Rare computer Robotron EC 1834
Good day, comrades!
Today, I will replenish the Old Iron hub with another post about computing equipment produced by the GDR.
As you remember, on Habré there was already a review post of the Robotron CM 1910 computer, and judging by the number of comments and advantages, clones of the bourgeois computers made by comrades from the German Democratic Republic did not leave indifferent lovers of museum exhibits.
This time it will be about the PC XT compatible computer Robotron EC 1834 , which, like its predecessor Robotron CM 1910, was used for a long time (right up to 2001) in one of the Russian research institutes.
')
The Robotron EC 1834 computer is the first computer from the EU PC series, manufactured since 1986 at the VEB Robotron-Elektronik plants in Dresden and the Fachgebiet Geräte E2 in Karl-Marx-Stadt (now the city of Chemnitz, Germany), as well as at the VEB Robotron-Büromaschinenwerk enterprise „Ernst Thälmann“ in Sömmerda. The cost of a computer in 1988 was 59589 German marks, and one could save a lot of money by purchasing a model without a hard disk (such a model was completed with four disk drives for 5 "diskettes) for only 39044 German marks.
In the Soviet Union and the CMEA countries, the Robotron EC 1834 computer was widely used in many areas of industry and research programs, including:
Specifications computer Robotron EC 1834.
Appearance.
The appearance of the computer Robotron EC 1834 is no different from the usual IBM PC XT.
The case of the system unit is made of thick metal, the front and rear patch panels are made of plastic.
The front panel has a power button, two bays for 5 "drives, a pair of red LED indicators and a keyboard connector. There is no Reset button.
On the back of the computer are located: power connector, fan and compartments for expansion cards.
The lid of the system unit is fixed in the closed state with a special latch. In order to open the case, you must click on the button located on its right wall.
As you can see, this copy of the Robotron EC 1834 computer was released in the city of Sömmerda.
The keyboard of the K7673.03 has a practically standard button layout and layout adapted for Russian users.
The K7229.25 monitor, got to me with the computer Robotron EC 1834 - monochrome, black and green, with a diagonal of 12 inches. The monitor case is made of metal. There are ventilation holes at the top and bottom.
On the front of the monitor, just below the screen of the cathode ray tube, there is a power indicator light and a brightness control knob.
On the back of the case there is a power on / off switch, a connector for connecting the power cable and a pair of fuses.
Monitor connector - DB9.
Internal organization.
Monitor.
In a post about Robotron CM 1910, I was too lazy and did not photograph the inside of the monitor. Now I will correct this misunderstanding:
Monitor with the rear wall removed.
Chassis with electronics.
Power supply monitor.
Tube with a soothing inscription in three languages.
The contents of the system unit.
Easy access to the components of the computer Robotron EC 1834 is provided by a kind of hood-hood, attached to the computer case with hinges. It is fixed without screws, with just one snap button, and the hinges allow you to fully remove the cover in one easy movement (you need to perform this action towards the back of the case, naturally holding the open cover with your hand).
The front and rear plastic cover is also fastened completely without screws, using plastic grooves and latches.
Remove the above parts of the case.
The basket for installing hard drives and drives is fixed to the natural position with two screws and a metal tongue.
By unscrewing the two above-mentioned screws and pulling the tongue up, you can remove the basket from the computer case along with all its contents. Just do not forget to disconnect the cables and power cables from the drives and HDD, otherwise it will not work.
Two 5 "K5601 / CM5643 floppy disks for dual density floppy disks of 720Kb and a K5504.20 hard disk with a capacity of 20.9MB are installed in the basket.
Immediately behind the basket is a 180 W power supply unit with output voltages of +5, + 12, -12, -5 V. Like all decent power supplies, it is fixed in the housing with screws.
Remove the power supply.
Now you can open the metal casing of the power supply and drive the bugs and spiders out of its gut.
Inside the power supply there are small modules that are very easy to change in case of their failure.
The location of electronic components on the main power supply board can be seen in this image.
Close the power supply, look further.
