one of the most esthetical publications on old tech we've ever seen.
5:55 first ever use of Noctua case fan
Sorry? Do not get..
*Dear all - if you'd like to have a video on any subject about Chornobyl Zone you are interested in, just let us know in the comments. We'd love to do it!*
A rising TH-cam star!
Thank you! :) There will be more in the future :)
Just incredible, this has got to be some of the most rare and difficult to find hardware in the world. Kudos to you for keeping it alive! I would love to come to Ukraine and see you opening a computer museum dedicated to keeping these pieces running!
Thank you for such words! Check other episodes (there are 5 more) and you are welcome to join us on Patreon for bonus conent and longer versions!
Really cool video. I love this old tech and since there's not much known about the soviet side of early computing, I can't wait for the next video!
Thank you! We probably might need more time for the software part (there is still much to do on making it all work), but a next video about specialised hardware will come the next week - already working on it!
As someone from the US who grew up learning on late 80s era computers, the environment for soviet computing feels like a cousin you never met until you were both adults. I know there was lots of cloning of western machines, but the differences in production methods is very interesting. I hope you and your loved ones are still safe.
Trying to be...) thank you!
Great work! The CPU К1810ВМ86 is a clone of Intel 8086. It cannot address more than 1MB. Some space is reserved for ROM BIOS and Video RAM. That is why standard set included 512K+128K. Remember "640K ought to be enough for anyone" :)
P.S.
Found docs about EMS-like feature to switch RAM bank mapping into main address space. So 1.5 MB was real
Thank you! Exactly, that used kind of switching the banks. However, seems need to play with jumpers to make this work (so far did not succeed)
Vera interesting. Keep on posting. This might attract a larger audience!
This channel is one extraordinary discovery and my promise land. You are amazing!
Thank you for such motivating words! Please check the other episodes - with this very computer we have a few more, including a test run!
Wow, I love this. @CuriousMarc would be very interested in this also.
Thank you!
Amazing video. Normally no one is able to sneak-peak inside these computers. Glad you have restored it and we can admire it from our couch 🙂
Thank you :)
I just found your channel, and I gotta say this is amazing work that you're doing!
I really like the design of the crate. It may not be standard western ISA bus connectors, but the ease of changing cards and the modularity of the design is fantastic. Plus the ability to add expansion crates on the same bus? I would have loved this architecture back in the 90s when I was sacrificing one ISA card for another.
Thank you!
Well, you can expand ISA using a riser, technically this is what made here with an expansion unit. Seems that unit was pretty rare, we could not find any so far, only a few pictures. It looks the same as the main one, but has a different PSU with a standard power connector like modern desktop computers have.
Beautiful work. I've been working on various pre/post Soviet machines (mainly Speccy clones or 8080-based machines) - fascinating seeing how things were built /Brett
Thank you!
Wow this is the PC that I did learn programming at school !!! I do remember they would break all the time lol.
Yes, they are not the stablest ones..)
Very-very interesting content, thank you! The robustness of these computers is very fascinating along the way how many components were cloned from the western counterparts. Coming also from a former soviet union country (Estonia), this stuff is always interesting to see.
Thank you! What we love is how, besides the technical aspect, esthetical these things are. You just look and they tell entire story.
It is not cloned, the interfaces for everything are completely different. And every pc ,workstation must have cpu, hdd, ram etc. that's just how those machines works.
Cpu is not a clone from the West, but from Intel, and everyone cloned Intel x86 (AMD, Cyrix...) All in all ,this is one amazing looking machine
Congratulations for your project.
Thank you :)
I got an east German EC/ES 1834. My computer looks more like a normal desktop, but it has similarities. I looked at the memory card and it had Soviet, German, Bulgarian and even American memory chips soldered on. Whatever they could find I guess.
Partly because they had collaboration between the countries of the socialistic bloc on production. However, the chips from America, Taiwan and so on normally appeared when they could not produce own analogs or had a shortage.
Love the crate design. Reminds me of the VME backplane *real* computers!
Totally agree. It is pretty convenient!
Great content! I was always curious about details of these computers Can't wait for next video
Thank you! There will be more, just we need a slight time, as wartime gives certain limitations. But all will come :)
Did you manage to dump the ROMs of that ES1845 system board? Those sound like they're a pretty unique part of Soviet computing history.
