Russian aircraft design

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The real thing that hampered Russia's military design bureaus was Stalin's lack of enthusiasm for computer systems. That set them back in so many areas. Gotta credit them for closing the gap and even taking the lead in some areas though.

The Russian were not far behind as many think, russia has build computers for a long time but they lost all their natural markets and lacked commercial strategies but undoutedly Russia designed and build computer here are some of them

Агат-9 (Agat-9)
The Agat is a fully Apple II+ compatible computer. It was developed in 1983 and shown at the CeBit 84. There were (at least) two version: The Agat-7 and the Agat-9. The Agat-7 was a earlier version of the Agat-9 - it was not fully Apple II compatible. (What about Agat-T and Agat-P - roumour or reality?)
The Agat-9 has six slots (according to sergey these slots are NOT compatible with Apple II carts!). There were a lot of add-on carts for the Agat-9 like memory expansion, FDC, parallel/serial cart and even network carts. The Agat machine was designed as an educational computer but it was also used in research laboratories as a cheap process control machine. A Agat-9 network called "KUVT Agat" was used in educational environments. It has a KR580VV55A (i8255A clone, 3-channel PIO chip) and a KR580VV51A (i8251 clone) built in.

Mac Buster told me a slightly different story about the Agat: Some days ago I have been reading an article in a book about soviet personal computers and found that Agat wasn't actually made as an Apple ][ clone. Engineers made it just similar to it. Soviet Union never produced 6502 clone and so developers had to buy these CPUs from India and Mexico (this can be resolved from writings on the CPU). 580WW55A is i8255A clone, 580WW51A is i8251 clone. These chips are not CPUs. Whole KR580 serie of ICs is set of 580WM80A CPU (older version has been marked 580IK80) and chipset for this CPU (clones of i82xx serie by Intel). There are only one exception - 580WM1 an advanced i8080 which has no analog in original Intel's serie. I heard some people used this CPU to replace old 580WM80 because it was 100% pin compatible, utilised same structure and commands set, but had ~100 new commands and one extra 16-bit register.

Technical Overview:

Year: 1983 CPU: ??? (6502)
RAM/ROM: 128kB / 16kB Clone: Apple II+
Colors: b/w - 16 Resolution: 512x256 - 128x128

Электроника:
Elektronika БК-0010 / БК-0010-01 / БК-0011M / MC1502
BK-0010 / BK-0010-01 / BK-0011M / MC1502

BK-0010

BK-0010 (new)

BK-0010 (keyboard)

BK-0010 (keyboard)

BK-0010 (back)

BK-0011M

BK-0011M ROM-Port

BK-0011M PCB
PCB Large (~770kB)

BK-0011M CPU

Электроника БК-0010 (Elektronika BK-0010)
The BK-0010 was the first Soviet home computer built in 1985. It comes with a quite powerful 16Bit DEC PDP-11 compatible processor called 1801BM1. Common programming languages were: FOCAL, BASIC, assembler - mostly on ROMs. The BK-0010 comes with a film keyboard. The BK-0010 is also known as БК-0010Ш (BK-0010SH) ("SH" means школьный = school model)
Электроника БК-0010-01 (Elektronika BK-0010-01)
The BK-0010-01 was very much the same machine as the BK-0010 but it has a "real" keyboard. The BK-0010 / BK-0010-01 also have a ROM-Slot like the BK-0011M.

According to Paul Romanchenko the BK-0010-01 has a total of 32kB RAM that is divided into two regions: 16kB user space and 16kB screen area.

The 32kB ROM contains built-in BASIC interpreter (dialect Vilnus Basic). It has 4 colors in "low-res" mode (32 col x 24 rows), 2 colors in "hi-res" mode (62 col x 24 rows). BK-0010-01 is built after BK-0010, which has the same characteristic, but has only 8Kb ROM and hasn't built-in Basic. The FOCAL language was distributed in separate ROM block which connected via special socket.

Электроника БК-0011M (Elektronika BK-0011M)
In 1990 the BK-0011M was released as an extended version of the BK-0010. The main difference from the earlier models was that a disk drive could be connected to the BLK-0011M. It was now possible to run ANDOS.

The BK-0011M has a very basic kind of "ROM-Slot" on the left side - after the plastic cover is removed two eproms/roms can be inserted directly into their sockets (see detail picture). If you take a closer look at the PCB you will see that there is only one empty socket whereas the detail picture shows two of them. This is due to the fact that the empty socket on the PCB is connected via a ribbon cable with the two sockets from the detail picture.

Serge Timakov provided this infos:
"- FOCAL (FOrmula CALculator) where operators were single letters ( F for "FOR", etc.). This language was interpreted.

- Vilnius BASIC. Vilnius is a Baltic city you know. It was a quite advanced version of BASIC that featured runtime compiler (your entire program would be synthax checked and compiled as you type 'RUN') as well as operators to save/load programs and data to/from the tape recorder.

It really had 32KB RAM onboard but by pressing 'Expanded memory' button you could send it to the mode when only 4 lines of text were displayed on screen, and saved video RAM was added to available memory.

There were quite lot of programs distributed on tapes by half-legal 'cooperatives'. I bought a word processor and even a rudimentary C compiler (!) this way.

TV set was used as display but on most Soviet-made TVs video-in jack was missing so you had to take a soldering iron and make it yourself. Upgrade schemes for most popular TVs were published in press around. "

Technical Overview:

Year: 1985 CPU: K1801BM1-3
RAM/ROM: 16kB / 32kB Clone: -
Colors: b/w or 4 Resolution: 512x256 or 256x256

Elektronika MC-1502

Elektronika MC-1502 (keyboard)

Elektronika MC-1502 (bottom)

Elektronika MC-1502 (back)

Электроника MC1502 (Elektronika MC1502)
I have no real facts about this machine but it looks very much like an MSX machine. In fact the case very much like the Yamaha YIS 503-Series but with a numerical keypad.
According to Igor Stratienko the Elektronika MC1502 is an XT-clone. Based on KR1810VM86 CPU(i8086) and have specific, specially developed chipset(system memory shared with built-in CGA compatible adapter and many other funny things). This MSX-like case is originally developed for MC0511/UKNC(УКНЦ) education computer system. For more pictures have a look at the web pages [Sergei Frolov].

