website/content/museum/hobbit.md

title, categories, types, origins, years, cpus, params

title	categories	types	origins	years	cpus	params
Hobbit	Computers	Professional Computer	Russia	1990	UA800	name image company company_name specs forum_thread oc_id source Hobbit /media/museum/photos/hobbit_system_1.jpg /companies/hobbit HOBBIT label value NAME Hobbit label value MANUFACTURER Hobbit label value TYPE Professional Computer label value ORIGIN Russia label value YEAR 1990 label value BUILT IN LANGUAGE Sinclair BASIC label value KEYBOARD Full stroke 88 keys with function keys and numeric keypad. 33 reprogrammable keys, supports cyrillic/roman/arabic alphabets label value CPU UA800 (Russian Z80A clone) label value SPEED 3.58 MHz label value RAM 64 Kb (could be switched in 48 Kb mode) label value VRAM 6.5 Kb label value ROM 16 Kb label value TEXT MODES 32 chars. x 24 lines (80 x 24 in CP/M mode) label value GRAPHIC MODES 256 x 192 dots label value COLORS 16 label value I/O PORTS System bus, Parallel, Serial RS232, 3 joystick ports (1 x Kepston, 2 x Sinclair), socket for language ROMs, TV out, TTL monitor out label value BUILT IN MEDIA None label value OS BETA (CP/M clone), network drivers (100 Kbaud) label value POWER SUPPLY External power supply unit - 5v, 1.5A, 220-240v label value PERIPHERALS Up to 4 5.25'' FDD, tape recorder, printer, joystick, lightpen, mouse, HDD with special patch, later version came with built in 3,5'' FDD label value PRICE About $170 equivalent 931 955 url date https://web.archive.org/web/20230324124846/http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=955 2023-03-24

Many Spectrum clones were designed and manufactured in the Soviet Union or Russia, among them Spektr 48, Moskva, Robik and Sprinter. Some of them greatly surpassed the features of the original Sinclair Spectrum.

The Hobbit was one of the most famous Speccy clones. It was a quite powerful system, mainly used in education, and also known in some Western European countries.

Like in many Eastern clones, the processor was a Russian version of the Z80A (UA800). However, the Hobbit had several powerful additional features: CP/M mode, Shadow mode allowing numerous BASIC extensions, various EEPROM configurations with additional languages like LOGO, Pascal, C or FORTH, network capabilities...

The early version of the Hobbit was a very limited edition and stoped being manufactured around early 1990. But at that time, another manufacturer called InterCompex changed it into the later version with numeric keypad and more features.

The Rage Hard magazine wrote about the Hobbit: "The Hobbit is a Soviet Spectrum clone that does everything Uncle Clive built into the original Speccy, plus lot of the things he forgot..." :-)

After switching on the Hobbit, you could see classic Sinclair screen, but in the Russian Cyrillic language. Furthermore, there was a special key allowing the user to switch between the Cyrillic or Latin alphabets.

One of the most amazing features was something like the early RAID system. In a Hobbit network, if some Hobbit in the network crashed during work, the "master" Hobbit could recover files and data from it.

Thanks to Vladimir Kopacek for information and Dimitri Kokken for the picture

We need more info about this computer ! If you designed, used, or have more info about this system, please send us pictures or anything you might find useful.