Soviet Counterparts

[Octavio]

Are there any consoles in the former Soviet Union that were modeled after the Atari systems? I know that they had an NES-clone called "Dendy."

[MagitekAngel]

Atarski?

[godslabrat]

Are there any consoles in the former Soviet Union that were modeled after the Atari systems?

 

In Soviet Russia, Atari models YOU!

Edited October 15, 2010 by godslabrat

[Reaperman]

I haven't heard of any atari console clones. Though this gallery of old soviet arcade games is a bit neat. One of them looks quite super-sprintish.

 

Speaking of the Dendy, I have a chinese famiclone called a Liko KL-235 which was made for the Russian market. Oddly I got it at a Big Lots here in the states. I expect they got a lot of returns, because of the odd power supply and 'unamerican' output...

Edited October 15, 2010 by Reaperman

[Octavio]

I haven't heard of any atari console clones. Though this gallery of old soviet arcade games is a bit neat. One of them looks quite super-sprintish.

 

Speaking of the Dendy, I have a chinese famiclone called a Liko KL-235 which was made for the Russian market. Oddly I got it at a Big Lots here in the states. I expect they got a lot of returns, because of the odd power supply and 'unamerican' output...

 

That is very interesting.

[OldAtarian]

I haven't heard of any atari console clones. Though this gallery of old soviet arcade games is a bit neat. One of them looks quite super-sprintish.

 

Speaking of the Dendy, I have a chinese famiclone called a Liko KL-235 which was made for the Russian market. Oddly I got it at a Big Lots here in the states. I expect they got a lot of returns, because of the odd power supply and 'unamerican' output...

 

Does it display Communist propaganda on screen before each game?

[Reaperman]

Does it display Communist propaganda on screen before each game?

Your guess is as good as mine, I've never plugged it in. Capitalist propaganda would be more likely though, since it was 2005.

I found my original post on the subject over at benheck. (link)

 

It came with an interesting wireless RF transmitter that probably does double-duty as a birth control device.

 

Edited October 15, 2010 by Reaperman

[OldAtarian]

Does it display Communist propaganda on screen before each game?

Your guess is as good as mine, I've never plugged it in. Capitalist propaganda would be more likely though, since it was 2005.

I found my original post on the subject over at benheck. (link)

 

It came with an interesting wireless RF transmitter that probably does double-duty as a birth control device.

 

 

What connector is on the end of those controllers? NES or Atari?

[Reaperman]

What connector is on the end of those controllers? NES or Atari?

They're hardwired like early Famicoms. The gun plugs into a single DB15 in the front. 2nd player controller lacks start/select buttons, and has no microphone.

[tz101]

What connector is on the end of those controllers? NES or Atari?

They're hardwired like early Famicoms. The gun plugs into a single DB15 in the front. 2nd player controller lacks start/select buttons, and has no microphone.

 

Just like the original Famicom's. Any peripherals like lightguns or the arkanoid controller plugged into a DB15 port.

[paisleyboxers]

On 10/14/2010 at 10:26 PM, Reaperman said:

I haven't heard of any atari console clones. Though this gallery of old soviet arcade games is a bit neat. One of them looks quite super-sprintish.

 

Speaking of the Dendy, I have a chinese famiclone called a Liko KL-235 which was made for the Russian market. Oddly I got it at a Big Lots here in the states. I expect they got a lot of returns, because of the odd power supply and 'unamerican' output...

I was just gifted a Liko KL-235 from a friend! Where can I look to find a power supply? The one passed onto me this weekend doesn't have one.

[Reaperman]

Holy thread necromancy--it's been 10+ years @paisleyboxers. 

 

looks like the power supply's output specs are 9v dc @ 500ma with a 5mm barrel plug and unmarked polarity. So, easy day there, probably. Once you find one, hopefully yours puts out less Russian(?) video than mine does.

 

I also took some pics of the power supply and rest of the system to replace the ones that are now gone. They should blow up fairly big. I'm guessing there's not a ton of english-language info on this oddball.