I received this infos about the MC1502: "it seems for me that this computer isn't msx clone, but a dec one..... i worked at home with electronica-60 (and electronica-100) these were DEC PDP-11 clones with RT-11 operation system and son on..... Electronica-100 was with 2 KP1801BM? CPUs ...."

Technical Overview:

Year: 1985 CPU: К1810ВМ88 (i8088 clone)
RAM/ROM: 128kB / ?? kB Clone: XT
Colors: ??? Resolution: ???

РК-86:
RK-86 Радио-86РК / Микроша / Апогей / Партнер
Электроника КР-01,02,03,04
Radio-86RK / Mikrosha / Apogey / Partner
Elektronika KR-01,02,03,04
Микро-80 (Micro-80)
In the beginning of the 80th the radio amateur magazin "Radio" published the schematic of a computer called "Micro 80". There are no industrial models of the Micro-80, just the hand-maid models. This was the first "home-brew" computer in the USSR but it was very difficult to built because it consits of more than 200 microcircuits. Another problem was that it only supports text-mode. Quickly after the initial publication a quite good basic interpreter was developed - it only uses 6.5 kB RAM. As "mass-storage" a everyday tape recorder was used.
Due to the hand-made nature of this PC it is hard to find a picture of a Micro-80.

Radio-86RK

Радио-86РК (Radio-86RK)
The Radio-86RK was the successor of the "Micro-80" - the electric scheme and BIOS code were published in the local radio electronics-fans magazine “Radio” in June 1986. The name seems to be derived from the name of the magazin and the year. RK may be a short form of радиоконструктор (Electronic Do It Yourself Kit). The circuit count was reduced from 200 to about 29 - so it was easier to built. That might be the reason why the Radio-86RK became so very popular that a lot of clones (some even industrial manufactured) were built. It looks like the whole computer family could be called "RK-86" compatible.
according to Kirill Kukarkin the 8-bit CPU K580VM80 used for the Radio-86 is a clone of Intel 8080A. It has 16/32 Kb RAM, 4Kb ROM, 25x80 monochrome display (TV) and used tape recorder as external ROM. Based on Radio-RK schematic the following PCs were industry produced: Microsha, Krista, Electronica KR01…04 with a insignificant modification in electric scheme and BIOS. The additional adapters designed in 1987 – 1992 allowed to produce sound, add color display, attach FDD, attach ROM modules.

According to Sergey in 1989-1991 (during the perestroyka) many of these systems were sold in assembled form as a mass-market product. In the earlier days the RK-86 was mainly available in kit form.

In contrast to the many sinclair clones of this time the Radio-86RK has a Intel 8080 compatible (some sources say reengineered, some say officially licensed ?) CPU called КР580ВМ80А (KR580WM80A) .

(Has anyone a better picture?)

Technical Overview:

Year: 1989 CPU: KR580VM80A (8080A)
RAM/ROM: 32/64kB / 32kB Clone: RK-86
Colors: b/w Resolution: text only

Mikrosha
Микроша (Mikrosha)
As far as I know the Mikrosha (which means something like "little Micro") Computer is a buxfixed version of the "Radio-86RK". In spite of the modifications the Mikrosha was compatible with the "Radio-86RK".It has a with a cartridge port for RS-232, Centronics, FDD, RAM expansion, ROM-disk, EEPROM programmer, and a kind of Video-card with colour text mode and a graphics mode.
It was made by Lianozov Electromechanical Factory. The CPU is a KP580BM80A (8080 clone) running at 1.8 MHz.

Apogey BK-01Z
Апогей (Apogey)
I do not know much about this machine besides that it is a "RK-86"-clone that has some improved features but was not 100% compatible with the original design. The Apogey was a quite popular system.
Pavel Dovgaluk worte to me: "I have two versions of this computer in my collection: Apogey BK-01 and another one, that you wrote as Apogey BK-01Z. This "Z" (as you wrote it) means "color". Both of these computers are based on the russian clone of the i8080 CPU (KP580BM80). They both have 56.25K of RAM, 4K of ROM, 2.5K of VRAM. They have only one text mode 64x25. The only difference between these computers, that the first one has only two colors (black and white), and the second (color) computer has 8 colors. "

Аркаша (Arkasha)
Nothing is know about this machine besides that it is a "RK-86"-clone.

Elektronika KR-0?

Elektronika KR-03M

Электроника КР-01/02/03/04 (Elektronika KR-01/02/03/04)
The Elektronika KR series consists of four machines. As far as I know they are all industrial "RK-86" clones.
(does anyone know how the four versions differ?)

Elektronika KR-01 is a "Do It Yourself" kit. Computer has 16k or 32k of RAM and based on KR580IK80A

Partner
Партнер (Partner)
The Partner is another RK-86-Clone. It is a "all in one" design that integrates CPU, powersupply and keyboard in one case. The main characteristics of the Partner was the support of expansion carts (external). There were RAM and ROM Expansions as well as Video-Carts and Sound-Carts.

Орион-128:
Orion Орион-128 / ???
Orion-128 / Orion-Pro

Orion 128

Орион-128 (Orion-128)
From the technical point of view the Orion-128 was superior to machines like the Radio-RK86 and its many compatible versions but it was never as popular as these.
According to "Mac Buster" the Orion-128 was built in many different versions by many companies and actually this was the reason for its low popularity - different FDC controllers, memory expansions (up to 256k), ROM disks (ROM with software) and sound boards were incompatible.

The schematic was published in 1990 in a magazine for HAM radio enthusiasts called "Radio". I did not find any hints that the machine was ever sold in assembled form as a mass-market product but I think that it was available at least in kit form. (can someone verify this?)

In contrast to the many sinclair clones of this time the Orion-128 has a Intel 8080 compatible (reengineered ?) CPU called КР580ВМ80А. The Orion has a TV-output and uses a tape recorder as mass-storage device. In 1992 a disk-drive extension was available and a CP/M 80 version was developed and so a wide range of software could be used.