Motherboard
Indeed, unlike the computer Robotron CM 1910 , in the model Robotron EC 1834 you can see the real motherboard!
A rather large part of the mother chamber is occupied by the U2164D RAM chips (an analogue of the Soviet KR565RU5D) with a capacity of 64Kbps in an amount of 36 pieces. The total amount of RAM, unsoldered on the motherboard is 256Kb.
The configuration of the computer (the amount of RAM, the presence of a coprocessor, the number of drives, etc.) is set using DIP switches.
Due to the lack of a DMA controller similar to i8237 in the CMEA countries, the KP580BT57 controller is used in the EU1834 (this chip proudly says “Made in the USSR”) using three additional 4-bit registers for addressing. Such a circuit solution led to the loss of the ability to transfer information from one memory area to another.
To put it mildly, domestic-made microcircuits are used very little. Instead of K1810BM86 processors, we tried to install similar SAB8086-P microcircuits made by Siemens, therefore it is quite difficult to find a “real” Soviet processor in nature. But I was lucky, and in one of my copies of the Robotron EC 1834 computer I installed this handsome one:
Processor K1810VM86, made in the USSR.
Expansion cards are installed in EFS connectors with 96 pins arranged in three rows. This motherboard contains 8 EFS slots for expansion cards, however there were other modifications of motherboards (for example, in models EC 1834.01 and EC 1834.M), which used standard ISA slots, allowing the use of "western" components, for example, video cards or network cards. adapters.
Since the 16-bit I / O bus of the Robotron EC 1834 computer was almost completely compatible with the ISA standard, it was possible to connect conventional (“bourgeois”) expansion cards without the ISA slots soldered on the motherboard. For such a perversion just need to solder the corresponding adapter.
For those who want to get a better look at the motherboard of the Robotron EC 1834 computer, I suggest downloading a photo of a similar board in high resolution.
The motherboard of the computer Robotron EC 1834 allows you to simultaneously use up to 8 expansion cards. A short list of these cards is given in Table 1.
Table number 1.
Let's see what the expansion cards look like on my Robotron EC 1834 computer.
Color video adapter COL K7033.10
K7033.10 video card consists of two printed circuit boards interconnected through a connector with three rows of contacts. The installed video card occupies two expansion slots due to its size, and thus only six slots remain free.
The heart of this video card is the NEC D7220AD graphics processor, and the video memory is made up of 32 chips labeled 4164/15.
To pair the monitor with a video card K7033.10 connector is used DB9. However, due to the features of the video mode of the graphics card, it is possible to connect the Robotron EC 1834 computer to the majority of modern VGA monitors by soldering the corresponding adapter, the pinout of which can be found below:
The result should be something similar.
I just want to warn you that some monitors connected in this way may not work, or work incorrectly (with artifacts). For example, the Samsung SyncMaster T190GN monitor flatly refused to display a picture on the screen, while the LG Flatron W2343T monitor was not so picky:
Image from the computer Robotron EC 1834 on the LCD monitor LG Flatron W2343T.
Parallel port PRI K6075
The parallel port adapter is nothing interesting.
RAM Expansion Card OPS K3575.10
On the expansion card there are 54 4164/15 chips. Total: 384KB of RAM.
HDC K5132.10 Hard Disk Controller
The basis of the hard disk controller is a chip WD1010A-PL.
ASK serial port adapter K8075.10
This card has two 15-pin connectors, each of which can act as a V.24 or IFSS interface.
The ASK K8075.10 adapter is configured using DIP switches.
Controller FDC K5175.10
The operation of the floppy disk controller is provided by the specialized chip Zilog Z0765A08PSC.
Software
Operating Systems.
Computer Robotron EC 1834 is running the operating system DCP-DOS 3.30 or MUTOS1834.
DCP-DOS 3.30 is an MS-DOS OS clone that takes into account the software and hardware features of Robotron EC 1834 computers.
Commands and utilities that are part of the DCP-DOS OS in most cases perform similar functions as in MS-DOS, with the exception of specific drivers and utilities for configuring hardware.