We are still working on 1845. The thing is, what you see in the Ep1 and Ep3 are two altered machine sets. In Ep3 we use the processor board from 1841, which we found later, as it should be, because 1845 still needs some repair. However, as far we know from the talks in the Institute of Cybernetics (Ep.2) the difference in software/firmware between 1841 and 1845 was nearly absent, it was mostly about hardware.
HULLO ALEX. THIS IS SIMPLY WOW. THANK YOU.
INSIGHT INTO SOVIET COMPUTING IS FASCINATING.
Hello David! Thank you! Today we had an amazing meeting at one of universities in Kyiv in regards of ES1841 boards. So a new video will come next week!
hahaha, i thought you had added a Noctua fan as a replacement looking at the thumbnail...but it's the original fan :)
That fan is super powerful, but sooo loud...) eventually for filming Ep.3 with this computer we replaced it (temporarily) with a 12v one, otherwise it was way too noisy )))
О, это ж мой первый комп! В 95 году был куплен с рук. Работал на ms-dos и, кстати, вопреки утверждению автора, что НЖД использовался только для хранения информации, всё же отлично с него загружался. В комплекте был матричный принтер СМ6337. Как же я полюбил на нём использовать программу Plakat - дедушку WordArt, если можно так выразиться.
Well, that's an old video - that was a mistake, you are right, it CAN boot from the HDD.
This i awesome! instantly subscribed
Thank you, that is inspiring for us!
Awesome, thanks for sharing this!
*soldering capacitors in ES's PSU and warmly smiling*
Beautiful video, great
Very cool video I cant wait till the next episode !
Thank you! Next week!
Just stumbled on your channel, watched all your videos and subscribed. I like this kind of content. Keep it going. Greetings from Switzerland.
Thank you! Soon - more!
wow... can't wait for next episode.... super interesting...
Thank you! We are working on it ;)
В моей молодости был подобный компьютер - ЕС1840. Он был частично совместим с компьютером IBM. Из-за плохих вентиляторов очень сильно шумел.
Однажды случилась неприятность - перестал правильно работать винчестер - после включения питания, примерно через 10 минут начинались сбои в работе. Электронная плата,
которая управляла винчестером, содержала около 100 микросхем и нужно было определить неисправность. Коллега по работе посоветовал воспользоваться этиловым спиртом для поиска неисправной микросхемы. Я, включив компьютер и запустив тестовую программу поиска ошибок на винчестере, по очереди прикасался к микросхемам ватным тампоном, смоченным этиловым спиртом и при этом наблюдал за работой тестовой программы. На одной из микросхем, смоченной этиловым спиртом, сбои прекратились. Так я нашел негодный чип.
In my youth there was a similar computer - ES1840. It was partially compatible with the IBM computer. It was very noisy due to bad fans.
Once there was a nuisance - the hard drive stopped working correctly - after turning on the power, after about 10 minutes, malfunctions began. The electronic board that controlled the hard drive contained about 100 microcircuits and it was necessary to determine the malfunction. A work colleague advised me to use ethyl alcohol to find a faulty chip. I, turning on the computer and running the test program for finding errors on the hard drive, touched the microcircuits in turn with a cotton swab moistened with ethyl alcohol and at the same time watched the work of the test program. On one of the microcircuits, moistened with ethyl alcohol, the failures stopped. So I found a bad chip.
I suppose it was 1841 or 1840 with 1841.0000 CPU boards, as pure 1840 could not have a HDD at all, as a controller was not supported by ots БСУВВ. The story with alcohol is truly epic! Thank you!
P.S. these native fans in the PSUs are horrible, that's true
Ahh, finding a channel to instantly subscribe to; what a great feeling.
Thank you :)
In Soviet Russia, even computer mouse has steel balls....
Haha this comment made our evening ;)
the mouse was very optional in those days. my home ES-1841 hadn't it for the first two years until i found this strange device in computer's package and plugged it. but i barely had soft that could use it - it was MS-DOS time :)
@@basila33 that's true.