(Has anyone a better picture?)

Technical Overview:

Year: 1990 CPU: KR580VM80A (8080A)
RAM/ROM: 28kB / 2kB Clone: -
Colors: 16 Resolution: 384x256

Орион-??? (Orion-Pro)
The Orion-Pro was the successor of the Orion-128. It was based on Z80 CPU running at 5,8 or 10Mhz (controlled by a DIP on board). It has 512k of base RAM (very flexible paging system), 64k of ROM. It had 11 screen modes (text and graphics) with resolution from 384x256 to 512x256 pixels using 2...16 colours (reprogrammable palette). It also had a 800k FDD controller, Centronics and RS-232 port. Orion-PRO uses CP/M as default disk operating system. As far as I know there also were external boards (can be installed into three slots on main board) with 1.44Mb FDD controller, additional 1.5Mb of RAM, ROM-disk, EEPROM programmer, Sound board. Only ~2000 computer were released because it came in beginning of 1994 when 8-bit machines started to loose its positions when cheap games consoles (NES) flooded shops.

Елецтронмаш:
Electronmash Поиск
Poisk

Poisk
Поиск (Poisk)
The Poisk Computer was built in 1991 by KPO Электронмаш (Electronmash) located in Kiev. It is based around the 1810WM88 CPU a clone of the i8088. It has 4 slots for expansion carts like Floppy-Cart (in this case one could use CPM), Printer, Memory-Expansion (512k), HDD (MFM) controller, ROM-disk, EEPROM programming, RS-232/Centronics.
Igor Stratienko added: "Poisk" - cheap and not fully compatible IBM PC clone. Many hardware functions are emulated via BIOS(e.g. video adapter text mode).

Was the Poisk-System compatible to any other system?

According to an email the Poisk "is an incomplete clone of a IBM XT"

Technical Overview:

Year: 1991 CPU: KM1810VM88 (8088)
RAM/ROM: 128kB / 16kB Clone: similair to XT
Colors: b/w - 4 Resolution: 640x200

Специалист:
Specialist Специалист / Лик
Specialist / Lik
Специалист (Specialist)
The Specialist was released in 1985 by the ukrainian engineer A.Volkov. - it was not a RK-86 clone. There are two versions of the Specialist - the original version and the MX. The main difference was that the MX has 16 colors, supports disk drives and was able to run "moitor" (a CPM-Clone). According to an email I got the Specialist also has another title which sounds something close to "Faxivetz" (this means specialist in ukrainian language).
According to Kirill Kukarkin the electric scheme for the Specialist was published in the “Modelist-Konstruktor” (“Models-Construction”) magazine. Some small companies started the industrial production of this PC. RAM 32/48 KB, display 25x80 text, 384x256mono graphic (TV connected). Used tape recorder as external ROM.

Lik

Lik (box)

Lik

Lik (keyboard)

Logo

Лик (Lik, Face)
The Face (translation - the Лик transcribes to "Lik") was a clone of the Specialist. Лик probably is the short form of Любительский компьютер (computer for amateurs). The Lik was delivered in three version that differ in ROM size:
LIK-02 has 2k ROM
LIK-03 has 6k ROM
LIK-04 has 12k ROM
All of them were equipped with 48k RAM.
Early versions of the LIK come with an membran keyboard (see picture) - I am not sure if this membrane keyboard corespondes to any special version of the LIK.

Technical Overview:

Year: KR580WM80A 2MHz CPU: KR580WM80A
RAM/ROM: 32k or 48k kB / 2k, 6k, or 12k kB Clone: none
Colors: bw Resolution: 384x256

various:
(non-sinclair) Башкирия-2М / Криста / Корвет / Львов / Нейрон / Океан-240 / Вектор
Bashkirya-2M / Krista / Korvet / L'vov / Neiron / Ocean-240 / Vector

Bashkirya-2M

Башкирия-2М (Bashkirya-2M)
As far as I understand the online translation from http://bashkiria-2m.narod.ru/ the Bashkirya-2M was built in the republic Bashkortostan.
Some facts: 128kB Memory, support for floppy disk, same case as Корвет (Korvet), external power supply

Krista
Криста (Krista)
The Kirsta was developed and produced by a company called "RIP" located in the city "Murom". Krista is a Vector-06 clone but it has one advanced screen-mode (200x256 in 2 colours). It has 64k RAM and 8k ROM and came with a light pen. There also were ROM-disk modules (and also game cartridges) for it with up to 256k of software on it. From the "Vector FAQ" one can learn that there is a machine called Kirsta-2 that is partly compatible with the Vector but has a differnt color scheme.

Korvet

Корвет (Korvet)
Korvet is an computer (KR580WM80A based) developed especialy for educational purposes at the Moscow State University. faculty Phisiv of Nulclear. The Korvet was used as the main CPU for an educational network consisting of one PK8020 and 11 PK8010. It may be used as stand alone computer and as part of УК/НЦ class connected via LAN to DVK machine (used as print and FDD server). Korvet had 64-386k of RAM and something like 96k of ROM.
Technical Overview:

Year: 1987 CPU: KM580VM80M (8080)
RAM/ROM: 64-386kB / 96kB Clone: none
Colors: ? Resolution: ?

L'vov Львов (L'vov)
The L'vov was made by an Ukrainian company called "V. I. Lenin". It is also called "Lviv" is KR580WM80A based with 64k of RAM and 8k of ROM.
Here are some interesting notes from "Hard Wisdom":
4 simultaneous colors from a palette of .... quite hard to describe: here the source to compute actual color from four screen colors and a 8-bit palette index.

// - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
enum {BLACK=0, BLUE=1, GREEN=2, RED=4};

// - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
int LVOV20_PAL::ComputeColor(int PalettePort, int LvColor) {
int Result=BLACK; if (PalettePort&0x40) Result^=BLUE;
if (PalettePort&0x20) Result^=GREEN;
if (PalettePort&0x10) Result^=RED;
switch (LvColor) {default: break;
case 0: if (!(PalettePort&0x08)) Result^=RED;
if (!(PalettePort&0x04)) Result^=BLUE; break;
case 1: Result^=GREEN; break;
case 3: Result^=RED; if (!(PalettePort&0x02)) Result^=GREEN; break;
case 2: Result^=BLUE; if (!(PalettePort&0x01)) Result^=RED; break;
} return Result;
}

Resolution: 256x256, but this is the full size of videoframe, excluding border we will have 220x200 points. No text mode, only graphic. (To access 16kb of graphic RAM You need to switch RAM pages).

