Welcome back. Well, today
we have something really unique for you. So this is the first and the only laptop
computer made in the USSR. It's called Elektronika MS 1504 They produced so few of them that perhaps only around
100 have survived to the present day. And we will take a comprehensive
look at its design, hardware, software and,
of course, the history of its creation. So let's go. And don't forget that as usual, you can find even more
unique content on our Patreon page. The link is in the description below. Well, to my mind, it looks pretty cool. You know, good quality,
plastic rounded corners everywhere. It doesn't give an impression
of a Soviet product. It does. The project of this laptop originally
had the name PC 300, and it was designed in 1990 by the production associate
INTEGRAL based in Minsk, Belarus. Back then this factory was famous
for its innovative products such as MK-90 microcomputer,
which we also reviewed last year on our channel.
And the same as MK-90, the PC-300 was released under Elektronika
brand and got the id MS 1504. The laptop is based on a Soviet
clone of the Intel 80C86 processor and could operate at speeds of 4.77
MHz in the standard mode and 7.16 MHz in the turbo mode. It has 640 kilobytes of RAM onboard
and there is no hard drive. But there are 2 x 3.5" disk drives
for 720 kilobytes each. These drives were foreign-made,
because although Soviet 3.5" drives actually were developed,
they never have seen mass production. The display is monochrome
and it has a resolution of 640 to 200 pixels in a graphic mode or a standard 82x25 symbols in a text mode. Well, fast forward,
there is an entire story about those displays
and we will come to that as well, but a little bit later. As for the keyboard, well, it is
pretty usual for laptops of that epoch, except it has an extra Cyrillic
layout toggle button and the corresponding LED indicating
which layout is active. The other LEDs here are to indicate
the drive in operation, the CAPS LOCK status, turbo mode status
and to also show that the battery is low. By the way, according to the user manual,
the battery had to hold 6 hours, If disks are used for
10% of that time. On the back, there are a few ports,
a power switch and a connector for a 9V external power supply. There is also this metal cover which hides
a slot for expansion cards. We will also take a look at it,
but a little bit later when we will disassemble the laptop
and look inside. Well, in regards of ports, while
that built-in display is monochrome itself, the display adapter is CGA. So actually you could get that color image by connecting a composite or a CGA display and then by pressing Fn+End or
Fn+Home on the keyboard, you could switch between the LCD
and the external display and vice versa. and also here we have an RS-232 port
and also a double-purpose connector that could operate
either as a Centronics port or as a port for an external
5" floppy disk drive. To control the behavior of that port
at the left side of the laptop, there was this three position switch
and in the rightmost position, it will enable
both of build-in disk drives and turn that port into the
Centronics mode, so basically you could connect the printer or something else.
And in other positions, it would enable only one of the built-in drives
and the external one. And in documentation there was a long explanation
of how to do that, how to assign letters, and so on. Also, as it was typical for the laptops
of that epoch, it has a convenient handle to carry.
We have quite incomplete set, but originally there was also a special
branded bag included. Well, I believe at this point, many of you already got a feeling
that this looks oddly familiar. And actually, that's right,
because our "Soviet" laptop is nothing
but a clone of Japanese Toshiba T1100 Plus, A very popular consumer
laptop which was introduced in 1985. However, the Soviet counterpart
is very different from inside because all the schematics have been reworked in order
to fit the domestic element base. But before we dismantle all that and take
a look at the hardware, it is worth to say a few details
about the history of its creation because it gives a few things
to think about. So the design works involved
a large number of engineers, but the main developers
were a group of six. A few of them previously worked on that
MK-90 handheld microcomputer. At the same time, Soviets were already
for at least for a few years behind in what their microelectronic industry
could achieve. And too bad they were too long stuck
with the mainframe-first paradigm fuelled by the industry
overcentralized approach. There is this very well-known sentence
by Nikolai Gorshkov, he was the Deputy Minister of Electronics
Industry of the Soviet Union. So in 1980 he allegedly told this
to developers of Micro-80, that first Soviet DIY computer,
when they suggested to mass produce it. And the changes started around 1985
when Perestroika already forced that country to finally react to world
achievements somewhat more actively. But too bad
the time was lost and computers created at that time were actually obsolete
from the very beginning. I believe you have seen our last year
videos was about ES-1841 computer which was introduced in 1987. So even according to the Soviet media,
that machine was like a western one