 

It came with an optional wireless RF transmitter which accepted the power cable on the back and then passed it through to the console (there was also a standard rca to coax cable in the box).  I'm guessing I can't just tune that wireless signal in with US equipment.  I'd heard of some 2600 clones having a similar wireless transmitter, but nothing else in my collection has one.

 

And yes, it was $9 at the Big Lots in Camarillo, CA just like you see it.  With the weird 220v power supply, rf transmitter for who-knows-where, and all the rest.  Seems I even stuffed the receipt in the box.

 

First power supply pics:

  

 

General system pics:

  

-

   

 

If anybody can read--whatever this is--here's a manual

  

 

Edited January 11, 2021 by Reaperman

[+x=usr(1536)]

27 minutes ago, Reaperman said:

Holy thread necromancy--it's been 10+ years @paisleyboxers. 

 

looks like the power supply's output specs are 9v dc @ 500ma with a 5mm barrel plug and unmarked polarity. So, easy day there, probably. Once you find one, hopefully yours puts out less Russian(?) video than mine does.

 

I also took some pics of the power supply and rest of the system. They should blow up fairly big. I'm guessing there's not a ton of english-language info on this oddball.

 

One odd thing I don't think I mentioned before is that it came with an optional wireless RF transmitter which accepted the power cable on the back and then passed it through to the console (there was also a standard rca to coax cable in the box).  I'm guessing I can't just tune that wireless signal in with US equipment.  I'd heard of some 2600 clones having a similar wireless transmitter, but nothing else in my collection has one.

 

I've seen those on a couple of other Famiclones before, and they've all been roughly the same unit.

 

Your assumption that it won't work on a US TV is possibly a valid one - given the ostensibly Russian origins of this console, chances are it's designed to output SECAM video.  A modern LCD might be able to detect and display it, but there's also no guarantee that whatever TV is receiving the signal will be able to tune it given differences in broadcast frequencies in different countries.

 

FWIW, most PAL countries used Channel 36 (591.25MHz) for A/V equipment connectivity, which appears to correspond (give or take) to NTSC channel 34.  SECAM may be similar, but it's a moot point if the TV can't tune it - SECAM and PAL used 8MHz channel widths, whereas NTSC used 6MHz.  Still, it's worth a shot.

[CatPix]

The Soviet Union never produced any console system beside a very rare ZX-Spectrum cart based system, of which apparently less that 1000 units were produced in 1991, the ALF :

Only 3 are know to exist to this day.

 

The Dendy was released in 1992, it's a RUSSIAN product, not a Soviet one. And they were relabeled "Genius" Korean/Taiwanese consoles (rumors has it that the Genius board and chips were designed by LG).

The remarquable feat is that it was marketed as a "genuine" product, with Dendy having their magazine and even a TV show, until the company capsized around 1996.

 

The Soviet Union produced handhled consoles, LCD-based games, clones of Game&Watch but also your typical "brick games" and similar systems (most likely copied from Taiwan products.)

They produced TV consoles but never anything more advanced than Pong games.

 

G&W "Egg" clone, with custom graphics from the fabulous Soviet Cartoon "Nu Pogodi" (seriously, give it a watch, it's a kind of Tom&Jerry; there is little spoken text so you don't miss much, and it's absolutely devoid of any propaganda - if anything the hero, Volk (Wolf) is a troublemaker! )

 

 

 

About propaganda : there was none.

 

The reason is simple : the earliest arcade games from the Soviet Union were electromechanical, so, no text, no display. Later arcade games were based on either early computers, with a few indigenous designs (PC-8000 clones, a Japanese computer, in the FOTON cabs, later replaced with ZX Spectrum boards - that make the ZX Spectrum the only architecture that has been a computer, an arcade and a video game system ) and the TIA-MC1 home-made arcade system.

 

The older designed games were very basic, similar to the likes of Space Invaders, they couldn't display text (well technically they could, but ROM size was an issue, especially in the Soviet Union).

The TIA MC-1 games display text, a common staple of Soviet games (often seen on home-made games for computers) but it's usually just a background story.