Technical Overview:

Year: 1986 CPU: KR580WM80A or KR155
RAM/ROM: 64kB / 8 kB Clone: none
Colors: 4 Resolution: 256x256

Океан-240 (Ocean-240)
CPU: К580ВМ8080, 128kB RAM (48KB + 16 Video RAM + 64kB RAM-Disk) Operating System: Монитор240 and CPM
Нейрон (Neiron)
The Neiron was a very interesting machine designed as a workstation with a graphical user inerface and a mouse! Mac Buster: I remember one talk to a man about soviet computers and he said: "If we compare Macintosh and Neiron, then Macintosh developers will be shamed". The base model has 4MB of memory and was based on an advanced version of 1801WM1 CPU running at 18MHz.

Sounds interesting! I would like an further infos and especialy a picture

Vector-06C

Vector-06q

Вектор-06 (Vector-06)
The Vector was developed by D. Temirazov and A. Sokolov and won an award at a Radio-Exhibition in 1987. As far as I understand the various sources of information there were several versions of the Vector:
1987: Вектор-06ц (Vector-06C)
1991: Вектор-06ц.02 (Vector-06C.02)
19??: Вектор-06ц 1200 (Vector Start 1200)
199?: Вектор-06ц-a (Vector-A) [unconfirmed]
199?: Вектор Турбо+ (Vector Turbo+) [unconfirmed]
The Vector-06C.02 is an enhanced version of the Vector-06C. The Vector-A is said to be an IBM clone whereas the Vector Turbo+ is based on a Z-80 CPU (?). The original Vector-06 is KR580WM80A based, but you may install KR580WM1 CPU because it is 100% compatible to WM80A, but needs less power and had one extra register. In 1993 someone made a Z80-Card to replace old and slow WM80A and WM1.
From Viacheslav Slavinsky I got these infos:
"It was a pretty computer. It had nice soft keyboard, somewhat similar to high end soviet computers of the time.
The ROM was very small and it was copied into RAM upon startup. It had no BASIC interpreter so you should have loaded one from tape, but you were not limited by ROM manufacturers. With full 64K of RAM there was plenty of software - several versions of BASIC, Forth and such.
The graphics (I do not remember the resolution) was amazing. It could display 16 colours at once out of 256 colour palette. For a home computer of the time it was mindblowing.
If I'm not mistaken, this computer was not a clone of anything, thus no software could be easily ripped. There were groups of enthusiasts who developed software for Vector. A vast range of development tools was available as well as games. Some of them were clones of popular games, some were original."

According to Jüri the Vector Start-1200 series was available in 1991.

"I can tell, that it was really nice computer in these days. It uses a KR580WM80A CPU and had 64kB RAM. 32KB were available for software 0h-7FFFh, even less, because as I remember somethere from 7...-7FFFH was OS called Monitor that was loaded there from ROM on startup Video - 32KB (8000h-FFFFh) was arranged as 256x256x16 or 512x256x4

First 100h of RAM was for 8 CPU interrupt commands adresses 00h, 20h,40h.... Basic interpreter itself took from 100h-2x00h something memory. Max basic progam length was something around 18kB. Good graphical text editor was also included in monitor Output was RGB, that I connected to 22' TV, parallel port for printer

There was also good manual for asm programmiing, i.e. descriptions of all entry points of Monitor. functions."

Technical Overview:

Year: 1987 CPU: КР580ВМ1
RAM/ROM: ?kB / ?kB Clone: none
Colors: ? Resolution: 512*256 (?)

various:
(sinclair) various Speccy Clones

Hobbit (early)

Hobbit (later)

Хоббит (Hobbit)
Thanks to Vassilii Khachaturov there are some detailed infos about the Hobbit: The Hobbit was mainly used in education. It was a quite powerful system that was known even in western countries (see [Rage Hard! 09/90] and [[Rage Hard! 01/91]).
The Hobbit is a russian clone of the Sinclair Spectrum - even the CPU is a russian clone. It has some additional features like: a CP/M mode, a "Shadow mode" containing the BASIC extensions (the default "BASIC" configuration was Basic with traps from the Shadow ROM, allowing TR-DOS, networking and internationalization to work). Additional EEPROM configurations were possible - either LOGO or FORTH system. The hottest thing about Hobbit is, doubtless, its FORTH-system mode, which was not there in the older machine. [Hobbit-Page]

The early version of the Hobbit is a very limited "edition" of Hobbit. It was stopped being manufactured around early 1990, when InterCompex totally switched to the later version with the numeric keypad.

Byte

Byte

???? (Byte)
According to Roelof Koning the Byte was an very interesting russian Sinclair clone. Apart from the grey version there were version with red and pink keys as well as a version with "real" a keybaord.
One of the machines Roelof owns has a mainboard with only one dedicated CMOS chip that contains all necessary parts for a Spectrum Clone. The technologie used is much more advanced than the ULA technologie and looks like it came from spaceflight.

Pentagon
???? (Pentagon)
According to [Sinclair Nostalgica Page] "the Pentagon 128 is also a Russian design but unlike the Scorpion it's not a brand name but a hardware design made in 1989. This means that a Pentagon can look and be very different. The one here is my Pentagon but I have also seen pictures of Pentagons in desktop cases. The Pentagon uses TR-DOS which makes it possible to use up to four disk drives. Standard RAM size is 512K but it's possible to have up to 4MB.
Some has TurboMode (7MHz, Z80B or Z80H), modem, CMOS-clock, kempston mouse, 2x AY, SoundDrive or Covox (first soundcards in russia), TurboMode for B-Disk Interface, 2HD format and so on... A 8 or 16K cache is also available to speed-up the disc operations. The new Beta-128 controller also use the HD disks with 1,7M capacity.