However, as we have it, we gonna try it :)
@ 8:40... Wow... Soviet computer could not boot from the hard disk drive! In the mid 1980's I (with assistance from a mentor) built my first IBM clone computer. Same configuration of drives... two 5.25" floppy drives, one hard disk drive. That first machine, I remember being mentored 1) Boot DOS floppy, debug g=c800:5 Welcome to Western Digital hard disk drive low level format, then IPL, 2) Boot DOS floppy, run FDisk then IPL 3) Boot DOS floppy, run format c: 4) Run a very special command sys c: to transfer the DOS boot sector to the brand new clean formatted hard disk c: drive. Must get those special files on the clean disk first, else data files might end up in the spot, and force you to start over from format c: point.
That was a mistake by me. It could, just needed to be configured with jumpers - discovered documentation only later.
@@ChernobylFamily Ahhh. thank you for the clarification. Not as primitive as my first impression.
Subscribed! I love vintage computer stuff. I grew up in Eastern Europe and I learned electronics by fixing mostly Soviet electronics. I still repair any kind of vintage computers whenever I have the occasion.
I believe, same as us, you have The Feeling about KM and K50-6 capacitors )))
@@ChernobylFamily I don't really know the designation of Soviet made caps, but I know most of them were really bad quality. What I really like, are the MLT type resistors. Too bad I can't buy them anymore.
@@Bata.andrei we have a ~1 kg box of brand new of all possible nominals, MLT and OMLT in paper holders. Would you like to have it?
@@Bata.andrei as for KM capacitors, in a video these are that yellow and orange. Superstable, but superstuffed with precious metals, so their abscence in vintage computers nearly always is what you encounter when you open the casing. Green version is even better.
@@ChernobylFamily Oh, ok I remember those. I think I saw lots of military equipment that was stuffed with this type of caps.
As for the contents of precious metals I really don't know. It runs me the wrong way whenever I see old electronics melted or dissolved in acid for their precious metals. I hate the people that destroy rare and maybe historically valuable devices for profit.
If you can send the MLT box my way, I will gladly take it.
That mouse cord can be used to transport High Tension voltage, actually!
Haha)
If jokes apart, the reason for that thickness is that is bus-mouse, it has no electronics inside apart buttons and optical couplings. So from it come pretty many wires which for protection are wrapped in durable plastic tube. However! This is still much better than a mouse for ES-1845 which is made of metal and has a shielded cable. That thing is so EPIC that in the future we are going to make a separate episode about it.
The main reason for such thick cables that they aren't actually multi-wire cables manufactured at a cable factory. Instead, they are the bunches of the individually manufactured single-wire cords placed into the PVC tubes by the assembly factory.
@@al-uw4ln That explains it!
What a beauty.
Thank you! Check the next episodes :)
Very interesting video and nice computers!
Thank you! Check also ep2 and ep3 - these contain more details and a test run.
The system architecture is very similar to western industrial control computers of the era, with a processor board and peripheral boards sharing a common interface to a backplane. This design language persisted in industry long after commercial/consumer PC manufacturers moved to integrated motherboard construction.
You have a good point!
By the way, there is an interesting detail: it fits EXACTLY to 19" rack (soviets used them as well). And that light-grey plastic panels are removeable and they have the same height everywhere, so it seems that there could be an attempt to build some universal casing for the purposes we do not know - this does not look an accident, but this idea was probably not further developed.
@@ChernobylFamily I work in designing products for a company whose business is about 1/3 19" rack mount equipment. Using the exact same piece in multiple different products saves quite a bit of money in small volume construction.
@@moconnell663 Yes, totally agree - well, we personally use rackmount equipment at home, not many (we have kinda 12U rack), but it appeared to be way more convenient. However, I meant different: it looks like from some considerations they used this form-factor, but we never found any single reference to possible rackmount use. So for me it looks as a sign of some ideas that never have been implemented. I think I'll again contact the developers to check with them if they remember something like this.
Hello from NY.
Hello from the border of Chornobyl!
Интересный контент)) Помню, похожая машина стояла у мамы на работе, к нему был подключен программатор для микросхем.
Дякуємо! Цікаво, як його було під'єднано... бо можливі варіанти.