 

Usually, propaganda was avoided in Soviet production unless it was a commissionned work, because most writers feared that a political change (and the 80's were rife with political changes) would bring unwanted attention on their work and themselves. For example, after Stalin's death, many works were heavily censored to remove the most glaring allusions to Stalin, and their authors, even if it was commissionned work, were shunned and removed from their position.

The arcade games reflect that : the games are very generic or based on traditionnal folk tales.

 

"The humpbacked horse"

 

The Snow Queen (yes, it's not even a Soviet tale )

 

Fishing cat :

 

S.O.S

 

 

The bulk of Soviet gaming was on computers, I don't need to name the ZX spectrum clones

Many were home-made, but there were a few factory-made machines :

 

 

But also, one of the few available computers was the Elektronika BK series. It is based on the PDP-11, and is compatible - so yes, Soviet gamers literally played on miniature mainframes

 

 

 

A lesser know machine, but a great one, is the Vector 06C :

 

Designed by two University teacher, it's probably the most gaming-oriented machien designed in the Soviet Union, being slightlty more powerful than a MSX1 computer.

 

For propaganda in home games, it's noteworthy that the ONLY game ever published by the Soviet Union is Tetris each and every other game made before 1992 in Soviet Union was home-programmed.

It mean that if you find a propaganda-heavy game on computer from Russia, then it's only the programmer expressing himself, not a State-programmed propaganda work.

But from what I've seen, Soviet teenagers programming games had little interesting in propaganda - games are usually clones of Western games, so you even have a lot of games featuring US soldiers fighting the Soviet Union or just... featuring the US as the heroes

 

Elektronika BK game :

 

Vector 06C games (some of the being port of MSX games)

 

 

 

As for the original question, some gamers in EAstern Europe did enjoyed the Atari 2600 : travel to Western countries was possible under condition and there were no restrictions on what you could buy and bring back. It was especially true of Yugoslavia, and several upper-class families would travel to Austria and bring back Western products, and I had a testimony of someone's parents acquiring an Atari 2600 tho it was not a clone but an original Atari system.

Edited January 11, 2021 by CatPix

[+GoldenWheels]

As I get sick of the same old US lore, learning about foreign game scenes has become very interesting to me and I always enjoy hearing personal experiences from those aboard. Brazil and the SMS, UK and the micro computers (though I've heard enough Zed whatever to last a lifetime by now), PC-E and Korea/Middle East, now Russia...Pretty interesting Pix, thanks!

 

Seems there should be a book about this kind of thing...classic gaming around the world....

[CatPix]

Note that this is only from what I gathered, I'm not Russian. I just have a fondness for Russian culture (pre and post Soviet era included) so it was only natural I would get interested into the gaming culture in the Soviet Union.

Also I haven't mentionned the Comecon countries much because each country had their own little internal culture; Yugoslavia had many contact with the West, games were smuggled from the West to East (mostly ZX spectrum games). East Germany made an Amstrad CPC clone in 1990 but it was mere month before everything fell apart so it had no impact on anything.

In several Eastern countries (at least Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia and Poland) around 1990, games would be shared all over the countries from the West and internally... on FM radios. Yes. gamers would set up FM emitters and broadcast the data tapes over FM for gamers to record it (and/or directly load in on theitr computers I assume).

Something I forgot to mention was that those arcade machines and computers were rare. Most gamers in Eastern countries that got to play on computers before 1992 would have played games in computer clubs, very rarely owning their own computers.

After the Iron Wall fell, however, those Soviet/locally made systems would be utterly outdated or unattractive, as for example Atari would sell their aging 8 bits line in Eastern Europe (which explain the current situation you might have seen if you're into Atari 8 bits : that most software and hardware development is made in Poland and Czech Republic) so companies and administration would dump those computers out, and unsold stocks would be sold at literal scrap value, which explain why most games you can see in those videos bear dates of 1992 to 1994 : it is when those computers became "common" for everybody, before they were quickly replaced by either consoles (usually Famiclones) or aging but "better" (and non-Soviet ) Western computers.

