53 lines
3.2 KiB
HTML
53 lines
3.2 KiB
HTML
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
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<html>
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<head>
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<title>Pravets Clones</title>
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<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=windows-1252">
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</head>
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<body style="FONT-FAMILY: verdana; BACKGROUND-COLOR: rgb(255,255,255)" alink="#008000"
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link="#008000" vlink="#008000">
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<h2 style="COLOR: rgb(0,128,0)">Pravets Clones</h2>
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<hr size="4">
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<p style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Background:</p>
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<p>
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In the 80's Bulgaria was the biggest computer manufacturer in this part of the world.
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Also - first in the world
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- for the proportion of manufactured computers per person
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in the country.<br>
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</p>
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<p style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">History:</p>
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<p>
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IMKO 1 and IMKO 2 were the first models (circa 1980 and 1982); in 1983 IMKO 2 was renamed to Pravetz 82,
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because Todor Zhivkov (Bulgarian government and communist party leader at this time) was from Pravetz -
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a small town, near to Bulgaria's capital city, Sofia.<br>
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<br>
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IMKO 1,2 and Pravetz 82 were almost identical clones of the Apple ][. Then the Pravetz factory built the Pravetz 8M (which was unique at the time)
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because of its 2 onboard CPU's - 6502 & Z80 (used as a built-in CP/M module). It also had 64 KB of RAM onboard
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(16 KB as built-in RAM expansion in slot 0).<br>
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<br>
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In the following years they also built: Pravetz 8E, 8A, 8C and 8S - clones of Apple //e.<br>
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. 8E didn't have the Cyrillic font, unlike all other models, it had lowercase and
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capital Latin letters, like original Apple's.<br>
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. 8A have 2 additional basic commands, 8 bit code-pages, mini-assembler, allowed
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the use of hex codes in BASIC and some additional subroutines
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in the built-in ROM. Unfortunately, some important entry points of the monitor (ROM) program were changed, so it was not 100%
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compatible with older Apple (and Pravetz) models. This is easily corrected by changing some code (usually JMP in binary
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programs or CALL, POKE, PEEK
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in BASIC programs), but not very simple, especially for ordinary users.<br>
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. 8C was a stripped down version of 8A (so like the Apple //c) but its size wasn't smaller, like //c. It was without an auxiliary slot
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of 8A (Apple //e), instead it had 64 KB RAM built-in to its address space. It also had a CM630 CPU (6502 analogue), which had
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some bugs when used with the CP/M module. 8C also had a built-in RGB module for color monitor (slot 7) and of course the improved
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80 column card of the Apple //e, like 8E and 8A.<br>
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. 8S was a further improved version of 8C with a possibility to change DRAM chips to 1 MB of memory.
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(It was possible to do this with Pravetz 8C and the expansion card of 8A: in order to have 1060 MB of memory.)<br>
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<br>
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There were also other Pravetz models:<br>
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. 8D was a version of the Oric/Atmos - "D" means "Dom" - "Home" in Bulgarian.<br>
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Other models were 16 bit - IBM PC XT and AT clones:<br>
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. Pravetz 16, Pravetz 16, Pravetz 16A, Pravetz 16H, Pravetz 16T (with Nec V20 CPU)<br>
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. Pravetz 286 (286 CPU), Pravetz 386 (with 386 CPU) and Pravetz 486 - experimental, only a few were manufactured.</p>
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<br>
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Thanks to Stanislav Georgiev for this information.
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</body>
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</html>
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