For example, in DCP-DOS 3.30 there is an ASCK command designed to ensure the compatibility of programs interacting with a serial port controller using standard IBM PC XT I / O addresses with ASK / ASC expansion cards.
A COMDRV driver is required for application interaction with a serial I / O port via an INT 14H interrupt.
In addition, DCP-DOS 3.30 includes a utility for low-level formatting MFM HDINIT hard drives. She, and only she should use in case of problems with the HDD. Low-level formatting programs written for the IBM PC XT do not work correctly on the Robotron EC 1834 computer - they either do not detect the hard drive at all, or when formatting they complain about sectors not found.
Given the specificity of the hardware, the lack of diagnostic programs in the DCP-DOS 3.30 OS is distressing. However, the diagnostic program itself naturally exists, and is called completely straightforward: ECDIAG .
MUTOS1834 is a Unix OS, adapted for Robotron EC 1834.
Source: robotrontechnik.de
Unfortunately, I was not able to deal with it, and on the Internet there are no floppy images of this operating system.
In addition to the above operating systems, any version of MS-DOS could be used on the Robotron EC 1834 computer; however, specific hardware (serial port controllers, network adapters, etc.) will not work in this case due to the absence of MS -DOS non-standard drivers and utilities.
Application software.
It is worth noting that there was a fairly large number of software designed for both everyday needs and for industrial use. Taking into account the fact that most of the programs written for the IBM PC XT could be run on a Robotron EC 1834 computer, the field of application of this computer was practically unlimited.
Design software:
GEDIT 2. Source: robotrontechnik.de
MultiCAD. Source: robotrontechnik.de
Programming:
Pascal. Source: robotrontechnik.de
COBOL. Source: robotrontechnik.de
Text editors:
TEXTnet40. Source: robotrontechnik.de
CONTEXT. Source: robotrontechnik.de
The games also did not bypass the Robotron EC 1834 computer, but I don’t see much point to focus your attention on them - almost any games that run on the IBM PC XT and work with a CGA / EGA video card can be run on this machine.
Thank you for your attention and good mood!
Today, I will replenish the Old Iron hub with another post about computing equipment produced by the GDR.
As you remember, on Habré there was already a review post of the Robotron CM 1910 computer, and judging by the number of comments and advantages, clones of the bourgeois computers made by comrades from the German Democratic Republic did not leave indifferent lovers of museum exhibits.
This time it will be about the PC XT compatible computer Robotron EC 1834 , which, like its predecessor Robotron CM 1910, was used for a long time (right up to 2001) in one of the Russian research institutes.
')
The Robotron EC 1834 computer is the first computer from the EU PC series, manufactured since 1986 at the VEB Robotron-Elektronik plants in Dresden and the Fachgebiet Geräte E2 in Karl-Marx-Stadt (now the city of Chemnitz, Germany), as well as at the VEB Robotron-Büromaschinenwerk enterprise „Ernst Thälmann“ in Sömmerda. The cost of a computer in 1988 was 59589 German marks, and one could save a lot of money by purchasing a model without a hard disk (such a model was completed with four disk drives for 5 "diskettes) for only 39044 German marks.
In the Soviet Union and the CMEA countries, the Robotron EC 1834 computer was widely used in many areas of industry and research programs, including:
- as part of CAD / HAP, for example in mechanical engineering, electronics and construction;
- for the solution of economic problems, in accounting, in the field of billing, management of inventory, payroll, graphic indicators, etc .;
- to solve scientific and technical problems, such as modeling, problems of measuring equipment and small problems of knowledge processing;
- in search and information systems, to support decision making, etc.
Specifications computer Robotron EC 1834.
- Processor: K1810VM86 or equivalent. Clock frequency - 4.9152 MHz.
- Coprocessor: K1810VM87 or similar, compatible with Intel 8087.
- RAM: 256KB of internal RAM on the motherboard. Expands to 640Kb using the K3575.10 expansion card, or up to 1MB using two such cards (according to unconfirmed information).