@@ChernobylFamily На жаль, у цій темі я темний ліс. Тим не менш, чекатиму!)
Thank you for making these fascinating videos! There is very little good content online about Soviet era computing.
I believe that the first 'real' (using vacuum tubes) computer in the USSR was made in Ukraine, so there's a rich history there!
Thank you! Well, we are going to fill that gap, especially given that the Chornobyl Zone was and is a place for technology used in an unusual environment. You are true, that first was MESM by V. Glushkov / S. Lebedev team, in Kyiv in the laboratory of computers, that later became a foundation for the institute of cybernetics we visited in the 2nd episode of this series.
@@ChernobylFamily I look forward to learning more as you release videos!
You have a new Patreon supporter, from Australia. Take care, stay as safe as you can, and keep being awesome. 👍
@@excessionary Thank you for joining us and for such words! We will!
Greetings, from the US. I'm curious as to what all western computer clones would have been used in Pripyat and Cherynobyl. What Unix and Vax clones were used. The Soviet clones have always fascinated me.
Greetings from Ukraine! This is an interesting question; so far as we know, the clones of VAX were out of the Zone as there were not so many of them in general, and they appeared too late to be deployed in the Zone. However, as for Unix, there were adaptations of this system for certain CM (SM) series mainframes, e.g. CM-4. The question is what they have been using on these machines in the Zone, as there may be certain variations.
But, the definition of a 'clone' is pretty wide, as in many cases it was about architecture and further development based on it that could include even certain improvements. Another thing, though, those clones were often not as reliable as their prototypes.
The purpose of use varied very much -- starting with controlling certain robots and ending with monitoring thousands of detectors Inside the Sarcophagus and aggregating their data; we will cover it in further episodes, as it goes far beyond the comment..)
@@ChernobylFamily I appreciate your reply! It is incredibly helpful! Your work is awesome!
Very interesting soviet computer. Great content!
Thank you! There will be more computer reviews here, as well as other gear.
@@ChernobylFamily Nice, well done!
Oh wow.
That 80's power supply looks like hard to deal with.
💩✌️👍🏻👍🏻😘🤔👏👏👏👏👏👏👏
It appeared to be pretty ok device, but as a more cheap option we later used ATX PSU (needed to repack it to the spare original ES casing, though).
Cheers from Brazil! Amazing documentary, as computer collector, I'm really enjoying it!
Are you planning to dump and reverse engineering those (kgb?) ROM/PROM/EPROM (I'm not sure what they are, actually) you can see at 9:40?
BTW look at that *huge* CGA (or whatever) graphic card!!!!
I have some old IBM PC/XT compatible CGA boards, and they're big, but not sooooo much!
Greetings from Ukraine! I believe, you meant on 6:56 -- yes, they have been dumped already but in fact they are not really different from the civilian version of 1841 ones.
The boards are not that super huge, kinda 20x24 cm - they are slightly transparent, so it is visible they are not that densely packed. We assume this form factor has been chosen to fit more complex devices in a crate, see ep 02 -- the board digital input board, EC1841.0101, that is packed up to the edges.
@@ChernobylFamily yep, 6:56 - 9.40 is the full video duration (shame on me LOL).
On video the board seems (at least to me) to be bigger than what you related, maybe due to the unusual format for a graphic card (at least compared with the '80s western cards).
Are those ICs compatible with chips you can find on the market (i.e. 74LS glue logic, 23xx ROM / 25xx EPROM, etc.) or are proprietary soviet chip technology/design?
This is really fascinating, I know virtually nothing about the soviet computer science of the era; I got (and I'm reading) some pdf with the transcription of the oral histories of some russian pioneers, very enjoyable reading, indeed. It's a world virtually unknown by the western people.
@@pickoftheglitter At that stage it was pure cloning. It is possible is find 1841 machines where all socket chips have been changed to originals. However, in the HDD controller (Ep3) sits a proprietary chip and better it'd be a clone.
Well, russian school went own way, more interesting for me was what has been developed in Kyiv institute of cybernetics. Google "Victor Glushkov OGAS", you will be impressed...)
Thank you what was difference between Military/security and civilian microprocessors ?
