Many of us remember the wonderful electronic toys, "Well, wait a minute!", Which in the 1980s were almost every Soviet family. Despite this, few people know that these toys were pirated copied and adapted to Soviet realities such samples developed by Nintendo. In the Soviet Union able and loved to copy foreign equipment, often not caring about copyright.
Like the Nintendo into a "electronics»
Let's start with the most toys, "Well, wait a minute!". In order to trace the history of their appearance in the Soviet Union, you must first pay a visit to Japan. It was there the developer of games for Nintendo's Gumpeyu Yokoi once had the idea to create such a decision.
According to the legend, Yokoi once rode the train and saw one of his companion amused himself that pressed the keys of the calculator. It was then that the idea to create a miniature electronic game that has as functional watches, which can take anywhere. Such an idea like leadership Nintendo, and a game called Game & Watch began producing in 1980. There are several types of Game & Watch, but each of them is allowed to play only one game, which was caused by the use of a segmented LCD display.
The novelty soon came to the attention of representatives of the Soviet government - it was decided to release their own game of this type. Without further ado, the Ministry of Electronics Industry of the USSR decided to purchase several copies of the Japanese game and give the plant "Electronics" for a comprehensive study. Thus, the method of reverse engineering and was born a Soviet version of the Game & Watch, entitled "Well, wait a minute!».
The game was created on the domestic element base, in particular, are used KB1013VK1-2 processor and LCD display or IZHM2-71-01 IZHM13-71. The release of the game has been launched in 1984 at the "diffusing" in Orel. Soon after, she became very popular throughout the Soviet Union. The cost of "Well, wait!" Amounted to 23 rubles.
"Agate" - Soviet Apple II
Computer Apple II, first released in 1977, made a small company one of the leaders in the PC market, and its founders - multimillionaires. Total production for the period was released about six million of such computers.
Meanwhile, despite the Iron Curtain in the Soviet Union very soon we met with this decision, and the country's leadership decided that this computer will not be superfluous, and for the Soviet people. So, in the early 1980s in the Institute of computing complex was "developed" own personal computer "Agat", the basis of which were taken architecture and software Apple II.
We must pay tribute to the engineers NIIVK, since the device is not an exact copy of your computer from Apple. This was primarily due to the use of domestic components. It has its own design and revised software. The computer was placed in a red plastic case, and as the monitor is widely used model produced small TV "Silelis" and "Yunost-404." Series production began in 1984 and lasted until 1993