The current standard configuration is a Pentagon 512 Turbo, with 2 FDD (5.25" or 3,5") and Kempston mouse is standard. The most advanced version comes with a 7 MHz CPU (Z80B or Z80H) and 512K RAM. Two disc drives and a mouse comes as standard with this model.""

Elektronika BI-201

Parus

Электроника ВИ-201 (Elektronika BI-201 )
According to Roelof Koning the Elektronika BI-201 is another russian Sinclair clone.
The HCM has a ver similair looking machine namen Парус ВИ-201 (Парус = PARUS = "Sail") in its collection - this machine produces a startscreen that looks like it was made by "Didaktik Skalica" (TLINK) - war was a just a ROM-Transfer?

Another very interesting fact Roelof Koning mentions is that russian spectrum clone often contain white ceramic eproms - these eproms are military products and far too expensive to be "regularly" build in. Does that mean that all these machines are build in so called "side-rooms" (German: Nebenräume - what mean something like "inofficial")?

Bajt

Bajt with box

Bajt screen

???? (Bajt)
The Bajt is a russian spectrum clone (Bajt means Byte in russian) made in 1991. It has a quite usable typewriter-syle keyboard. As far as I understand the polish text found on an auction site (Radziecki klon Spectrumny -BAIT) the Bajt has an modified ROM that was able to display cyrillic alphabet - also the basic commands and error codes have been translated. The cyrillic could be turned off. The Bajt has a TV and RGB output.
Tomasz Orczyk kindly translated the very interesting auction text by TzOk:

The Triumph of the Soviet engineers for year 1991 - at last they have managed to copy (maybe not perfectly) a great personal computer - the famous ZX Spectrum (by the way - made by the "imperialists" 9 years earlier).

Russian scientists went even further - they have equipped their PC in Russian diacritical signs - cyrillic and because of that, typing the command BORDER 8, results in displaying an error message, but not ILLEGAL COLOUR, instead we get "oshibka svieta".

Anyway, there is a possibility to turn this computer into "normal" mode, where messages are being displayed in English. For fans of Spectrum I'll mention that original circuit, managing (mosly) picture displaing, so called ULA (Uncommited Logic Array) was cleverly replaced by "just" two dozens of different UIC (Unidentified Integrated Circuits). Display circuit is working hardly satisfactory - displayed picture has even worse quality than on original Spectrum (maybe you need to use "Rubin" TV set), however this computer has an RGB output - ther's certainly better picture eith it (yet, I had no chance to check it).

Developement of Russian electronics caused leaving vacum tubes behind and letting integrated circuits to do the job instedad, yet they are not very integrated, because the dimensions of the chassis are determined by the dimensions of the mainboard, on which they have placed 80 (eighty) chips!!! Keyboard makes a professional look (but in fact after typing 1 kByte of text you start feeling your fingertips overexhausted), well minimal pressing force was probably adapted to the timberman (I'd ever say - Russian timberman) - about 20 times more than in average keyboard.

Manual gives us essential information for correct operation - we may find out, that computer weigh 4,5kg (with power supply unit - about 6kg), consumes 30 Watts, has a computing power of 875e3 and what is absolutely essential - how much gold, silver and palladium does it contain (with an accuracy of 0,0001g

http://www.homecomputer.de/pages/easteurope_ussr.html

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Flex -
You're right about the Vigi's bumpy ride at low altitude, but that was why the RA-5C was used as a high-altitude recon bird from USN carriers. Call it 'strategic recon' if you will. The low-level work was taken care of by RF-8s. And exactly because the Vigilantes were used for high-altitude work, did they have such a horribly attrition score, especially if you remember that thanks to old-style carpet bombing, post-strike recon often was done with (relatively) high-flying Vigilantes flying in a neatly set-up flaktrap...

Fact is that the Vigilante provided such a desperately needed recon capability that the production line was re-opened some five years after it had shut down. Also, as a recce aircraft the Vigi had stuff other recon birds of the time could only dream about. Infra-red linescanner (the first one in a non-strategical recon bird), SLAR (ditto)... heck, some of the data it gathered was even stored on 1950s-era videotape rather than wet film.

The Vigilante was an exceptional recon platform, plagued badly by the extremely poor reliability of the 1950s-tech, and even more so by the rather limited problem-fixing abilities found aboard aircraft carriers. And while the design had a few ill-thought out stupidities (that tunnel bomb bay... gee, never thought the dropped payload would be bouncing around in the aircraft's wake), the biggest problem was that it was way too advanced for it's time. And oh boy, did it look good!

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however it did not help much, from link
" 18 RA-5Cs were lost in combat during the war, giving it the highest loss rate of any Navy aircraft in the conflict. 13 Vigilantes were shot down by flak, two were shot down by SAMs, one was shot down by a MiG-21, and the other two were lost to unknown causes over enemy territory."
I recomend to read at least that web page. According to that site the Vigilante has been rather a pain in the a$$ than an exceptional fighter/bomber/recon platform. The problems mainly caused by technical imperfections and maintenance issues. On the other side I agree the Vigilante being advanced in some areas (aerodynamics, FCS, electronic equipment) considering the time period. Personally, I admire the Vigi too. ;)

RA-5Cs were often used in post bombing raid photo reconnaissance missions, to help in damage assessment. Consequently the North Vietnamese always expected a recce plane to be flying overhead soon after a raid – and were appropriately prepared… (oh, I see, Arthur has just explained)

So Martinez, what would the Soviets have used to fly such reconnaissance missions, one of those spyplane versions of the Yak-27/28 MANGROVE/BREWER-D family?

I think I’d rather be flying in the Vigilante thank you. :rolleyes:

Well, Harry Hillaker the father of the F-16 was impressed with Mikoyan`s test bed the Ye-8 and based the whole conceptual design of lightweight fighter on it. But I assume you have heard of that already.

Did he say that? I’d be surprised if any one in the F-16 design team had ever been to the USSR and seen a Ye-8 in the flesh or any blueprints or drawings. The Soviets were not known for been open or revealing about their latest X-planes.