If say there was the same chip but in military and civilian versions, then military likely would have a ceramic case, gold-covered pins and so on, but the most important, it would pass a much stricter testing and much structer control on production.
В 90 тые я работал с одним из разработчиков еэски. Помню он так хорошо матом клал на тему двух блочного дизайна :-) Это было проблемой. Жаль многое уже не помню из того что он мне рассказывал.
О да, очень неудобно, и, как бы это сказать, overengineered (два БП). Потом была 1843, где все это упаковали в один корпус от 1842 с одним БП, но она столь редка, что не могу сказать, что внутри.
А он не говорил ничего про стоечный дизайн? Ведь корпус - точно 19".
@@ChernobylFamily Это разрабатывали те, кто создавал шкафы управления для разных интересных устройств морского базирования. В 1996 том мне это казалось скучным и не интересным. Сейчас конечно жалею. Если вспомню фамилию напишу. Еще такой печальный факт, после краха СССР он организовал маленькую компьютерную фирму, а его жена программист, мебельный бизнес. Мебельный оказался куда более востребованным.
@@nostromons6325 ничего себе... а фамилию не помните?
UPD: не загрузился комментарий полностью, сейчас увидел, что не помните.
Но, спасибо за такие детали!
@@ChernobylFamily Я сам собираю электронику из 90 тых. Ну я не так много рассказал :-) Вы молодцы что такие машины восстанавливаете.
This was geuninly interesting. Thank You for making those videos!
(Subscription was obvious! ha ha)
Thank you! Such comments arr really motivating during these times!
@@ChernobylFamily I hawe a few of those early programmable russian ICs, the predesessors of the more modern western equivalents like PIC, AWR, etc
They realy did not cut costs on the gold plating on those, i guess that's probably one reson there are not so many of them left anymore, i hawe not used them yet because they are so beautifuly crafted, but at same time it feels a bit of a shame they are just sitting in a box in my home office room.
So perhaps one day i will at least make a test setup for them.
Thanks God the inhuman edition of the Muscovy empire - the Soviet "union", - very quickly lost each and every competition to the free world, including the race of computers. Nice illustration of the latter! Thank you.
Well, the only one thing I will not agree, is that this very machine is one of the well-made and actually is pretty enjoyable to use...) There were significantly worse examples.
@@ChernobylFamily I trust you will finally revive the computer and wish you best of the luck with that. Very excited to see the result!
@@oleksandrdomashenko2962 we actually did - check ep 2 for tech details and ep 3 for the actual test-run!
How many layer PCB does this use? Would it be possible to reverse engineer it and rebuild from NOS parts today?
It is 8 layers. The circuit diagrams were not included with machines (while for consumer electronics they would normally be), and were shipped only to service centres. Therefore, as for 2022, there are only some diagrams available for some circuit boards of 1841 (and none for 1845, which is slightly different in components). BIOS ROMs, however, exist in saved form.
For 1841, the memory boards in particular are missing.
Yes, your idea is great, and frankly, we are a long time seriously considering rebuilding it, if we find the full schematics. As minimum, we are going to rebuild master-slave cards, layouts of them we have; they are crucial to have to run certain types of specialized expansion cards.
Fantastic machine, for it's time
Well, not bad for sure :)
Another style sorta like curiousmarc
Frankly speaking, before people mentioned here CuriousMarc, we had no idea who it is (shame on us)
I wonder if there are any surviving ES EVM systems? I understand IBM even provided software support for them at one time.
There were two different versions of the K5504.20. One was made by Kyocera and the other was actually made in Germany using tooling supplied by Microscience. There was also a K5504.50 which was a 50MB drive.
You mean, the mainframes? That is a very good question - do not know any complete and capable to run as for 2022. The biggest partially survived set of ES peripherals known to us is the SKALA mainframe of the Chernobyl NPP (a few years ago we asked them to save it based on historical value considerations - that was an epic luck!). But SKALA is not a 'true' ES. Also, I know few places where they still run ES drum matrix printers, as they can print 24/7/365 non stop.
A guess is, that the only place where it looks realistic to still exist under conservation is exSoviet military, e.g. russia or belarus, as they are known to store any junk just in case, but I am afraid we would not know that.
