DataArt has opened the website of the IT Museum

On the site IT Museum DataArt collected six large chapters about the history of computer technology in the USSR, photos and descriptions of several dozen exhibits, personal stories of computer developers and programmers who worked for them. Especially for Habr, we have collected a small series of posters with items from the museum collection.

Purchased for the museum by Gleb Nitsman from a private person. Photo: Mitya Ganopolsky

Computer “Electronics KR-03”

USSR, Kozmodemyansk, Kopir plant, late 1980s – early 1990s

A computer from a factory radio designer for self-assembly. The kit included a printed circuit board for the Radio-86RK with minor changes, the “Electronics MC7007” keyboard and other elements, including 16 KB RAM. A copy from our collection has been improved – a 5-inch floppy disk drive has been added.

Transferred to the museum by Gleb Nitsman. Photo: Mitya Ganopolsky

Video terminal Mera Elzab 7953

In the nomenclature of SM EVM – CM 7209

Polish People’s Republic, Zabr, Mera Elzab Factory, 1988

Such terminals were used as information input-output devices for later generation SM computers: CM 4, CM 1300, CM 1420, Mera 60, or for the original PDP-11. The screen displays 1920 characters in 24 lines of 80 characters each. Screen memory is built on static memory elements of 1024×4 bits. The video terminal is controlled by Intel i8080 or Z80 microprocessors, which could be replaced by analogs: the Soviet KR580VK80 and the German U880, respectively. The keyboard for the CM 7209 terminal was produced at the Zbrojovka Brno plant in Czechoslovakia.

Video terminal BTA-2000

Ukrainian SSR, Vinnitsa, Terminal plant, early 1980s

The character monitor and keyboard were connected to mini-computers SM-1 and CM-2, the architecture of which was borrowed from the DEC PDP-11 machine. BTA-2000 release in Vinnitsa, they set up to replace the Polish video terminal Mera and the Hungarian Videoton. Although they were imported from the CMEA countries, they remained imported: they cost more and were paid in currency, which had to be saved.

Entered the museum from a private collection. Photo: Mitya Ganopolsky

Tape drive Archive corporation FT-20

USA, Archive Corp., 1988

The device is designed to record information on special cartridges with a volume of 120 MB. Archive Corporation, a California-based company, was a tape drive manufacturer in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Transferred to the museum by the author of the photo Mitya Ganopolsky.

Dot matrix printer Epson LX 800

Japan, Seiko Epson, late 1980s

This model from Japanese giant Seiko Epson, one of the largest printer manufacturers in the world, was popular in the former USSR in the second half of the 1990s. A matrix of 9 needles could print on separate sheets or on a pull-through tape.

Donated to the museum by Anatoly Rubtsov. Photo: Mitya Ganopolsky

Apple Macintosh PowerBook 520 laptop

USA-China, Apple, 1994

Since Steve Jobs left for Apple, several products have been developed, notably the PowerBook 520 laptop with a 9.5-inch monochrome LCD screen. The 68LC040 microprocessor from Motorola had a clock frequency of 25 MHz, and the machine’s RAM could be either 4 or 12 MB. The laptop already weighed relatively little – 2.9 kg, and went on sale with a pre-installed Mac OS 7.1 system. The base model has a starting price of $ 2,250.

The photo on the cover is a personal micro-computer “Electronics MS 0511”, developed in 1987 in Zelenograd specifically for computer science classrooms.