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Pravetz Computers

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Re: Pravetz Computers

#41

Post by nineteen999 »

marcodiego wrote: post #29
spijdar wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The reverse was also true; I worked for a company back in the 1990's that provided third part SPARC solutions - probably the only company in the Southern Hemisphere at the time that did so.

One of the more interesting products we resold were the ROSS Technology "Sparcplugs" - you basically had a SPARC motherboard and CPU that fit into a couple of 5.25" drive bays on a host PC. So almost the reverse of the SunPCI cards.

https://computers.popcorn.cx/ross/sparcplug/

Re: Pravetz Computers

#42

Post by cryptoquick »

Arech wrote: post #40
jansan wrote: post #37

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…

> "This year - a factory of semiconductors. Next year - a factory of full conductors." 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 in…

I would imagine that's similar to VLSI, Very Large Scale Integration?

Re: Pravetz Computers

#43

Post by somesortofsystm »

karavelov wrote: post #11

Yes, this is how I learned programming Basic, assembly, Turbo Pascal (CP/M) and C on Pravetz 82M and 16. It was fun time. Some models of Pravetz 16 had a NEC CPU clone that was running substantially faster, if my memory serves me well 12 MHz vs 4 MHz for the Intel. They were widely available in the education system and there were optional classes to learn programming. Edit: I forgot the Pravetz 8D a friend had - they…

Still got that 8D drum-box? ;P

I have sort of a thing for the synth used, its also in the Oric-1/Atmos line of machines.

Re: Pravetz Computers

#44

Post by jacquesm »

pdimitar wrote: post #13

I had Pravetz 82 (1MHz CPU and 64KB RAM, some of which used by the system) with 1-2x 5.25" floppy drives. It was between 1992 and 1996, and I was 12 to 16 year old during the period. Having small competitions with several boys in my small hometown that were about who is going to write the fastest program to calculate all 16-bit prime numbers (in machine code, obviously) will forever remain one of my sweetest and fond…

> I am an efficiency maniac with an excellent eye for simple and readable code

That puts you well above the crowd.

Re: Pravetz Computers

#45

Post by pdimitar »

jacquesm wrote: post #44
pdimitar wrote: post #13

I had Pravetz 82 (1MHz CPU and 64KB RAM, some of which used by the system) with 1-2x 5.25" floppy drives. It was between 1992 and 1996, and I was 12 to 16 year old during the period. Having small competitions with several boys in my small hometown that were about who is going to write the fastest program to calculate all 16-bit prime numbers (in machine code, obviously) will forever remain one of my sweetest and fond…

> I am an efficiency maniac with an excellent eye for simple and readable code That puts you well above the crowd.

Thank you for the very kind words.

It seems my problem is that I am unable to monetize those skills. Everywhere I go, people want stuff yesterday and care not about quality. It's likely my fault for not aiming well when looking for employment.

Re: Pravetz Computers

#46

Post by nexthash »

pvg wrote: post #34
nexthash wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It was an eminently cloneable (and already old) computer, evolved from a hobbyist design. With state-level support, this is not by any means an 'incredible technical achievement' even for a small COMECON country (which had already produced things like IBM/360 clones, etc).

Yeah, if you have the fab, circuit board manufacturing plant, and assembly plant then it is. Keep in mind that you are economically isolated from the rest of the world, forcing you to do things like copy designs to save time and limited resources for building the machines.

Re: Pravetz Computers

#47

Post by Arech »

cryptoquick wrote: post #42
Arech wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "This year - a factory of semiconductors. Next year - a factory of full conductors." 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 in…

I would imagine that's similar to VLSI, Very Large Scale Integration?

Well, almost, I guess. Wiki says that VLSI is a process, and the thing I was talking about is the result of this process, a final product.

Re: Pravetz Computers

#48

Post by jacquesm »

pdimitar wrote: post #45
jacquesm wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am an efficiency maniac with an excellent eye for simple and readable code That puts you well above the crowd.

