🇲🇩 Москва 128 (Moscow 128) Spectrum Clone: Part 1 (First Look) [TCE #0550]
33{Updated 1-Dec-2024}
Massive thanks to @1337Shockwav3 for doing some investigation to identify this machine, and «Мdesk» on the zx-pk.ru forums for identifying it: it's apparently an early Москва 128 (Moskva/Moscow 128), considered the first Soviet clone with 128KByte of RAM, and a predecessor of the popular Pentagon 128.
https://github.com/romychs/moscow-128k
It came from Moldova, doesn't have any factory marks on the case, keyboard or motherboard that I can see, and it looks very much home-made/DIY. A lot of effort went into building this fellow. I'm assuming it was built post-independence
As would be expected, it's a clone of the venerable Sinclair ZX Spectrum using all discrete logic (no ULA-equivalent ... usually a LOT less chips if there were). It has a genuine Zilog Z80 (1991 date).
It's a lot rougher than the Moldovan BYTE computers which is why I think it's a DIY job. But it apparently has a LOT of ports - from left to right, I think they are:
[1] 5V power in (5-pin cube, DIN 45327)
[2] ДИСК (disk, 64 pin СНП)
[3] ПРИНТ (printer, 64 pin СНП)
[4] МОН (video output, 6-pin DIN 45322)
[5] КЕМП (Kempston joystick, 7-pin DIN 45329)
[6] МАГН (cassette, 5-pin DIN 41524)
[7] JOY1 & JOY2 (i.e. Sinclair?, 7-pin DIN 45329)
00:00 ... Intro
00:50 ... Keyboard close-up
01:40 ... Examining the case
03:10 ... DIN 4162 vs Soviet СНП connectors
05:20 ... Examining the ports
08:15 ... Opening the case
09:20 ... Top case
10:30 ... Keyboard & motherboard
13:00 ... Keyboard circuitboard close-up
13:30 ... Motherboard close-up
17:05 ... One more thing - let's look under the motherboard
18:09 ... Channel thanks & outro
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