from the beginning of the eighties. And like that, it was was everything. So that's why for the very first laptop, they picked a successful, but actually
obsolete machine as a prototype. Because they were hit by the glass
ceiling of their capabilities. So it feels that this project was more
a claim "we can do this!" rather than creating some really practical
instrument. Yeah, There was a large article
by the developers of PC300 in the "Electronics Industry"
magazine from 1990, where they say that laptops are gradually taking
the market share and based on them,
you can create professional workplaces. So "that's why PC300 was created". Then in 1991, in the popular magazine
called "Technology for the Youth"", appeared this ad by the INTEGRAL
that said that this laptop is an amazing gift
for reporters, doctors, geologists and other professionals
who work far from civilization. But in reality, Soviet laptop
never gained any popularity because it had too high price
for its capabilities and even the reduction of the price
in 1992 to approximately 550 USD
in the equivalent didn't change anything
and that's one of the reasons why it is so exceptionally rare,
because although they were manufactured until 1994,
it seems that not more than a few thousand of them actually have left
the INTEGRAL factory. Our has a number 1369, despite being produced relatively late in 1993. And now let's take a look inside. It is very easy to open it. You just need to remove these three screws
on the back and a few on the bottom. So once the screws are released,
we can easily lift up the upper part, which is connected to the motherboard
with the ribbon cable And as soon I opened it,
I realized that we have a pretty big problem,
because the internal power supply is obviously missing
some gold plated components. Well, expectable. So I suggest that let's continue
and then inspect it in order to determine
whether it's possible to repair it. There is also no battery here. And actually, I think it's even good
because God knows where it was stored and it would probably leak over the years. So next I removed the LCD panel
to access the display connector. And now first we have to carefully
pull out the keyboard. I will do all this things very slowly
because all of those connectors, they look somewhat fragile.
Okay, now remove the LCD panel. And what is interesting is that Turbo
LCD is actually missing here. I mean, it is not torn away. It was just not installed. And the thing is that this computer
by default operates in a turbo mode. So I wonder if this means that you simply
could not disengage turbo mode at all. And the floppy disk drive
cable is also missing. But I have to say,
that is not a problem at all, because in this connector
a standard one will fit just perfectly. Okay, now we can remove the upper part
and a display assembly. And it is also a time
to disconnect the keyboard ribbon. Well, to be honest,
it is somewhat stressful operation because I heard how easy you can break one
in this type of laptop. And you know,
you really do not want to know how much this device costs now,
as a collectible item. So it's right...
carefully and slowly, very slowly. Okay. Well, contrary to the other parts I have seen so far, this keyboard
gives me a somewhat cheap impression. And, you know,
I heard that many owners of those laptops manually changed that ribbon
PCB of be to a ribbon cable because the PCB was kind of really
unreliable. And well, I have to say it indeed doesn't look promising, especially on its edges. Okay. Now let's take a look at the power supply. So the problem is that due
to the rarity of this computer, there is no known wiring
or schematics of this power supply. And what is known that it provides
5V to the motherboard using this small connector
and also a set of 9 and 15V lines come with the larger one. Well, here should be two stabilizers,
and here are three more specialized chips,
which are pretty hard to find. Because they were designed
for military use. Well, maybe I will be able to find
some analogs, you know... But first, let's look a bit deeper, and, you know, a big number of this wired connections give me a feeling that there were way too many mistakes
in its design because this is somewhat,
you know, not normal for a commercial product,
but nevertheless, the released it. Well, some of those wires
are actually torn away. And here we see
that some more chips are missing. So I think I will remove it
completely for a further inspection. And to do this, I need to remove
the metal cover of the expansion slot because its shape prevents
any further manipulations. Well, I have to say this looks really bad. It seems to me
that someone used an industrial fan here to remove the
components, so likely this is really really, really bad... I am looking at this and it gives me
a sort of philosophical question. Okay. Unknown Guy, you got your $5
by setting those chips for gold, right? I'm even not touching the fact
that just one of those chips as a chip, costs I think at least 15. So did you have a feeling that you can earn much more
if the device would be still intact, ah? Finally, to access
and inspect the motherboard, we need to remove this drive
and battery bay, which is technically one piece of plastic secured
by three screws. Just look at this beauty. You know, it's really well-made.
