An Орель БК-08 is mine! Pics!

[CatPix]

So, one of my dreams came true recently : I have a ZX Spectrum at home!

 

But not any Spectrum! It's an Орель БК-08, or Orel BK-08. Or maybe PC-08 ( БК is the short for Бытовой Компьютер = Home Computer, so HC or PC for Personnal Computer would be an acceptable transcription. In the meantime, Orel is Eagle, so maybe it's the Orel BK-08 or the Eagle PC-08. Whatever...)

I was build in USSR, more precisely in Ukraine, in the town of Dnepropetrovsk, between 1984 and 1993 (but is reported to have been sold up to 1995).

 

I got the system barebone, so I had to provide a 24V power supply, and the video cable.

 

So the Orel is a ZX Spectrum clone, but quite more advanced than most.

As can be seen, it feature a REAL keyboard, that use Reed switches (a magnetic based system) As such, the keyboard feel really strange, as there is no rubber domes or a physical switch, the keys press down freely and go down on their spring without added feedback. It's hard to describe. But the general feeling is pleasant and feel relatively sturdy; the keys are firmly maintained and doesn't wiggle around like C64 keys for example. The only less good key is the space bar, but that's a common issues on all keyboards, and really I just need to check the springs for putting it back in good shape.

 

There are added keys that provide more functions, most notably the РУС and Р/А keys. The РУС (RUS) key allow to type in cyrillic characters, as well as the P/A one; the difference being that P/A only type one character, the RUS one switch the mapping until you press it again.

 

Some site report that the Orel feature 64Ko or RAM, but while it's true, only 48Ko are available to the system, the 16 remaining Ko are for the added part of the build-in BASIC and the NMI function (if I got that part right!)

 

But it's not only about a keyboard and a fancy look, right?

The Orel also include built-in standard video, tape in and out, and two joysticks ports, all in good old DIN format.

 

 

Unlike many other Soviet computers, the video standard used here isn't RGB TTL or some other CGA type of video, but standard SCART signals that allow for a straight cable to be used to feed a SCART compatible TV, or a xRGB. Yay!

 

The joystick ports are supposedly in Sinclair/Kempton standards, but I haven't looked yet for wiring a joystick on them so I can't confirm.

 

For expansion, the connector isn't located on the back, but in a cartridge-like slot atop of the machine :

 

 

Apparently, the Orel also include a КР1818ВГ93 chip, that is a floppy controller, meaning that straigt wiring the conenctor to a floppy drive is possible with no additionnal components (aside from a PSU for the floppy drive)

 

For anyone curious, the blue connector used is a very common Soviet parallel connector, know as СНП58. Supposedly was standardized as a parallel interface (and in know cases, can be adapted with one some passive components to LPT/Centronics signals we know), but on many computers, some pins were used for specific lines.

 

The keyboard received his own serial number and part number.

Given this general design, it might have been also mounted on other machines?

 

The 2.9.40.007 is the "complete name" of the computer, not a given serial number.

The S/N is probably the one under, and applies for the year.

 

You might have noticed that the computer doesn't feature a power button, and indeed, like on most Soviet machines, the power button is located on the power supply.

This mean that I can't really turn off mine since the PSU I use doesn't have any power switch. Thanks a lot for the RESET button!

 

Booting the beast :

 

 

BASIC - SYSTEM Ver. 2.0

The BASIC of the Orel is an almost straight copy of the original one - except for various bugfixes and the adaptations to the slightly different hardware of the Orel. The biggest change being that most (all?) messages have been translated in Russian.

 

Loading a programme :

 

Loading interrupted, because my media software crashed Can't trust this modern tech!

 

 

 

About crashing, obviously, the Orel BK isn't 100% compatible with all Spectrum 48K software. The most commonly cited example is Bomb Jack :

 

 

 

But unlike other clones that improved the Spectrum (bug correction, faster CPU, faster RAM, Russified ROM loading in parts where game usually expect to load/look for data) the conceptors of the Orel took great care to make it as compatible as possible with the original Spectrum. So far I tried about a dozen of different programs, small demos, games, and only Bomb Jack and an Hungarian game of the 80's didn't worked (and for the Hungarian game, it most likely was written for a Spectrum clone itself so it doesn't prove much there).

 

 

So I hope you liked this little intro, and now, if you have suggestion for Spectrum 48K games (with no AY sound) that you like or that I should try, I won't mind hearing them!

[Osgeld]

Cool machine thanks for giving us a little tour

[CatPix]

Thanks ^^

 

And I opened up the keyboard to fix the space bar.

 

 

Well, one of the tabs that hold the "spring bar" had slipped, preventing the bar ro push the space bar correctly. An easy fix!

 

 

And I got to get a look at the Reed contact. Pretty cool stuff really!

[jhd]

Thank-you for posting this! I love reading about obscure hardware that I will never get to encounter IRL; there is so much strange stuff out there that is largely unknown in North America!

[Newsdee]

How is this related to the BK0011M?