- Hard disk: MFM, volume - 20.9 MB (model K5504.20), sometimes 43.5 MB (model K5504.50). It is possible to install two hard drives with a second HDD controller and free space in the mounting basket.
- Drive: 5 "DD 360Kb / 720Kb, 2 pcs. It is possible to install 4 drives (for HDD seats).
- Video card: monochrome MON K7031 or color COL K7033.10 (maximum resolution - 640x480, CGA-and EGA-compatible). The simultaneous operation of two video cards (MON and COL) is possible.
- Slots for expansion cards: 8 pieces, EFS (connectors with 96 contacts in three rows). Modification EC 1834.01 (EC 1834.M) had 6 pieces of EFS and 2 pieces of ISA. According to unconfirmed reports, export models were fully equipped with ISA slots.
- Port controllers: parallel port - expansion card K6075, serial port (V.24 / IFSS) - expansion card K8075.10, Rolanet adapter - expansion card K8625.10 and others.
- Monitor: the computer was completed with one of the following monitors -
- 12 "monochrome (black and green) K7229.25 monitor, 80x25 characters in text mode, maximum resolution 640x480 dpi in graphics mode, horizontal scanning frequency 32 kHz, vertical scanning frequency 50 Hz.
- 14 "color monitor K7233 with characteristics similar to the monitor K7229.25, a palette of 4 colors.
- Sound: Speaker speaker.
- Operating system: DCP-DOS (clone MS-DOS), MUTOS1834 (clone Unix).
- Power consumption: 180 watts.
- Weight: 28.5 kg.
Appearance.
The appearance of the computer Robotron EC 1834 is no different from the usual IBM PC XT.
The case of the system unit is made of thick metal, the front and rear patch panels are made of plastic.
The front panel has a power button, two bays for 5 "drives, a pair of red LED indicators and a keyboard connector. There is no Reset button.
On the back of the computer are located: power connector, fan and compartments for expansion cards.
The lid of the system unit is fixed in the closed state with a special latch. In order to open the case, you must click on the button located on its right wall.
As you can see, this copy of the Robotron EC 1834 computer was released in the city of Sömmerda.
The keyboard of the K7673.03 has a practically standard button layout and layout adapted for Russian users.
The K7229.25 monitor, got to me with the computer Robotron EC 1834 - monochrome, black and green, with a diagonal of 12 inches. The monitor case is made of metal. There are ventilation holes at the top and bottom.
On the front of the monitor, just below the screen of the cathode ray tube, there is a power indicator light and a brightness control knob.
On the back of the case there is a power on / off switch, a connector for connecting the power cable and a pair of fuses.
Monitor connector - DB9.
Internal organization.
Monitor.
In a post about Robotron CM 1910, I was too lazy and did not photograph the inside of the monitor. Now I will correct this misunderstanding:
Monitor with the rear wall removed.
Chassis with electronics.
Power supply monitor.
Tube with a soothing inscription in three languages.
The contents of the system unit.
Easy access to the components of the computer Robotron EC 1834 is provided by a kind of hood-hood, attached to the computer case with hinges. It is fixed without screws, with just one snap button, and the hinges allow you to fully remove the cover in one easy movement (you need to perform this action towards the back of the case, naturally holding the open cover with your hand).
The front and rear plastic cover is also fastened completely without screws, using plastic grooves and latches.
Remove the above parts of the case.
The basket for installing hard drives and drives is fixed to the natural position with two screws and a metal tongue.
By unscrewing the two above-mentioned screws and pulling the tongue up, you can remove the basket from the computer case along with all its contents. Just do not forget to disconnect the cables and power cables from the drives and HDD, otherwise it will not work.
Two 5 "K5601 / CM5643 floppy disks for dual density floppy disks of 720Kb and a K5504.20 hard disk with a capacity of 20.9MB are installed in the basket.
Immediately behind the basket is a 180 W power supply unit with output voltages of +5, + 12, -12, -5 V. Like all decent power supplies, it is fixed in the housing with screws.
Remove the power supply.
Now you can open the metal casing of the power supply and drive the bugs and spiders out of its gut.