But they could have been to France and seen one of these if they asked nicely (if any still remained)

Nord 1500 Griffon (1955)

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Don't bother.. The Ye-8 was nothing but just a rip-off of some American design, anyway.. :p

Well, who knows?

Maybe a draughtsman in the Mikoyan design office accidently pinned a 'borrowed' drawing of a certain American aircraft upside down on his board one day... and the rest, as they say, is history :diablo: :diablo:

North American YF-107A Super Sabre and Ye-8

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Well, who knows?

Maybe a draughtsman in the Mikoyan design office accidently pinned a 'borrowed' drawing of a certain American aircraft upside down on his board one day... and the rest, as they say, is history :diablo: :diablo:

North American YF-107A Super Sabre and Ye-8


What i do not understand is why we need to argue senseless aspects of aircraft design of course Russia and the Former USSR were influenced by the West and viceversa, the US also copied the MiG-25 in the F-15.

Influences are natural since both nation were trying to surpass each other, it is not illogical to see the F-86 and MiG-15 looked alike, and the MiG-25 and F-15 or the Su-24 and F-111 also looked alike, both nations looked for similar aircraft and took many times the same engineering approaches.

It is not that the Russian or Americans copied directly in reality spionage and the technological level of each time period gave similar results.

Russia has aircraft that undoutedly surpassed many of their western equivalents, there were no western equivalents for the Tu-22M, Su-34, Ka-50, Yak-141, Mi-24, MiG-31 or An-225.

These aircraft were quit advanced and complex however the West also had aircraft that were unique, the SR-71, the F-117, E-2 to cite some examples.

Influences are natural and a result of the level science and technology achieved in a specific time period.

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The Russian were not far behind as many think, russia has build computers for a long time

Uh...those are all desktop style PCs it looks like, and came from the 1980s, well AFTER Stalin. That's not even remotely what I was talking about.

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Their main assignment field was to operate at supersonic where choosing the right wing shape is no brainer at all. They were focusing on delta wings used in initial ATF studies, Rafale, Eurofighter, Gripen, Lavi and the soviet MFI while drawbacks of deltas at subsonic have been reduced with help of canards. The US designers quickly realized that by applying canard-delta design, they will have problems to fullfil the stealth requirements(RCS), what explains why they got stuck with a common aft-tail design. The F-22 inherited less design features from seventies and eighties, basically it is a tweaked 60th design. No blended wing-body design, no real LERXs exploiting the non-linear lift as on the F-16,F-18, Mig-29, Su-27, no delta wings with sweep angle around 60deg suited for supersonic flight and maneuvering as Rafale, Eurofighter, Gripen.. etc. When lacking the TVC the aircraft would be almost considered as the F-15.

M

The Americans got stuck with a 'clipped delta type' wing on the 22 that is very efficient when it comes to high speed and supersonic maneuverability. Couple that with huge control surfaces and TVC. It may be an aft-tail delta design, but its Horizontal Stablilizers(Huge, size of an F-16 wing) are far from its c/g, c/l/p; by the law of moments the Hori Stabilizers will offer a lot of force in turning the jet; much more then the close coupled canards on Rafale and Gripen; Typhoon has its canards futher from c/g, and c/l/p then the other Eurocanards. The only source that comments on this all important supersonic maneuverability claims the Raptor has better sustained supersonic turn rates then any Typhoon, Su, Rafale, Gripen, Mig. Whereas the Typhoon has better instantaneous supersonic turn rates. This was conclusion came from DERA engineers who were privy to more sensitive information then most. USAF and LM pilots have also commented on its very impressive supersonic performance/maneuverability. This was a requirment of ATF, one that has been met and exceeded.
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launch box
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LovelyWendie

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20 years 7 months

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Flex -
You're right about the Vigi's bumpy ride at low altitude, but that was why the RA-5C was used as a high-altitude recon bird from USN carriers. Call it 'strategic recon' if you will. The low-level work was taken care of by RF-8s. And exactly because the Vigilantes were used for high-altitude work, did they have such a horribly attrition score, especially if you remember that thanks to old-style carpet bombing, post-strike recon often was done with (relatively) high-flying Vigilantes flying in a neatly set-up flaktrap...

Fact is that the Vigilante provided such a desperately needed recon capability that the production line was re-opened some five years after it had shut down. Also, as a recce aircraft the Vigi had stuff other recon birds of the time could only dream about. Infra-red linescanner (the first one in a non-strategical recon bird), SLAR (ditto)... heck, some of the data it gathered was even stored on 1950s-era videotape rather than wet film.

The Vigilante was an exceptional recon platform, plagued badly by the extremely poor reliability of the 1950s-tech, and even more so by the rather limited problem-fixing abilities found aboard aircraft carriers. And while the design had a few ill-thought out stupidities (that tunnel bomb bay... gee, never thought the dropped payload would be bouncing around in the aircraft's wake), the biggest problem was that it was way too advanced for it's time. And oh boy, did it look good!

No doubt, Arthur. It was an exceptional design in the general sense since already in the late 50s they built a plane resembling today's 4th gen aircraft. But I also remember an article written by a former IOIS PT (photographic intelligenceman) who did not leave one good word for the quality of photos Vigis delivered, despite of sophisticated equipment used (Kodak EH-38 hi-speed processors, SLAR, PECM, low-light-level TV camera, IR linescanner etc.). Sorry but for the life of me I am unable to find this article once more, it was some years ago.

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Well, who knows?

Maybe a draughtsman in the Mikoyan design office accidently pinned a 'borrowed' drawing of a certain American aircraft upside down on his board one day... and the rest, as they say, is history :diablo: :diablo:

North American YF-107A Super Sabre and Ye-8

It gets better. Check out the original design for the F-100B (which became the F-107). :diablo:

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No doubt, Arthur. It was an exceptional design in the general sense since already in the late 50s they built a plane resembling today's 4th gen aircraft. But I also remember an article written by a former IOIS PT (photographic intelligenceman) who did not leave one good word for the quality of photos Vigis delivered, despite of sophisticated equipment used (Kodak EH-38 hi-speed processors, SLAR, PECM, low-light-level TV camera, IR linescanner etc.). Sorry but for the life of me I am unable to find this article once more, it was some years ago.