@@ChernobylFamily OKB-1 managed to hide 150 huge rocket engines from the N-1 rockets in a warehouse for decades, so anything is possible.
@@station240 Exactly!
wow
Yeah! Check the next episodes
Indeed very reminicent of the very early IBM machines. They also had a setup with a slave expansion unit
Also a slave unit? Wow, did not know that detail! Thank you!
@@ChernobylFamily Yep, they look very cool. Both units basically in the same kind of cabinet, and there was a special card with a huge connector, which would interface the two units. I suppose in a way it was just a bus extender. So the cards and drives in the expansion unit would behave just as if they were plugged into the mainboard in the main unit. Some people even had dual monitor setups, with one monitor on top of each unit :D
Nuclear Radiative computers 🤘😅
Technically, you are correct))))
I can recall western desktops of late 80s, early 90s with rear power switches and separately powered hard-drives. It was not so uncommon for that time 😸
True.
У меня был ES1840 в 1998 г. , там стояло 2 дисковода теас по 1,2 Мб. А работали они только на 360 Кб. Надежность ES1840 - ужасающе низкая.
Very true.
8:19 Noctua fans before it's cool.
Except this industrial 3-phase monster can work as a grinder for an unlucky finger :)
1841 actually can boot from hard drive
Yes, in this video made a mistake.
@@ChernobylFamily Anyway this video is really nice. I gathered parts for my 1841 all around ex Soviet Union. Gold hunters left few for us.
@@fixitalex respect! Do you have some interesting modules?
@@ChernobylFamily Not that much. Have self-made sound-card. Previously I started assembling EGA adapter. But I'm away from home now(
@@fixitalex We will super appreciate learning more about a sound card when you will have a chance.
I was suprised to see the drives labeled Robotron, but of course there was an explanation for that, haha.
In fact there were the same-looking "pure" Robotron drives, and in them the circuit board was DDR/Soviet, just in this very case it is re-labeling.
@@ChernobylFamily Yes, it seems like the DDR was pretty advanced with tech stuff, also chip production and so on. One thing is copying the design, but producing the chips yourself is something else.
@@160rpm it is interesting, that at least those "pure" Robotron drives we had in the past, had only Ukrainian (Quasar factory) or Czechoslovak (Tesla) ICs. Though, well, our selection probably is not statistically representative.
@@ChernobylFamily Yes, I suppose things were less centralised than you might think. I have some TESLA chips, the logo is pretty cool. I remember seeing a "Pravetz-16" computer, many years ago, I think it was from Bulgaria also. I'm not sure if it would have been part of the EC line, it looked very much like a standard IBM clone.
@@160rpm If I am not wrong, Pravetz-16 is EC-1839. Never saw it personally, but had its green composite monitor which is pretty awesome.
Buy how do u get the items from a radiation zone. I thought nothing could be removed ever
I believe you missed/skipped that - it is not from the zone, it is the same type. The junk in the zone is far beyond any repair, it is useful only to study what parts you have to have, nothing more.
@@ChernobylFamily I definitely did miss it. It wasn't in a mad trolling way. I've been to pripyat 4 times and I get screamed at if I even suggest or joke about taking the smallest of a trinket as a memory. One person took a small half gram of dirt in a sandwich bag as a reminder and ended up turning a plane around to it's origin in flight. Just by mentioning it to a flight attendant talking about their trip. Still love your videos keep up the good work
@@retrogamestudios7649 well, we both were guides in the zone for years, let's say, responsibility is high, so that reaction you got on your tours is understandable. For me personally, i remarkable moment, when a foreigh guy grabs a tree leave from the ground and says - i'll take it, for my son, he is to young to come. Me - how old? He - 12.
Of course he eventualy did not, but...Oh....
@@ChernobylFamily I hear ya, seen the same similar thing. One guy wanted a live bug to take home. Couldn't believe it. Maybe I'll see ya there after the war dies down. Be safe, keep up the good work
@@retrogamestudios7649 thank you! You are welcome here :)
Де ж ви раніше були ... Маю такий в рідній коробці тільки без клавіатури
У вас є якісь плани на нього?
@@ChernobylFamily в зборі весь два блока монітор і миша
I'm sorry i didnt watch the whole video yer thats why i ask : did it have any radiation on these computers ?