Absolutely it doesn't look like a Soviet-made thing. Well, to be accurate,
it is no longer Soviet, but previous were exactly the same. Those inscriptions on the left
say the date of assembly, but it is blank and to the right,
the date of production. And he was written it was January 1993. And interesting that all that is written
actually in Russian. But with the writing letters,
I guess it's because the software they used simply
did not support Cyrillic alphabet. And notice This IZM. 5,
which is shortened from revision five. This is the latest revision
of the motherboard, So it actually passed a few upgrades
of its design over the time of the
this project lifetime. And the motherboard itself has the same
shape as one in the Toshiba laptop. But the circuitry is totally different
and is based on a Soviet element base. But what is really interesting
about a lot of chips here are either rare or experimental,
and many are marked in a nonstandard way. for example, there is a chip market
as just DL-27 and it is a floppy-controller. IT should be normally
marked as KR1835VG17. Technically there's a Soviet
copy of TC8565 from Toshiba. So this DL in this mark stands for Delegate 270,
which was an internal codename of the program of the chip
development and INTEGRAL Factory. This same version name has the processor,
or it is marketed as DL-24. And by the standards,
it should be marked as КР1834ВМ86 Well, I might be wrong,
but I can't recall this very processor
used in any other Soviet computer. Then there is also a chip called DP-IS1, which is a controller
of the serial port. It is a clone of 82C58 chip
and the letters in the code come already from another codename,
the "Deputy" program. Moreover, while many chips here actually
marked by the standard they have a extra O letter,
added before the identifier, which stands
for the experimental production. For instance, there are 20 RAM chips
that form a 640 kilobytes memory bank and they are marked as OKR565RU11D Or this chip about which there is simply
no information on the internet. If you look from another site, there is this experimental chip,
which is a single-chip microcontroller. It provides here
the keyboard functionality. So you know for the Soviet industry, this
laptop computer itself was an experiment. But seeing this gives an insight
at which scale this experiment was. those two chips, КA1835VG9 and VG15 are system bus multiplexers. And next to them is a CGA adapter based
on VG10 controller chip and three chips that form a 16 kb bank of video RAM. There is also this real timer chip, KA512VI1,
and the same as a Toshiba prototype, this laptop has an onboard clock,
which is very unusual for Soviet machines. But contrary to Toshiba's product,
which had a separate battery for it, this one requires
at least some residual charge in the main battery to run,
and if it is gone, you won't be able to start a DOS version
greater than 3.3. This 60 pin connector is for the expansion
card. Well, it is still an open question if
any variety of cards were ever produced. I didn't find any information about them
except a notice from developers that this would allow us to turn the
laptop into some professional workstation. And finally,
let's take a look at the display. Well, this part has one trouble because while the front panel is holding on clips,
it has one hidden screw right under the brand sticker
which acts as a seal. So it is not possible to access it,
without applying some damage to it. And fast forward, The sticker was made on a thick, transparent film
and a part of it remained on the film. So when place of back it looks less
more as before. By original plans, Here had to be a Soviet
made LCD matrix called IZhG93 produced in the Russian down of Saratov
at the factory name REFLEKTOR. In the Electronics
Industry magazine, we mentioned before it is possible
to find a detailed article about it that includes a lot of technical details
for both the matrix and its controlling chipset. The article also features
a picture of the developers. That display didn't have a backlight
and actually it was not very good quality. So up to the present day,
only a few survived in a less more functional condition. So next modification of MS1504 laptops
started to have foreign displays, and the vast majority of laptops
had original Toshiba displays. But when the batch of them ended,
the laptop got LCDs made by Citizen. So those displays already had backlit, and therefore
the shape of the lid was the redesigned. That's exactly our case
because as you can see, it is notably thicker
and the display is somewhat smaller
than the original Toshiba prototype. So inside we have a display matrix
and a regulated power supply. I wonder if this supply is Soviet. Well,
the same as the LCD. the power supply was produced in Japan,
but by TDK. Okay, so now let's assemble it
back and try to test if it is alive. So from people who own
exactly the same laptops, we learned that for the very,
very basic test, it is sufficient to provide
the motherboard with a few voltages. It will not work properly, of course,
but at least we will know if the motherboard
at least somewhat functional. I also temporary installed here
a floppy disk drive ribbon cable. So on attempt of powering it on a CAPS LOCK
LED flash for a short time. The display starts to glow and artifacts on
it become visible. So likely the display is not functional,
but at least we can see approximately what
the color of the output image had to be. So the computer doesn't pass the POST obviously. It gives two beeps which may indicate either
video or memory inproper operation. And unfortunately,
the documentation doesn't give any hints about this,
it recommends just to go to the authorized service center,
which in 2023 is kind of a problem. Well, however, at least twice
it tried to access the floppy drive
we selected with this switch. So that's what we can do now. But of course, we will try to find a way
to obtain the proper power supply and if so, there will be a continuation. But the story doesn't end here. Our cat could find the image
of the original software test disk. The instruments
for this laptop computer, perfectly run
on our INFORT 80386 we recently restored. So let's look at the demo app. There is a long readme file
that says that the app is intended for the operator that demonstrates
the graphic capabilities of a MS1504 laptop. The file obviously meant to be printed
because it contains this standard information table
for every page, including even the last names
of actual authors of the document. You know, I love those details. Okay, so here we have an animated
welcome screen that says "Graphics on PC300". Ok... Then appears this proud message
that developer of the hardware is scientific production association
INTEGRAL. Minsk, Belarus, 1990. So the next we have this menu
which has many options. The first is using of windows. The windows says "example of the text editing".