Thank you for the very kind words. It seems my problem is that I am unable to monetize those skills. Everywhere I go, people want stuff yesterday and care not about quality. It's likely my fault for not aiming well when looking for employment.

Yes, but monetization of a capability is value capture, not value creation and you are clearly good at the second but not so good at the former. This is not at all uncommon, in art (in all its forms) it is even so common that it has become a stereotype: the artist that is starving whose works command insane sums after they pass away.

It is also tied in to humility, and an inability to translate to others what the benefit of that attention to detail and quality will yield.

I think the tide is turning though: Moore's law was the cheap way to devalue those skills: why bother optimizing something if you can wait for just a short while to get a better ROI than by spending the time getting it right? But now that Moore's law is at an end and software is more and more messy and fragile we may see a recurrence of attention to detail, quality and performance.

I would consider the web a 'dead' zone for anything related to that other than at the very highest levels where the economies of scale are such that that attention to detail still gives an advantage. But software is so much larger than just the web. One domain in which quality is the make or break feature is in security, a small flaw will render a whole castle of work useless, similar attitudes are present with people working on medical hardware/software combos, avionics, rocketry and so on.

If you can look wider than just the web and try to find a field which still operates closer to the metal, preferably in non-networked stuff, that's where there is still a market for your skills and there are fewer and fewer people that can do this.

Re: Pravetz Computers

#49

Post by pdimitar »

jacquesm wrote: post #48
pdimitar wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for the very kind words. It seems my problem is that I am unable to monetize those skills. Everywhere I go, people want stuff yesterday and care not about quality. It's likely my fault for not aiming well when looking for employment.

Yes, but monetization of a capability is value capture, not value creation and you are clearly good at the second but not so good at the former. This is not at all uncommon, in art (in all its forms) it is even so common that it has become a stereotype: the artist that is starving whose works command insane sums after they pass away. It is also tied in to humility, and an inability to translate to others what the ben…

> It is also tied in to humility, and an inability to translate to others what the benefit of that attention to detail and quality will yield.

Yes. Definitely this. At some point I burned out and stopped trying seriously. I just get angry and annoyed when I am being resisted on this and started giving up almost at the spot.

But this ties to other areas of life like proper diet which I am struggling a lot with (almost always very tired as a result). At least I got some workout routine going but when eating the wrong food that almost makes no difference.

> I think the tide is turning though

I think the same and lately I started worrying that even if I am feeling it I still can't monetize the trend.

> I would consider the web a 'dead' zone for anything related to that

Hindsight is 20/20. I wish I never started in the web area. I started making tentative steps in other directions but I am not willing to take a pay cut or blow all of my free time. I do that every now and then, mind you, but I burn out quickly and will need a few other months before I feel up to it again.

Let's not turn this into a therapy session though. I am vulnerable and weak lately -- all my energy goes to self-improvement -- and I very easily start complaining.

---

Thanks for mentioning those other fields. I'd very much like to try my hand there and leave web work forever but I am hitting 41 soon and people in these areas are (a) risk-averse and don't want to hire a person without prior experience there, and (b) I am not 25 anymore and they might be worried about... not sure what. Age-ism does exist in hiring though, I've witnessed it.

I guess what I am trying to say is: I got smart about my career pretty late in life. Was focused on a ton of other things for the last two decades and that of course was my mistake -- I am not blaming anyone.

I suppose in the end it's about networking and some luck. But I do no networking (plus Corona) and my luck surface area is pretty small.

Re: Pravetz Computers

#50

Post by aivisol »

nexthash wrote: post #10

This line of computers is really a testament to the ingenuity of people from the Soviet Bloc at a time when resources were few. There's so many stories of them harnessing the limited computing/calculator power they had to play games, run simulations, and more. This era minted a generation of techies that formed the foundation of the tech industry there today. Here's some examples of the clever tricks these hackers di…

This [1] was my first programmable calculator and what this Wikipedia article writes about games and "errorology" was really true.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elektronika_B3-34

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