No, these are identical (one to one) to those you can find in the Zone. The soviet stuff in the zone is totally beyond repair, but good for references and identification. Check other episodes too! :)
@@ChernobylFamily oh okay...thanks...i was kind of worried for your health there ..🖖
@@aquariumlife2929 we both spent ~11 years in the Zone, so one more, one less - does not matter ;)
@@ChernobylFamily damn ... i hope you guys are alright...i did not know...this was the first video i watched in your channel... just landed here...already subscribed.
@@aquariumlife2929 there is nothing to worry about - if you follow protocols of safety, it is a just a job, no less, no more. Thank you for subscription!
What did they use this computers to? where they for civilian to?,,,,in Chernobyl what did they use them to?....There must be more advanced computers in those days in space ship etc..
dosimetry, radiation monitoring, data processing, controlling of robots and laboratory equipment... there were hell many applications in post-disaster epoch, but this type of stuff was generally replaced already in 1991... nowadays in the Zone normal powerful machines are used, another thing that there are very complex integrations sometimes.
I believe there is a misspelling in the title "Chornobyl"?
There is no. Chernobyl is a transliteration from russian, while it is Chornobyl in Ukrainian.
You forgot to mention you did this during the war with Russia.
This is not a kind of personal achievement, it is a sad circumstance.
апупеть ! у меня 1840 две шуки было. гавно то ещё .сразу сдохли ...😂😂😂
Это именно НАШИ компьютеры. Мы их делали САМИ.
А сейчас у нас СВОЕГО ничего нет.
зато фюра пуйло первый есть ! ...😂😂😂
тоже не совсем наши . все чипы были усердно скопированы ... видеочип видно не смогли. вон мотороловский вбузили 😂
@@SIDERROCK Я понимаю. Но они хотя бы были сделаны нами.
на моей ЕСке на плате были чипы с надписью intel
era bom acha uma empresa de eletronica .. fazer o hd com memoria no chip ... guarda sofwall meus bkp perdir tudo essa droga de windows povo colocando virus na rede .. ainda acho tem dedo da minha operadora de rede .. pedir msdos windows des do 3.1 linux programas msdos de eletronica tudo mais . 3 tera não teve nao teve como recupera eu tentei .. os tecnico tentou .. nada tudo corrompido ...
a russia não vai para não ... chato isso .. porque essa guerra .. convesa era bem melhor
Don't paint, just soap water alcohol & time trust me. Though I can see why a Soviet would skimp on the soap HA GOT'YM
Yes, that's what we used... but here was a trouble: one case was grey, another - terracote color, and both very scratched. Therefore, needed to get them to one look.
який жах, одазу видно, що створювалось не для людей, а для військових, їм мало бути похер на якість, ергономіку і зовнішній вигляд.
в цих "чудо комп’ютерах" взагалі було щось хороше, окрім дорогоцінних металів?
Ну, врахувуючи "кухню" створення, там було все дещо складніше. Скоріше, це був результат першої спроби в обмежених умовах планової економіки. От 45-та, що була дійсно для військових, то був реально нічний жах по ергономіці (хоча зовнішній вигляд власне системника, як нам здається, достатньо епічний).
ІМХО, машинка як машинка. В цілому, у порівнянні з деякими іншими машинами, конструктивно апарат був в цілому вдалий, хоча вже на той момент відставав від західних аналогів.
До речі, щодо ергономіки, особиста думка яка щойно з'явилася, оскільки саме зараз паяємо ці плати, щоб нарешти запустити. При всій відчутній кондовості даного апарату, сферично в вакуумі форм-фактор з платами на затискачах виявився на практиці дуже зручним. Там роз'єм багатоконтактний в три ряди, і при цьому за рахунок затискачів плати дуже легко можно як виймати, так і ставити назад без будь-яких зусиль. У порівнянні з цим, якась шіна VLB або навіть довна ISA - це тортури. Ну, і знову ж таки, практично повна відсутність кабелів.
"який жах, одазу видно,..." - не совсем так! Получить в пользование такой аппарат было мечтой для меня. И эта мечта сбылась - ЕС1840 за примерно 25 тыс руб !!!!