 

[youxia]

On 1/11/2021 at 8:35 PM, CatPix said:

In several Eastern countries (at least Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia and Poland) around 1990, games would be shared all over the countries from the West and internally... on FM radios. Yes. gamers would set up FM emitters and broadcast the data tapes over FM for gamers to record it (and/or directly load in on theitr computers I assume).

I grew up in Poland at that time but have never heard of such thing done by individuals. Not saying it did not happen at all, but it must've been some sporadic instances. It's just logistically too much hassle - it's so much easier just to go to somebody's place and borrow/copy tapes. There actually were broadcasts on the official, state-ran FM radio, but the quality was low (well, of my gear at least) and I've never managed to load one of these recordings without errors.

 

On 1/11/2021 at 8:35 PM, CatPix said:

Something I forgot to mention was that those arcade machines and computers were rare. Most gamers in Eastern countries that got to play on computers before 1992 would have played games in computer clubs, very rarely owning their own computers

This is not 100% true. See my post about arcades here.  As for computers, for sure, there weren't as many of them as in the West, but still, there were a lot of people who had them. I had ZX Spectrum in 1987, C64 in 1990 and Amiga in 1991, even though I was rather poor. But, where there's a will there's a way.

There were no computer clubs, at least not in my area, you'd just have to befriend some guy who had a micro. Very few schools had computers. The only "clubs" were basically microcomputer arcades - they'd charge per hour.

 

 

Edited January 11, 2021 by youxia

[youxia]

On 1/11/2021 at 8:35 PM, CatPix said:

After the Iron Wall fell, however, those Soviet/locally made systems would be utterly outdated or unattractive, as for example Atari would sell their aging 8 bits line in Eastern Europe (which explain the current situation you might have seen if you're into Atari 8 bits : that most software and hardware development is made in Poland and Czech Republic) so companies and administration would dump those computers out, and unsold stocks would be sold at literal scrap value, which explain why most games you can see in those videos bear dates of 1992 to 1994 : it is when those computers became "common" for everybody, before they were quickly replaced by either consoles (usually Famiclones) or aging but "better" (and non-Soviet ) Western computers.

Again, this isn't exactly how it was - nobody ever sold anything to us for "scrap value". How I wish It's just that there was a little bit more money after 1988 sloshing around and people could afford a bit more, plus computers were getting popular and it was easier to convince parents. And, sure, they were outdated so also a bit cheaper, but still quite a luxury.

 

Cartridge based consoles never got too popular, clones or not ("Pegasus" in my area), for the simple reason that copying carts was zillion times harder/more expensive than disks or tapes. I've never actually seen one in my entire life there. First console which got popular, (and first one I've ever owned, circa 1998) was PSX - guess why...

[CatPix]

I was mostly referring to Russia about the scrap value for computers, because they had factories churning enough computers to actually have stockpiles of them and the shock therapy in Russia was quite terrible.

 

I mentionned somewhere that Comecon countries got things going a bit different, so It's no surprise it didn't happened to you that way We're talking about dozens of countries after all. And from my talk with Russians people, it was different even within Russia : finding Elektronika or MSX KYBT (from schools) computers for sale or discarded was obviously more common around Moscow or St Petersburg than around most cities that didn't received any computer at all during the Soviet era.

I was just trying to give a general idea of how things happened, but if we wanna go in detail, it would take several paragraphs for each countries of the former Eastern Block, and probably a few just for the biggest Soviet cities.

And if you have more memories I would be glad to hear them

Edited January 11, 2021 by CatPix

[youxia]

On 1/11/2021 at 10:20 PM, CatPix said:

I was just trying to give a general idea of how things happened, but if we wanna go in detail, it would take several paragraphs for each countries of the former Eastern Block, and probably a few just for the biggest Soviet cities.

And if you have more memories I would be glad to hear them

I made these posts in answer to particular points about satellite countries, just a perspective from within. I'm sure Russia was a different beast, and there were per country variations.