Inside the power supply there are small modules that are very easy to change in case of their failure.
The location of electronic components on the main power supply board can be seen in this image.
Close the power supply, look further.
Motherboard
Indeed, unlike the computer Robotron CM 1910 , in the model Robotron EC 1834 you can see the real motherboard!
A rather large part of the mother chamber is occupied by the U2164D RAM chips (an analogue of the Soviet KR565RU5D) with a capacity of 64Kbps in an amount of 36 pieces. The total amount of RAM, unsoldered on the motherboard is 256Kb.
The configuration of the computer (the amount of RAM, the presence of a coprocessor, the number of drives, etc.) is set using DIP switches.
Due to the lack of a DMA controller similar to i8237 in the CMEA countries, the KP580BT57 controller is used in the EU1834 (this chip proudly says “Made in the USSR”) using three additional 4-bit registers for addressing. Such a circuit solution led to the loss of the ability to transfer information from one memory area to another.
To put it mildly, domestic-made microcircuits are used very little. Instead of K1810BM86 processors, we tried to install similar SAB8086-P microcircuits made by Siemens, therefore it is quite difficult to find a “real” Soviet processor in nature. But I was lucky, and in one of my copies of the Robotron EC 1834 computer I installed this handsome one:
Processor K1810VM86, made in the USSR.
Expansion cards are installed in EFS connectors with 96 pins arranged in three rows. This motherboard contains 8 EFS slots for expansion cards, however there were other modifications of motherboards (for example, in models EC 1834.01 and EC 1834.M), which used standard ISA slots, allowing the use of "western" components, for example, video cards or network cards. adapters.
Since the 16-bit I / O bus of the Robotron EC 1834 computer was almost completely compatible with the ISA standard, it was possible to connect conventional (“bourgeois”) expansion cards without the ISA slots soldered on the motherboard. For such a perversion just need to solder the corresponding adapter.
For those who want to get a better look at the motherboard of the Robotron EC 1834 computer, I suggest downloading a photo of a similar board in high resolution.
The motherboard of the computer Robotron EC 1834 allows you to simultaneously use up to 8 expansion cards. A short list of these cards is given in Table 1.
| Name | Model | short name | Purpose | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 013-1201 | K3575.10 | Ops | RAM | 384k ram |
| 018-1216 | K5132.10 | Hdc | Hard disk controller | support two hard drives |
| 013-1203 | K7031 | Mon | monochrome video adapter | text mode only |
| 013-1202 | - | ASC | serial port adapter | support for two ports with V.24 interface |
| 013-1207 | K8031.10 | Kif | interface KIF controller | expansion card for connecting to computers compatible with the ESER standard |
| 013-1211 | K8075.10 | ASK | serial port adapter | Support for two V.24 ports or IFSS |
| 013-1213 | K8075.20 | ASL K8075 | adapter for serial communication via fiber optic cable | interface board for two fiber ports (asynchronous, duplex), 50-19200 baud, 1000 m. |
| 062-9315 | K5131.10 | Hdc | another hard disk controller | support two hard drives |
| 062-9325 | K7033.10 | Col | color video adapter | graphics card with graphics mode support |
| 062-9326 | K8625.10 | ROL | Rolanet adapter | controller for LAN ROLANET (Robotron Local Area Network) |
| 093-3200 | K6075 | PRI | LPT port adapter | parallel port for connecting LPT printer |
| 093-3200 | K5175.10 | FDC | drive controller (floppy disk drive) | support for up to four drives K5601 |
| ? | - | LAN | LAN adapter | LAN Controller LOTUNET |
| ? | K2075.10 | BK600 | expansion card ("accelerator") | Expansion card with an additional processor U80601 (by the way, Intel 80286 compatible !!!!) and 1 MB of RAM |
Let's see what the expansion cards look like on my Robotron EC 1834 computer.
Color video adapter COL K7033.10
K7033.10 video card consists of two printed circuit boards interconnected through a connector with three rows of contacts. The installed video card occupies two expansion slots due to its size, and thus only six slots remain free.