The thing is the quality of the photos has absolutely ZERO to do with whether or not the Vigilante was a great aircraft from a design standpoint.

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Uh...those are all desktop style PCs it looks like, and came from the 1980s, well AFTER Stalin. That's not even remotely what I was talking about.

Try to look here http://www.bashedu.ru/konkurs/tarhov/english/stages.htm
As you could see, USSR wasnt far behind West in computer technology. It useally could match West in computers for military or even scientific application, but started to lag behind in the early 70-x for bussiness applications. There was also a problem with electronic components - USSR could produce just as advanced components as West - but they average quality was much lower so they was forced to implement very strict and expencive quality control. The result was very high price for advanced "good" electronic components. That wasnt a problem for military, but in civilian use this again caused many problems. Still, given the nature of USSR economic, alll that wasnt an unavoidable problem. The so-called "planed" econmic had a major advantage of being able to concentrate major resources on the key areas, so all these problems could be solved in relative short time if given enouth priority. There are many examples of such behavior, where a several industrial branches was given priority and they matched West in relatively short time. For example aviation (including civilian), energy production, metallurgy, lamp tubes, etc. For example we could see the results of efforts to much western avionic - since the 30x USSR aircrafts always lacked in that department. But by the end 70x-early 80x USSR catched the West and even surpassed in many products - see Mig-31 radar, IRST, Datalink, HMS, off-boresight missiles, etc. The very some could be seen for example on tanks - T64/T-80 FCS was on par with the best examples in the West, ATGM's had no concurrency, in 70x the night vision equipment on USSR tanks apeared in wide-scale even before these in the West - allthought by the beginning of 80x USSR missed the introduction of TI system. As such, we shouldnt fall to general predjucticy conclusions.

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The Americans got stuck with a 'clipped delta type' wing on the 22 that is very efficient when it comes to high speed and supersonic maneuverability.

A clipped delta wing with 42 degree sweep, no fck way!! :rolleyes: The wing is a trapezoidal planform, calculate the AR for your self AR = 4/tan(LE sweep angle). BTW the same as the Su-27 has got. So, definitely not as efficient as wings of the Typhoon, Gripen, Rafale at supersonic(Cx,L/D). Not to mention the F-22 wing is cambered with tip section twisted downward which is causing further drag penalties at supersonic. The F-22 wing is quite a compromise.
Couple that with huge control surfaces and TVC. It may be an aft-tail delta design, but its Horizontal Stablilizers(Huge, size of an F-16 wing) are far from its c/g, c/l/p; by the law of moments the Hori Stabilizers will offer a lot of force in turning the jet.

When manuevering at supersonic, canards deflect better anytime and they do handle that with a smaller size when compared to aft-tail. Realize the F-22 hor.stabs have to be that huge because of loosing effectiveness due to main wing wake. It is getting worser with higher mach numbers. Also,the F-22 is going to be static stable at supersonic anyway.
The only source that comments on this all important supersonic maneuverability claims the Raptor has better sustained supersonic turn rates then any Typhoon, Su, Rafale, Gripen, Mig.

Having the best T/W ratio among those fighters, it might be true. The F-119 engine is probably a variable by-pass cycle, when flying supersonic the engine acts like a turbojet(low by-pass) and when subsonic vice-versa(turbofan with higher by-bass). The engine thrust to speed/altitude characteristics then look more promising.
Whereas the Typhoon has better instantaneous supersonic turn rates.

That`s coupled with delta wing itself, which F-22 does not have one.

M

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What i do not understand is why we need to argue senseless aspects of aircraft design of course Russia and the Former USSR were influenced by the West and viceversa, the US also copied the MiG-25 in the F-15.

At least one reasonable argument, you earned my respect.

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It gets better. Check out the original design for the F-100B (which became the F-107). :diablo:
:confused: The Ye-8 had a delta wing, tail surfaces and canard foreplanes. Can hardly be more different from F-100B.. The intake design is the same type, which ain't a big deal since such basic intake types can be found in every better book about aerodynamics.

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The thing is the quality of the photos has absolutely ZERO to do with whether or not the Vigilante was a great aircraft from a design standpoint.
'Revolutionary' and 'great' are not the same thing. Was the Vigi one of the real breakthroughs in the aircraft design? Yes, undoubtedly.. Was it an excellent design for its role? No.. Was it a great aircraft? No way.. Nuff said.

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What i do not understand is why we need to argue senseless aspects of aircraft design of course Russia and the Former USSR were influenced by the West and viceversa, the US also copied the MiG-25 in the F-15.

Influences are natural and a result of the level science and technology achieved in a specific time period.

I agree in general w/ this post, but other then the most basic details (two wings, two tails, two engines, a cockpit ;) ) I don't see much resemblence between the Foxbat and the Eagle :confused: :confused:

Foxbat was intended as a strict intercepter (please, lets not get into WHAT it was to intercept :o ), The Eagle as a fighter.

Each type has it's good points and bad, but I just don't see much overlap between the points.

Matt

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Uh...those are all desktop style PCs it looks like, and came from the 1980s, well AFTER Stalin. That's not even remotely what I was talking about.

Russia and the USSR were never lagging behind as many claim becasue Russia was the first nation to launch a man into space.

The Soviet collapse was mainly due to the fact the Soviet economy was inefficient in bringing better standards of living to the Soviet population because it developed a bureucracy that hampered technological advance.

Militarily speaking we can see a small gap sometimes because the Soviet Union was in open technological competition with the West.

In 2006, the Russian economy has enough technology to catch up with France in few years but it will take sometime due to the restructuring of the Russian economy.

Militarily speaking Russia and the Soviet Union developed avionics and aircraft that surpased many times their western eqivalents, the MiG-31 is one example, even in 2006 a modernized MiG-31 is far more capable tha any western interceptor because even having Meteors today Russia is equiping their MiG-31s with R-37s and the Su-30MKI is as good as the Rafale. The MiG-29OVT is far more agile than the Gripen and the SU-35BM is more powerful than current Eurofighter variants, besides the US no other nation operates strategic bombers like the Tu-160 or theater bombers like the Tu-22M.

There is no other nation having as many helicopter gunship types as Russia except the US nither a nation with more satellites launched than Russia.

In few words the Myth that Russia is behind in electronics a computers is not true Russia only has not the commercial infracstructure to compete with IBM or Microsoft and it will take them some time to develop agan the ability to compete internationally with the West or Asia but undoutedly Russia and Ukraine once they stablish the economic infrastructure and the links needed with other nations manufacturing computers, again they will take their respective places in the computer market.

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Again, you're missing the point. Russia was slow, thanks to Stalin, to grab ahold of computer technology. That hurt them in a lot of areas. They have currently closed the gap or passed the West in some technological areas. What you're trying to accuse me of stating is that Russia is behind NOW, and that is not what I was saying at all.

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Again, you're missing the point. Russia was slow, thanks to Stalin, to grab ahold of computer technology. That hurt them in a lot of areas. They have currently closed the gap or passed the West in some technological areas. What you're trying to accuse me of stating is that Russia is behind NOW, and that is not what I was saying at all.

Come on SOC, the US is the nation we know the most about their technological programs, i can not tell you if Russia and the USSR did not or did develope computers in the early part of the XX century, but i do not think they did not develop such systems because the Russians as the Germans did, they knew that military technology needs advances in technology in order to have the best weapons.

If we look at the aircraft technology seen througout the entire XX century we can see all the nations manufacturing aircraft had technological breakthroughs either in aerodynamics, propulsion systems or avionics.

Russia also used computers as long as the other powers did becasue if you have an aircraft in the class of the F-86 it means you have similar level, Russia and the US always were closely matched in aircraft technology, that is the reason they were competing.

When Russia developed the MiG-3, Lagg-7 or Yak-9, the US had similar aircraft such as the P-51, F6F, F4UF, P-40 and so on, in the 1950s the MiG-15 was only matched by the F-86, other US fighters were inferior to the MiG-15 in overall terms, the US never had in reality superiority, when a combat aircraft was built in the West that was superior to the things the USSR had it prompted a reaction to develop something superior in the Soviet Union and viceversa.

Example the F-104 was surpassed by the MiG-21, MiG-21 was surpassed by the F-4, F-4 was surpassed by the MiG-23, the MiG-23 was surpassed by the F-16 the F-16 was surpassed by the MiG-29 and so on.
Each side responded with a more advanced aircraft each time they were left behind.

The An-26 was surpassed by the C-130, the C-130 was surpassed by the An-22, the An-22 was surpassed by the C-141, the C-141 was surpassed by the Il-76 the Il-76 was surpassed by the C-5, the C-5 was surpassed by the An-124 and the An-124 has been surpassed in some terms by the A-380.

In bombers were the same, the Russians fielded the Tu-22M the weste fielded the B-1B, the B-1B promped the development of the Tu-160, the Tu-160 prompted the need for the B-2.

Many Russian aricraft despite being simplier than their western counterparts grab a place in History as more advacned in terms of producibility, in example the MiG-21 this aircraft left the Mirage III and even the F-4 as luxurios machines expensive and difficult to mantain

If you look at the cockpit of an F-15A and of a MiG-29A in 1980 you would not see many differences, same was a MiG-21 and a F-4, same was with the F-86 and the MiG-15, what happens is many people usually compare a Western aircraft with an inferior Soviet/Russian aircraft and viceversa.

If i compare an early F-4 with a MiG-23ML of course i will say Russia was more advanced, but inreality these two nations were matched that is the reality.

Russia developed simpler aircraft due to the need of making larger numbers of these but in general these aircraft were slightly less complex than their western counter parts but still had the basic technologies of that time.

Undoutedly the US had many inventions developed by US scientists but many patents have been given or acknowledged to Western scientist and not Russians because there were scientists that developed similar technology in other countries but they never became famous simply because many inventions were acknowledged to Western scientists first.

Developing more advanced aircraft paid a price many aircraft like that were built in small numbers or simply were cancelled and in the West we see many examples

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FYI -F-22's Stablators

I found this posting on F-16.Net
http://www.f-16.net/f-16_forum_viewtopic-t-6130.html

>> Raptor_claw <<
>> It just drives me nuts when people compare wing loading numbers for an F-22 and F-15. Why? In short, because of the lift distribution for unstable vs stable airframes. Conventional (stable) airframes require downforce from the horizontal stabs to maintain trim. Relaxed-stability (unstable) airplanes do not (at least not in the portions of their envelopes where they are likely to approach Clmax). In other words, the F-15 wing has to not only support the weight of the structure, it has to generate additional lift to balance the downforce from the tail. An F-22 gets the opposite effect - the wing can actually generate less lift than weight because the tail is helping, creating positive lift. (This, by the way, is a significant portion of the drag savings, as all lift (up or down) generates drag.) <<

The F-22 maneuvers like previous aircraft. It will be the benchmark in performance for many years to come, as was the F-15 Eagle.

True the F-22 has no canards but, canards are not a cureall. It greatly depends on the overall design and what the designers are trying to accomplish. The F-35 had canards until the design was taken to the NASA wind tunnel at Aims Research Center, Mt. View, Cal. After 160 hours of wind tunnel testing, it was decided the design was better off without the canards. It was not just stealth that lead to that decision.
The F-22 is designed to excel and fight in an area of the performance envelope no other aircraft. It can come down and mix it up if it 'has to' but why should it..... it can fight and maneuver effectively where no other aircraft can -high speed and high altitude.
In the conclusion of the Austrailian Air Force's evaluation for the next aircraft to replace the F-111 they made the following statement about the Typhoon in comparison to the F-22;
Austrailian Air Force Evaluation of New Fighters
http://www.ausairpower.net/typhoon.html
"What conclusions can we draw about the Typhoon? The notion that the aircraft is "almost as good as an F-22" is not supportable, indeed upgrading the F-15 with engines and a radar/IRS&T/AAM package of the same generation as that of the Typhoon would equalise almost all advantages held by the Typhoon over older F-15C/E variants. By the same token, no upgrades performed on the F/A-18A/C would equalise the performance advantages of the Typhoon over these aircraft."

Adrian