and the text in it says: It is a demonstration of use of windows
in graphic mode of PC300. Every window defines a part of the screen. All the operations will be performed
in a particular window. Parts of the diagrams that won't fit
will will not be pictured. Scaling is also supported. Press ENTER to continue. And if I press it there appears
a new window titled "example of graphics"". Okay. If I press enter the appears
a message that you can move windows, overlap them partly or completely
and so on. And the quantity of windows is limited only by the memory,
which can handle around 200 of them. By the way, in regards to Windows. But here I mean operation shell,
not this thing. I know it is possible to start Windows
version one on original Toshiba laptop and I wonder
if it is possible on this one. If we will fix it, we surely will try. Okay, so next is a demonstration
of graphic shapes. Well, here we have simple points,
lines, squares, ellipses, segments, rectangles. OHHH my eyes. The next is a demonstration of pie charts. And here is a detail
that grabbed my attention because we get here
a table of sales in 1985. But it is the millions of U.S. dollars. And that is actually really funny because
for possession of foreign currency, a person could get a real term
in jail in the USSR and a
for calculations of foreign currency, say, for some enterprise, a concept of foreign currency equivalent ruble was used
so you never would have it in dollars. In other words, the pictured
is absolutely impossible situation. And you know, it isgood
it was 1990 because five years before the creators of this
would have a chance to talk with, you know, very polite but cold-eyed
people. If you understand what I mean. No matter that
this likely is just translated Toshiba presentation. The next is a polynom interpolation. Well, that looks quite beautiful. The next test displays the ways how
a mathematical function can be presented. We have a simple function in minus Pi
and plus Pi coordinate. We have two
examples of function with axises and next is a function
with points... and circles and then two functions combined. It is beautiful... beautiful... The next test is building shapes
in 2D space, but somehow it doesn't work. And the same happens with the next test. The supposed to draw some three
dimensional graphics, but the last one
which says dynamical process demonstration works pretty well and it display sort of simple algorithm in the action. This blinking is really hard for my eyes. So that was the demo. Next is a test package
and it also contains a document that explains that it was intended for the engineer
of the final production control. So it was not a customer thing,
and there was a special application for that that uses
the internal factory name of PC 300. Past the welcome screen is a menu
which gives you a choice of test graphic adapter,
a keyboard, drives, parallel interface for a printer,
serial interface, and the real timer. So the graphics adapter test
has a few options: the LCD screen that will display
you a combination of lines of various density,
which change on a key press. Well, I notice that the program reacts
somewhat slow, and it's very hard
to withstand this on the big screen, you know, probably on the LCD, it was much
better. The test for the external display will give you a palette
of the color supported. And then two other options
are tests of video RAM and the character generator RAM.
And those tests will just give you a message
of success on completion. Nothing special. The keyboard test
is really straightforward. You just press a button and it should be
marked on the screen and says also to test function button use function
plus F1. when I pressed right shift, it went into the loop
and I needed to reboot the computer. The floppy drive test starts
with the prompt of the drive selection and whether you want to have
an external disk drive test as well, and whether the test should be short
or long. And despite I selected a shorter test,
it took a really long time to complete. Well, I find it a bit
funny that the floppy disk picture here is actually 5.25 inches. The computer uses 3.5 inch disks and the five inch could be only external, but I wonder how many users
actually had it. So in the end it gives a message
of the end of the test on the screen. That's all. As for the printer test,
we don't have a printer connected here at the moment,
so it won't start, a bit more you can get at the serial interface test,
but to complete it you need to solder and connect
a special test connector to the port.
Without that connector attached. The test just gives a message – Could not set up a flag "receiver
buffer full"". And finally,
there is also a test real timer that just gives a message
that all is good with it. Well, I expect that that clock
would have a real value on the screen, but it appeared to
be just an illustrative image. So that's it. Our next step will be to figure out the
schematics of the damaged power supply. And if we succeed with that,
we sure will have a continuation. In meanwhile, don't forget to subscribe as
because something really epic is coming. And also check our Patreon page, because
there is pretty much interesting there. So that's it. See you next time.