The heart of this video card is the NEC D7220AD graphics processor, and the video memory is made up of 32 chips labeled 4164/15.
To pair the monitor with a video card K7033.10 connector is used DB9. However, due to the features of the video mode of the graphics card, it is possible to connect the Robotron EC 1834 computer to the majority of modern VGA monitors by soldering the corresponding adapter, the pinout of which can be found below:
| 15-pin VGA | 9-pin Video |
| 3 | five |
| 2 | four |
| one | 3 |
| ten | 2 |
| eleven | one |
| 13 | 9 |
| 14 | eight |
The result should be something similar.
I just want to warn you that some monitors connected in this way may not work, or work incorrectly (with artifacts). For example, the Samsung SyncMaster T190GN monitor flatly refused to display a picture on the screen, while the LG Flatron W2343T monitor was not so picky:
Image from the computer Robotron EC 1834 on the LCD monitor LG Flatron W2343T.
Parallel port PRI K6075
The parallel port adapter is nothing interesting.
RAM Expansion Card OPS K3575.10
On the expansion card there are 54 4164/15 chips. Total: 384KB of RAM.
HDC K5132.10 Hard Disk Controller
The basis of the hard disk controller is a chip WD1010A-PL.
ASK serial port adapter K8075.10
This card has two 15-pin connectors, each of which can act as a V.24 or IFSS interface.
The ASK K8075.10 adapter is configured using DIP switches.
Controller FDC K5175.10
The operation of the floppy disk controller is provided by the specialized chip Zilog Z0765A08PSC.
Software
Operating Systems.
Computer Robotron EC 1834 is running the operating system DCP-DOS 3.30 or MUTOS1834.
DCP-DOS 3.30 is an MS-DOS OS clone that takes into account the software and hardware features of Robotron EC 1834 computers.
Commands and utilities that are part of the DCP-DOS OS in most cases perform similar functions as in MS-DOS, with the exception of specific drivers and utilities for configuring hardware.
For example, in DCP-DOS 3.30 there is an ASCK command designed to ensure the compatibility of programs interacting with a serial port controller using standard IBM PC XT I / O addresses with ASK / ASC expansion cards.
A COMDRV driver is required for application interaction with a serial I / O port via an INT 14H interrupt.
In addition, DCP-DOS 3.30 includes a utility for low-level formatting MFM HDINIT hard drives. She, and only she should use in case of problems with the HDD. Low-level formatting programs written for the IBM PC XT do not work correctly on the Robotron EC 1834 computer - they either do not detect the hard drive at all, or when formatting they complain about sectors not found.
Given the specificity of the hardware, the lack of diagnostic programs in the DCP-DOS 3.30 OS is distressing. However, the diagnostic program itself naturally exists, and is called completely straightforward: ECDIAG .
MUTOS1834 is a Unix OS, adapted for Robotron EC 1834.
Source: robotrontechnik.de
Unfortunately, I was not able to deal with it, and on the Internet there are no floppy images of this operating system.
In addition to the above operating systems, any version of MS-DOS could be used on the Robotron EC 1834 computer; however, specific hardware (serial port controllers, network adapters, etc.) will not work in this case due to the absence of MS -DOS non-standard drivers and utilities.
Application software.
It is worth noting that there was a fairly large number of software designed for both everyday needs and for industrial use. Taking into account the fact that most of the programs written for the IBM PC XT could be run on a Robotron EC 1834 computer, the field of application of this computer was practically unlimited.
Design software:
GEDIT 2. Source: robotrontechnik.de
MultiCAD. Source: robotrontechnik.de
Programming:
Pascal. Source: robotrontechnik.de
COBOL. Source: robotrontechnik.de
Text editors:
TEXTnet40. Source: robotrontechnik.de
CONTEXT. Source: robotrontechnik.de
The games also did not bypass the Robotron EC 1834 computer, but I don’t see much point to focus your attention on them - almost any games that run on the IBM PC XT and work with a CGA / EGA video card can be run on this machine.
Thank you for your attention and good mood!
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/216891/
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