 

There are a lot of memories and anecdotes (eg how the CEO of CD Projekt RED started out as a pirate selling games in computer fair, or me going across half country just to get some new games) but this is a console section

 

This book is pretty good (but pricey): http://ironcurtain.svelch.com/

Edited January 12, 2021 by youxia

[jhd]

On 1/11/2021 at 6:51 AM, CatPix said:

But also, one of the few available computers was the Elektronika BK series. It is based on the PDP-11, and is compatible - so yes, Soviet gamers literally played on miniature mainframes

 

 

 

 

That is an impressive summary!

 

I have a quick question about the Elektronika BK series: what (if any) graphics capability does it have?

 

I have no experience with the PDP-11, but my (very limited) experience with similar hardware is limited to text-only terminals. I know that the later VAX 8800 could support a Tektronix graphics terminal, but I thought that was it intended for mathematics-related displays and not adequate for games.

 

 

[CatPix]

The BK have minimal graphic capabilities. It's not text based-only so you can make regular games on it.

There are two modes, Low-res and High res : 512×256, monochrome and 256*256 with 4 pseudo-colors. I never found a precise info on the amount of RAM it has, but base machine has 32 Ko of RAM, and only 16 Ko are available, so you can assume that the display has about 16 Ko of RAM.

Aside from being able to fidle with every pixel separately and color it as you wish, it has (as far as I understand it) no support for anything, no scrolling, no hardware sprite support.

For the 4 colors, it is in fact 4 levels of grays that get colored by the RGB output; the "4 colors" being then Red, Blue, Green and White.

A later evolution of the BK series is the BK 11 which feature a slightly more advanced video display, mostly by adding a series of colored pages (which, kinda like CGA works, in fact offers 4 palettes that users can't choose. Being less common there's less games and programs on it)

 

Here are more examples of games developped or ported on the BK :

(this one feature reasonnably smooth sprite scrolling and a lot of dithering to feature more colors, quite impressive)

 

 

(Nice, typical hacker intro and menu at the beginning )

 

A prto of Exolon, a famous 8-bits game - quite interesting to compare with other machines :

 

Original BK have only a ZX Spectrum-like beeper for sound. Adding other chips was common, especially for post 1991 games. Covox were easy to make, but other favorite were VI53 chips ( a clone of the Intel timer chip used in PC for the PC speaker... except that this chip in PC is used to generate clock frequencies - on the BK and the Vector 06C, as well as the TIA MC1 arcade, all three output are used for sound, providing a rather flexible 3 oscillator sound chip) and AY-3-8912 chips.

Adding RAM was also always done, so most BK games won't run on a "raw" machine.

 

And have a demo using Covox ?

Edited January 13, 2021 by CatPix

[paisleyboxers]

On 1/10/2021 at 8:56 PM, Reaperman said:

Holy thread necromancy--it's been 10+ years @paisleyboxers. 

 

looks like the power supply's output specs are 9v dc @ 500ma with a 5mm barrel plug and unmarked polarity. So, easy day there, probably. Once you find one, hopefully yours puts out less Russian(?) video than mine does.

 

I also took some pics of the power supply and rest of the system to replace the ones that are now gone. They should blow up fairly big. I'm guessing there's not a ton of english-language info on this oddball.

 

It came with an optional wireless RF transmitter which accepted the power cable on the back and then passed it through to the console (there was also a standard rca to coax cable in the box).  I'm guessing I can't just tune that wireless signal in with US equipment.  I'd heard of some 2600 clones having a similar wireless transmitter, but nothing else in my collection has one.

 

And yes, it was $9 at the Big Lots in Camarillo, CA just like you see it.  With the weird 220v power supply, rf transmitter for who-knows-where, and all the rest.  Seems I even stuffed the receipt in the box.

 

First power supply pics:

  

 

General system pics:

  

-

   

 

If anybody can read--whatever this is--here's a manual

  

 

Thank you for your incredible detailed reply!

The power adaptor works, thankfully, although the caps in the video output are fried. I need to do a complete trace and replace. 

The sound is spot on though!