31–40 of 52 posts
One generation of programmers learned programming with these, I remember schools had these computers, it was a privilege to have computers in schools back then when you think about it.
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High complexity and relatively low reward. There have been many attempts at these sorts of dual architectures through history, and they've mostly been abject failures for various reasons (there have been some dual PC/Mac designs from the 90s, those Sun PCI cards with 80386s built on them, etc) At the low end of complexity, you could put a raspberry pi on a pcie daughterboard and just power it off the slot, and maybe…
Cool: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SunPCi didn't knew such thing was developed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z-80_SoftCard
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_IIe_Card
https://www.applerepairmanuals.com/the_manuals_are_in_here/P...
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They literally cloned the Apple II, I think you’re giving them a little too much credit.
With the resources they had (almost nothing) in the stilted, moribund economy of the Soviet Bloc, cloning the Apple II is quite an incredible technical achievement.
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Cool: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SunPCi didn't knew such thing was developed.
Back in the day, those types of cards were available, though a little uncommon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z-80_SoftCard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_IIe_Card https://www.applerepairmanuals.com/the_manuals_are_in_here/P...
Many Apple IIs in the business world were only used to run CPM.
see Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z-80_SoftCard
"The SoftCard was the single most-popular platform to run CP/M"
The was Russian analog called Agat without screen and worse hardware.
It's funny that during Soviet Union times even Bulgaria was technologically more advanced, than Soviet Union itself.
Also, here is a nice quote from Zhivkov that he said during the opening ceremony of Bulgaria's first semi conductor factors:
"This year - a factory of semiconductors. Next year - a factory of full conductors."
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They literally cloned the Apple II, I think you’re giving them a little too much credit.
With the resources they had (almost nothing) in the stilted, moribund economy of the Soviet Bloc, cloning the Apple II is quite an incredible technical achievement.
I studied in the high school that was built to produce both hardware and software specialists that were going to further develop and support these computers and their software. It was great. We were studying material and subjects that were thought in universities (i.e. 3-5 years ahead in time). For example, I could work with binary numbers as a 11-12 years old kid as my older cousin thought me. I think 80% of the peo…
Pravetz was coincidentally the birth place of Todor Zhivkov, the leader of the People's Republic of Bulgaria. If you know how rampant nepotism and corruption was during socialist time (even more than today), you will now that this was no coincidence at all. Also, here is a nice quote from Zhivkov that he said during the opening ceremony of Bulgaria's first semi conductor factors: "This year - a factory of semiconduct…
That's awesome)))
Reminds me of one internal soviet joke about soviet-made microchips. That things called in Russian like "сверхбольшие интегральные схемы"-"superbig integral circuts". Don't know if the West used exactly the same term or just "integral circuts", but the joke was around that "superbig" adjective: "Soviet superbig integral circuts are the biggest in the world!". And if a listener didn't readily undestand the salt, one should clarify: "They have not only 16 legs /*connectors*/ but also a 2 carry handles".