Iron Curtain Clones - part 1
The retro computing YouTube channel RMC - The Cave posted a video a few years ago discussing the clones of 8-bit microcomputers produced behind the Iron Curtain from the mid-80s until the late 90s.
In my never-ending quest to fill my office with old computers that (mostly) don’t work, I’ve picked up a few myself. In the next few posts, I’ll be talking about them.
First out of the gate is the Didaktik M which was introduced in the former Czechoslovakia in 1990. It was a clone of the Sinclair ZX Spectrum. At first glance, it’s quite a nice-looking machine with much more of a 90’s vibe than the Spectrum. It’s decidedly beige and is shaped something like a Commodore 64C or an Atari XE.
The Beige Beast from the East - The Didaktik M
One of the obvious differences between the Didaktik and the Commodore or Atari is the keyboard. It definitely doesn’t have a “proper” keyboard primarily because it’s missing a space bar. Instead, it has a Break/Space key in the lower right, similar to the Spectrum.
The key caps are absolutely huge. They’re larger at the base than a standard PC-style keyboard and don’t taper nearly as much. The key action itself isn’t horrible, but tapering the keys to give a bit more space between them would probably have been a better idea. Without a space bar though you’re unlikely to be touch typing on this.
There are a few extra keys on the Didaktik that stand out. Firstly there’s a nice inverted-T cursor key cluster, nicely spaced from the main keyboard. These would probably be OK for playing games. Secondly, up in the top right there’s a Reset key. It’s an interesting idea to have a reset button on the front of the machine, rather than a cheap spring-loaded reset button on the back or the side. It’s also a bit risky. If it immediately restarts the system by interrupting the power like most of these buttons did, I could see someone accidentally tapping it in the middle of a crucial match in Football Manager.
Just to the left of the Reset key is something that looks like it might be a power button, but isn’t. It’s actually just a square shape printed on the case with a power light and label inside it. It looks OK though, and the Spectrum wouldn’t get a power light until the Spectrum +2 was released.
Weight-wise, the Didaktik comes in a smidge under 2 lbs. That makes it significantly heavier than the original Spectrum (1 lb 4 oz), but that is probably not surprising given the difference in size.
The Didaktik is much bigger than the Spectrum in all dimensions, although the main part of the keyboard has roughly the same area. That being said, the Didaktik keyboard is all key, with very little space between, while the Spectrum had plenty of space to add the additional keywords assigned to the keys. The Didaktik just puts everything on the top of the key and given their absurd size, it’s not too difficult to read.
The Didaktik is significantly taller than the Spectrum.
The underside of the Didaktik is pretty empty although there is one sticker and some model information embossed on the plastic. The top screw hole looks like it was once covered by a warranty sticker.
Round the back, there are some pretty unusual ports. There are two joystick ports. One is a Kempston port, and the other is a Sinclair port. On my machine, there are just edge connectors that wouldn’t work with any Kempston or Sinclair joystick I ever saw. I suppose there may have been ports attached to the edge connectors at some point.
There is a larger edge connector labeled as the System Bus to the right of the joystick ports. It looks to be the same size and has the notch in the same place as the Spectrum expansion connector, so there’s a reasonable chance it might be compatible with some peripherals.
To the right of the system bus are two DIN sockets. The first is labeled MG, and the second is labeled power. MG is for the cassette recorder used to load and save software. The good news is that I can’t see any way you could accidentally plug the power cable into the MG port. Finally on the far right are ports for video and TV. I’m not sure what type of connectors they are.
So that’s the Didaktik M. I have three more Iron Curtain clones to post about. Let’s just say the Didaktik M is the most normal…
