Парус ВИ-201 (Sail VI-201): Part 1

Another Sinclair ZX Spectrum clone (клон), called an “Игровой Компьютер“ or Gaming Computer. This model is called the Парус ВИ-201 (Parus VI-201, or “Sail“) and was built in Sevastopol (Севастополь) in Crimea, in the early 90s. I believe it was first built in 1990 which would make it a Soviet machine, though most examples would’ve been built after Ukraine became independent. It came with a large power supply that should output 5V, using a toroid, rectifier and regulator. The fuse was missing, and indeed the AC power input wires were broken, so I will look at fixing the PSU later. In the meantime I whipped up a simple USB-to-DIN power cable ... 7-pin DIN! Actually all the ports are 7-pin DINs ... interesting choice. The RGB output thus includes also composite (SECAM) video (I think) and audio output, and the cassette (магнитофон) also includes audio output as well. It uses the Soviet version of the Zilog Z80, the Т34ВМ1 (T34VM1) or КР1858ВМ1 (KR1858VM1). For the first time, they have made the keyboard easily detachable from the motherboard ... THANK YOU! Makes it a lot easier to work on the machine. They keyboard itself seems to be decent quality, albeit a little squeaky ... will try to sort that out next. The machine includes an internal piezo speaker, so I can hear the “tap“ sound that the Speccy makes when you type ... so it seems to be working but I couldn’t get any video out of it ... I’m assuming that the left-most port labelled “ВТЦ“ is for video output ... ? So further investigation is required. Further information (in Russian): (link to schematic on this page) Парус_ВИ-201