Two Soviet computers

Recently I got reunited with two of my home computers that I was using from late 80s to mid-90s: BK-0010 (БК-0010) and UKNC (УКНЦ), clones of the DEC PDP-11 (or rather LSI-11).

BK-0010, S/N 6147, priced at 600 rubles, made in May 1986:

This is the early model with its distinctive flat keyboard.

Original box, power supply, and manufacturer’s label on the bottom of the machine:

UKNC, also known as Elektronika MS 0511, S/N 04902, made in April 1992:

A couple of years ago I did briefly switch on the BK to see if it was still alive. I wasn’t as cautious about old power supplies back then as I am now, and just went ahead and turned it on. Anyhow, nothing exploded; RIFAs were unheard of in the Soviet Union, and tantalum capacitors were too expensive for home computers. The machine started up into its Focal interpreter in ROM but failed to get to the command prompt – ‘*’. I did not investigate this further at that time.

Now I just switched on the power supply to confirm it was still putting out clean 5 volts, and then turned on the machine. The video output looked reasonable on the oscilloscope, but my only monitor with an analogue (VGA) input informed me it was ‘out of range’. No surprise there, as the 15 kHz TV standard is indeed well outside the VGA spec.

The CRT monitor I was using with these machines was too bulky to bring over, so I put the BK to one side until I could find a solution to the video problem.