 

A developer called Sorgelig has been doing an amazing job writing cores of Russian computers into the MiST FPGA (among which the BK11): https://github.com/sorgelig

 

It's pretty cool to discover these machines and how they have improvements over the more known ones in the west.

[CatPix]

They are absolutely unrelated.

The Orel BK is a Spectrum clone, with close specs to the original (same CPU except it was made in GDR, same clcok speed, same amount of RAM, cloned ULA chip ).

 

The Elektronika BK is the low end of a line of DEC PDP-11 clones. It's a 16 bits computer, with every part of his architecture into 16 bits (making it the first personnal computer being all in 16 bits - the TI99 only had his CPU in 16 bits) powered by a clone of the DEC PDP-11, and able to run FOCAL and RT-11, DEC operation systems (FOCAL being the DEC equivalent of BASIC, and RT-11 a then powerful multitasking OS).

The BK feature the same blue connectors I mentionned for the Orel, but the one on the Elektronika is compatible with DEC's Q-Bus standard.

 

The only thing they would have in common would be being made in USSR, and being clones, but that's about it. For what I know, the Orel was a "local" production, made possible thanks to the perestroika that allowed some liberties on production, whereas the Elektronika was a product officially State-planned and made available in USSR general stores.

[Newsdee]

I thought BK was a series of machines... what does it mean? Maybe it's just "PC"

[CatPix]

Yep, BK can be translated (if I found things right) as Home Computer, or PC being an acceptable translation. So seeing BK in a Soviet computer name is not really indicative of anything.

The Elektronika BK spawned a number of variants - BK 0010, BK 0010.1, BK 0011, BK0011m which are slight variations.

In the same vein, you have the Apogee BK-01, which was a factory-produced version of a computer kit, based on a 8080 CPU and something like 16Ko of RAM.

In a slight different vein, there is the ПК-01 ЛЬВОВ - Lvov (like the Ukrainian town) PK-01, which is translated as Personnal Computer, so PK would be PC as well.

 

And there is probably lots of other machines - the number of computers produced for internal uses and by "cottage industries" is really amazing,

If you read a bit about it, you see things like the Korvet computer, produced for the Soviet Institute of Nuclear Physics, or he Okean-240, made for the Soviet Institute of Oceanology. One problem? One computer!

Even if it's not unheard of here either.

[Omega-TI]

I thoroughly enjoyed your post! I bet a few other Spectrum lovers would like to get their hands on a model like that. Do you have any plans of copying the chip and translating the Russian into English and re-burning the chip? That thing with English prompts would be the bomb!

[CatPix]

I do not have the skill to realize this, else, I would certainly do that.

The Orel can be found rather often on eBay, sadly not often for a reasonable price.

Maybe someone already dumped the ROM chip data somewhere.

I read that some Orel have a slot for a second ROM chip.

Also, I think it's possible to bypass the internal ROM with a ROM added on a board via the external bus.

 

The Elektronika BK works this way (tho it's a totally different machine) and many machine, in the East and West, works like that as well.

Edited May 9, 2016 by CatPix

[Newsdee]

While it's not the same as the physical machine, some of these are being implemented for the MIST FPGA and through that can be run very easily.

 

I played a bit with the Apogee BK-01 today and it's very weird (but very cool) to be greeted by a Russian DOS I still need to find a good archive of games though.

 

One thing I found neat is several games are inspired from arcade hits but done in pure text mode in ASCII (perhapd the machine is good at rendering text because they're very playable).

[danwinslow]

Good stuff, thanks for posting. Sinclair machines are my other 8 bit interest.

[CatPix]

While it's not the same as the physical machine, some of these are being implemented for the MIST FPGA and through that can be run very easily.

 

I played a bit with the Apogee BK-01 today and it's very weird (but very cool) to be greeted by a Russian DOS I still need to find a good archive of games though.

 

One thing I found neat is several games are inspired from arcade hits but done in pure text mode in ASCII (perhapd the machine is good at rendering text because they're very playable).

 

I missed your message...

 

From what I've read here and there, the Apogee BK-01 is a Radio 86RK compatible computer; the Radio 86RK was a DIY kit computer (like the Altaïr 8800) and thus doesn't have any graphical mode, text mods only; but as it feature at least 16 Ko of RAM (the apogee might have 32 Ko, can't recall) and the CPU being an Intel 8080 clone that run around 1,9Mhtz, it's rather decent for a kit computer!

Check out for more infos but I'm pretty sure that any game or program for the 86RK should run on the Apogee.

Edited June 16, 2016 by CatPix

[Newsdee]

Any particular games you can recommend?

[CatPix]

Unfortunately no, I do not own any computer from the 86-RK family, and I haven't looked for emulators and games yet. But I guess you cna try to find videos showing games for the system, this should give you some clues on what to expect and look for the system.

[mjnurney]

hi

 

i dont suppose you have a dump of the 2 Roms do you? my orel BK-08 docent have the roms at all...

 

i'll have to burn them on to Eprom

 

mike

[CatPix]

I do not have them, and I do not have the knowledge or tools to do it, unfortunately.

Maybe you can try to look on zx-pk.ru/ (with a translator) to see if they extrated it. Which is likely.