Kleincomputer KC 85/3: Part 1 (First look)

Let’s have a look at the East German (DDR/GDR) Robotron KC 85 “small computer“ that runs on the East German Z80 clone called the U880 - in this case it’s the UB880 variant. A lot of excellent information ... and photos ... can be found here: The keyboard connects via a mono plug and reminds me of a calculator keypad. Opening it up shows a lot of different layers ... yikes ... looks like a real PITA (pain-in-the-aß) to re-assemble. Yay. I finally found what the “U807D“ chip is in the keyboard: The “basis device“ or main unit is pretty solidly built. The mixture of English and German seems a bit weird. This KC85/3 comes 16KByte of main RAM, 16KByte of video RAM, 8KByte of ROM and includes 8KByte of BASIC built-in. The previous KC85/2 doesn’t have BASIC built-in. This example also includes a 64KByte RAM expansion (8 x 64Kbit) ... I don’t know if this replaces the internal 16KByte of RAM or adds to it (80KByte in total). It has a single expansion interface and a 2x13 pin edge connector for the TV-RGB output (not sure if Soviet pitch or Western “ pitch). So I’ll need to do some research on creating a cable for video output. Schematics can be found here: