VEB Kombinat Robotron (or simply Robotron) was the biggest

East German East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In these years the state ...

electronics manufacturer. It was based in

Dresden Dresden (, ; Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; wen, label=Upper Sorbian, Drježdźany) is the capital city of the German state of Saxony and its second most populous city, after Leipzig. It is the 12th most populous city of Germany, the fourth ...

and employed 68,000 people (1989). It produced

personal computer A personal computer (PC) is a multi-purpose microcomputer whose size, capabilities, and price make it feasible for individual use. Personal computers are intended to be operated directly by an end user, rather than by a computer expert or tech ...

s, SM EVM

minicomputer A minicomputer, or colloquially mini, is a class of smaller general purpose computers that developed in the mid-1960s and sold at a much lower price than mainframe and mid-size computers from IBM and its direct competitors. In a 1970 survey, ...

s, the

ESER Eser may refer to: * ESER, a German abbreviation for a Comecon computer standard * Eser (name) * Eser, an abbreviation (SR) commonly used in Russia around the times of the Russian Revolution for the members of Socialist-Revolutionary Party *A me ...

mainframe computer A mainframe computer, informally called a mainframe or big iron, is a computer used primarily by large organizations for critical applications like bulk data processing for tasks such as censuses, industry and consumer statistics, enterpris ...

s, several computer peripherals as well as home computers, radios, television sets and other items including the cookie press ''Kleingebäckpresse Typ 102''.

Divisions

Robotron managed several different divisions: *VEB Robotron-Elektronik Dresden (headquarters) —

typewriters A typewriter is a mechanical or electromechanical machine for typing characters. Typically, a typewriter has an array of keys, and each one causes a different single character to be produced on paper by striking an inked ribbon selectiv ...

, personal computers, minicomputers, mainframes *VEB Robotron-Meßelektronik Dresden — measurement and testing devices, home computers *VEB Robotron-Projekt Dresden —

software Software is a set of computer programs and associated software documentation, documentation and data (computing), data. This is in contrast to Computer hardware, hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. ...

department *VEB Robotron-Buchungsmaschinenwerk Karl-Marx-Stadt — personal computers, floppy disk drives *VEB Robotron-Elektronik Hoyerswerda — monitors, power supply units *VEB Robotron-Elektronik

Radeberg Radeberg is a small town in the district of Bautzen, Saxony, Germany. It is located approximately 20 kilometres north-east of Dresden. The town has an Evangelical and a Roman Catholic church, and an old castle. History Radeberg was mentioned ...

— mainframes, radio receivers, portable television receivers, directional radio systems *VEB Robotron Vertrieb Dresden,

Berlin Berlin is Capital of Germany, the capital and largest city of Germany, both by area and List of cities in Germany by population, by population. Its more than 3.85 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European U ...

and

Erfurt Erfurt () is the capital and largest city in the Central German state of Thuringia. It is located in the wide valley of the Gera river (progression: ), in the southern part of the Thuringian Basin, north of the Thuringian Forest. It sits ...

— sales departments *VEB Robotron-Elektronik Zella-Mehlis —

computer terminal A computer terminal is an electronic or electromechanical hardware device that can be used for entering data into, and transcribing data from, a computer or a computing system. The teletype was an example of an early-day hard-copy terminal a ...

hard disk drive A hard disk drive (HDD), hard disk, hard drive, or fixed disk is an electro-mechanical data storage device that stores and retrieves digital data using magnetic storage with one or more rigid rapidly rotating platters coated with magn ...

s *VEB Robotron-Büromaschinenwerk

Sömmerda Sömmerda is a town near Erfurt in Thuringia, Germany, on the Unstrut river. It is the capital of the district of Sömmerda. History Archeological digs in the area that is now Sömmerda, formerly Leubingen, have uncovered prominently buried h ...

— personal computers, printers, electronic calculators (Soemtron 220, 222, 224), invoicing machines (EFA 380), punched card indexers and sorters (Soemtron 432). *VEB Robotron Elektronik

Riesa Riesa is a town in the district of Meißen in Saxony, Germany. It is located on the river Elbe, approximately northwest of Dresden. History The name ''Riesa'' is derived from Slavic ''Riezowe''. This name, romanised as "Rezoa", appears first ...

—

printed circuit board A printed circuit board (PCB; also printed wiring board or PWB) is a medium used in electrical and electronic engineering to connect electronic components to one another in a controlled manner. It takes the form of a laminated sandwich str ...

s *VEB Robotron-Anlagenbau

Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as ...

— general contractor, design and assembly for computer and process calculation systems in the GDR and export, training center On 30 June 1990 the ''Kombinat'' Robotron was liquidated and the divisions were converted into corporations. In the 1990s these companies were sold, ''e.g.'', to Siemens Nixdorf, or also liquidated. Robotron Datenbank-Software GmbH is a company which emerged from one of the former divisions of ''Kombinat'' Robotron. It was newly founded on 23 August 1990, just before

German reunification German reunification (german: link=no, Deutsche Wiedervereinigung) was the process of re-establishing Germany as a united and fully sovereign state, which took place between 2 May 1989 and 15 March 1991. The day of 3 October 1990 when the Ge ...

. Bundesarchiv Bild 183-Z1102-008, VEB Robotron Elektronik Dresden, Endmontage.jpg, Final assembly at VEB Robotron Elektronik Dresden, 1981 Bundesarchiv Bild 183-1984-1128-002, VEB Robotron Elektronik Dresden, Qualitätskontrolle.jpg, Quality conformance testing at VEB Robotron Elektronik Dresden, 1984 Bundesarchiv Bild 183-1985-0211-022, VEB Robotron Elektronik Dresden, Computer EC 2655M.jpg, A worker at an assembly plant producing the ES 2655 mainframe in 1985. Bundesarchiv Bild 183-1987-0125-004, VEB Robotron Elektronik Dresden, Endmontage.jpg, One of the 17,000 workers at the

Kombinat Robotron VEB Kombinat Robotron (or simply Robotron) was the biggest East German electronics manufacturer. It was based in Dresden and employed 68,000 people (1989). It produced personal computers, SM EVM minicomputers, the ESER mainframe computers, ...

in the

German Democratic Republic German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ger ...

in 1987 working during the weekend to produce

typewriter A typewriter is a mechanical or electromechanical machine for typing characters. Typically, a typewriter has an array of keys, and each one causes a different single character to be produced on paper by striking an inked ribbon selective ...

Rebranding activities

Robotron printers were sold in Western Germany as "Soemtron" or "Präsident", and the West German branch of Commodore used some Robotron parts for their printers. In East Germany,

Epson Seiko Epson Corporation, or simply known as Epson, is a Japanese multinational electronics company and one of the world's largest manufacturers of computer printers and information- and imaging-related equipment. Headquartered in Suwa, Nagano ...

printers were sold under the Robotron brand (but the technical description on the back was with the "Epson" logo).

Robotron computers and typewriters

Robotron product series: * ''Midrange computer'' EDVA Robotron 300 (based on

IBM 1401 The IBM 1401 is a variable-wordlength decimal computer that was announced by IBM on October 5, 1959. The first member of the highly successful IBM 1400 series, it was aimed at replacing unit record equipment for processing data stored on pu ...

), *

R 4000 R, or r, is the eighteenth letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''ar'' (pronounced ), plural ''ars'', or in Irelan ...

and

R 4200 R, or r, is the eighteenth letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''ar'' (pronounced ), plural ''ars'', or in Irelan ...

computers (based on Honeywell Series 16), *

ES EVM The ES EVM (russian: Единая система электронных вычислительных машин (ЕС ЭВМ), translit=Yedinaya sistema electronnykh vytchislitel'nykh mashin (ES EVM), "Unified System of Electronic Computers"), o ...

systems EC 1040, EC 1055, EC 1056, EC 1057 (based on IBM

System/360 The IBM System/360 (S/360) is a family of mainframe computer systems that was announced by IBM on April 7, 1964, and delivered between 1965 and 1978. It was the first family of computers designed to cover both commercial and scientific applic ...

, IBM

System/370 The IBM System/370 (S/370) is a model range of IBM mainframe computers announced on June 30, 1970, as the successors to the System/360 family. The series mostly maintains backward compatibility with the S/360, allowing an easy migration path f ...

), *

Minicomputer A minicomputer, or colloquially mini, is a class of smaller general purpose computers that developed in the mid-1960s and sold at a much lower price than mainframe and mid-size computers from IBM and its direct competitors. In a 1970 survey, ...

and Superminicomputer

K 1600 K, or k, is the eleventh letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''kay'' (pronounced ), plural ''kays''. The letter K u ...

(DEC

PDP-11 The PDP-11 is a series of 16-bit minicomputers sold by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) from 1970 into the 1990s, one of a set of products in the Programmed Data Processor (PDP) series. In total, around 600,000 PDP-11s of all models were so ...

), K 1840 ( VAX 11/780), K 1820 ( MicroVAX II), * Office and personal computers A 5120, PC 1715, A 7100, A 7150, BIC A 5105, EC 1834 ( IBM XT), EC 1835 ( IBM AT), * OEM microcomputer systems

K 1510 K, or k, is the eleventh letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''kay'' (pronounced ), plural ''kays''. The letter K ...

, K 1520, K 1700 * Operating systems such as

JAMB A jamb (from French ''jambe'', "leg"), in architecture, is the side-post or lining of a doorway or other aperture. The jambs of a window outside the frame are called “reveals.” Small shafts to doors and windows with caps and bases are known ...

Disk Control Program MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few oper ...

or KOBRA File:Robotron A 5120.jpg, Robotron A 5120 office computer, ''1982'' File:Robotron-KC87-2.jpg, Robotron KC 87 home computer, ''1987'' File:A7100EC1834.jpg, Robotron A 7100 and EC 1834 (XT-compatible) personal computer, ''1986'' File:RobotronPC1715.jpg, PC 1715 File:Robotron K1840.jpg, Robotron RVS K 1840 (SM 1710), DEC

VAX-11 The VAX-11 is a discontinued family of 32-bit superminicomputers, running the Virtual Address eXtension (VAX) instruction set architecture (ISA), developed and manufactured by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC). Development began in 1976. In a ...

/780 Clone, ''1988'', recorded in the Technical Collections Dresden File:Robotron 204.jpg, A Robotron 204 electric typewriter from the 1980s File:VEB Robotron K8911.jpg, VEB Robotron K8911 File:Robotron calculator in the Pořežany museum.jpg, Robotron calculator with a printer

K1520 bus standard

The K1520 bus was an early

computer bus In computer architecture, a bus (shortened form of the Latin ''omnibus'', and historically also called data highway or databus) is a communication system that transfers data between components inside a computer, or between computers. This ex ...

, created by VEB Robotron in 1980 and specified in TGL 37271/01. It was the predominant computer bus architecture of microcomputer-sized systems of

East Germany East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In these years the state ...

, whose industry relied heavily on the

U880 The U880 is an 8-bit microprocessor that was manufactured by VEB Mikroelektronik "Karl Marx" Erfurt (abbreviated as MME; part of Kombinat Mikroelektronik Erfurt) in the German Democratic Republic. Production of the U880 started in 1980 at VEB F ...

microprocessor, a clone of the

Zilog Z80 The Z80 is an 8-bit computing, 8-bit microprocessor introduced by Zilog as the startup company's first product. The Z80 was conceived by Federico Faggin in late 1974 and developed by him and his 11 employees starting in early 1975. The first wor ...

. Among the large number of boards developed using the standard were * CPU modules * RAM modules * graphics cards *

magnetic tape Magnetic tape is a medium for magnetic storage made of a thin, magnetizable coating on a long, narrow strip of plastic film. It was developed in Germany in 1928, based on the earlier magnetic wire recording from Denmark. Devices that use mag ...

controllers *

Floppy disk controller A floppy-disk controller (FDC) has evolved from a discrete set of components on one or more circuit boards to a special-purpose integrated circuit (IC or "chip") or a component thereof. An FDC directs and controls reading from and writing to ...

s It was originally intended to be used to connect boards to backplanes, as in the * A 5120 office computer * A 5130 office computer *

Poly-Play ''Poly-Play'' is an arcade cabinet developed in East Germany in 1985; it is the only such machine to originate in the GDR. It was created by VEB Polytechnik and contained a number of games, including a ''Pac-Man'' clone. A total of about 2,000 ...

arcade cabinet but was also used as an extension bus for computers that featured a main board *

KC 85 The KC 85 ('KC' meaning "Kleincomputer", or "small computer") were models of microcomputers built in East Germany, first in 1984 by VEB Robotron (the KC 85/1) and later by VEB Mikroelektronik " Wilhelm Pieck" Mühlhausen (KC 85/2, KC 85/3 and ...

/2, KC85/3, KC85/4 ** 2 internal slots for extension cartridges and one back-side connector * D002 ** expansion unit for 4 additional extension cartridges * D004 ** floppy controller subsystem for KC95 based systems. 2 internal cartridge slots * PC 1715 ** 2 internal slots, one being occupied by the standard issue floppy disk controller * A 5105 (not produced in significant quantities) * KC 87 (a.k.a. z9001 or KC85/1) * Z1013 * KC compact (not produced in meaningful quantities) The bus had 58 pins and was commonly physically represented by a two-row connector with 29 pins each. The following signals and connections were used: * DB0 ... DB7 (bidirectional data bus) * AB0 ... AB15 (address bus) * /MREQ, /IORQ, /RD, /WR, /RFSH, /M1, /WAIT, /HALT, /INT, /NMI, /BUSRQ, /RESET (Z80 control signals) * /BAI, /BOA (/BUSACK priority chain) * /IEI, IEO (interrupt enable priority chain) * /IODI, /MEMDI, /RDY * clock * +5V * -5V * +12V * ground

References

External links

Robotron.foerderverein-tsd.de
nbsp;— The History of Robotron narrated by former staff members. German language site.

nbsp;— On-line generalised list of computers including Robotron. German language site.
Robotrontechnik.de
nbsp;— On-line museum of Robotron companies and products. German language site with some English translations.
Soemtron.org
nbsp;— Technical data for the Soemtron 22x series (220, 222, 224) desktop calculators manufactured by VEB Robotron Büromaschinenwerk Sömmerda.
Typewriter "Erika"
nbsp;— DDR Museum, Berlin
Company History
nbsp;— Company History Robotron Radeberg. {{DEFAULTSORT:Veb Robotron Home computer hardware companies Volkseigene Betriebe Defunct companies of Germany Science and technology in East Germany

Divisions

Rebranding activities

Robotron computers and typewriters

K1520 bus standard

See also

References

External links