The Kay 1024 was a Russian

ZX Spectrum The ZX Spectrum () is an 8-bit computing, 8-bit home computer developed and marketed by Sinclair Research. One of the most influential computers ever made and one of the all-time bestselling British computers, over five million units were sold. ...

clone introduced in 1998. Created by the NEMO company of

St. Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea. The city had a population of 5,601, ...

, it has 1024 KB of

RAM Ram, ram, or RAM most commonly refers to: * A male sheep * Random-access memory, computer memory * Ram Trucks, US, since 2009 ** List of vehicles named Dodge Ram, trucks and vans ** Ram Pickup, produced by Ram Trucks Ram, ram, or RAM may also ref ...

. It was a rival to Scorpion ZS 256, having a slightly lower price. It offered a controller for a

PC keyboard A computer keyboard is a built-in or peripheral input device modeled after the typewriter keyboard which uses an arrangement of buttons or keys to act as mechanical levers or electronic switches. Replacing early punched cards and paper tape t ...

and HDD, but not for

floppy disk A floppy disk or floppy diskette (casually referred to as a floppy, a diskette, or a disk) is a type of disk storage composed of a thin and flexible disk of a magnetic storage medium in a square or nearly square plastic enclosure lined with a ...

s (although available as an extension card). Adding a General Sound card was easy, and the

CPU A central processing unit (CPU), also called a central processor, main processor, or just processor, is the primary processor in a given computer. Its electronic circuitry executes instructions of a computer program, such as arithmetic, log ...

had a 7

Mhz The hertz (symbol: Hz) is the unit of frequency in the International System of Units (SI), often described as being equivalent to one event (or cycle) per second. The hertz is an SI derived unit whose formal expression in terms of SI base u ...

turbo mode On IBM PC–compatible computers, the turbo button selects one of two run states: the default "turbo" speed or a reduced speed closer to the Intel 8086 CPU. It was relatively common on computers using the Intel 80286, 80386 and 80486 processors, ...

. Earlier versions of the machine were known as Kay 128 and Kay 256. The Kay 2006 NB (North Bridge) is a 2006 version based on the

Altera Altera Corporation is a manufacturer of programmable logic devices (PLDs) headquartered in San Jose, California. It was founded in 1983 and acquired by Intel in 2015 before becoming independent once again in 2025 as a company focused on developm ...

EPM7064 MAX. It adds three new graphics modes: Multicolor, GigaScreen and 512×192 pixels in 2 colors. The Kay 2010 or Kay 1024/SL4 is a 2010 update of the original KAY 1024 with a few minor additions and improvements. The Kay 2010 mainboards are manufactured in

Chelyabinsk Chelyabinsk; , is the administrative center and largest types of inhabited localities in Russia, city of Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia. It is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, seventh-largest city in Russia, with a population ...

Specifications

Brief technical specifications of KAY-1024 computer: * Supplied as a complete board, with a IS-DOS floppy disk, drivers and utilities, a ribbon cable and instructions (on a single sheet of paper). A 40 MB hard drive with the preinstalled

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ...

was an option. * 1024 Kb RAM (61 pages), usable as 256 Kb (7FFD 1FFD) plus a 640 Kb RAM disk in TR-DOS (virtual drive "C"). * The

Z80A The Zilog Z80 is an 8-bit microprocessor designed by Zilog that played an important role in the evolution of early personal computing. Launched in 1976, it was designed to be software-compatible with the Intel 8080, offering a compelling altern ...

3.5 MHz CPU has no wait states and a 7 MHz turbo-mode. The turbo mode can be controlled by software, logical level on bus, or by an external button. * KAY-1024/3SL/TURBO

motherboard A motherboard, also called a mainboard, a system board, a logic board, and informally a mobo (see #Nomenclature, "Nomenclature" section), is the main printed circuit board (PCB) in general-purpose computers and other expandable systems. It ho ...

with three slots for additional devices: floppy disk controller,

IDE drive Parallel ATA (PATA), originally , also known as Integrated Drive Electronics (IDE), is a standard interface designed for IBM PC-compatible computers. It was first developed by Western Digital and Compaq in 1986 for compatible hard drives and CD o ...

, IBM PC keyboard, modem, etc (no soldering needed). * Built-in hard drive support in ROM. IS-DOS may be loaded directly from hard drive, accessible from the computer main menu. * The IDE hard drive interface for Nemo-bus and IS-DOS can be used within TR-DOS. *

IBM PC keyboard The Keyboard (computing), keyboard for IBM PC-compatible computers is standardized. However, during the more than 30 years of PC architecture being frequently updated, many keyboard layout variations have been developed. A well-known class of IB ...

and mouse controller ( Kempston mouse). * XTR-

Modem The Democratic Movement (, ; MoDem ) is a centre to centre-right political party in France, whose main ideological trends are liberalism and Christian democracy, and that is characterised by a strong pro-Europeanist stance. MoDem was establis ...

, for Nemo-bus. * 5.25″ and 3.5″ disk drives. * "BETA-TURBO" floppy disk controller for Nemo-Bus. * Optional:

AY-3-8910 The AY-3-8910 is a 3-voice programmable sound generator (PSG) designed by General Instrument (GI) in 1978, initially for use with their 16-bit CP1610 or one of the PIC1650 series of 8-bit microcomputers. The AY-3-8910 and its variants were u ...

, Z84C0010PEC, Z84006PEC, ROM 27C512 with KAY-1024 ROM set,

real-time clock A real-time clock (RTC) is an electronic device (most often in the form of an integrated circuit) that measures the passage of time. Although the term often refers to the devices in personal computers, server (computing), servers and embedded ...

IC "Dallas", ribbon cables for HDD and FDD; General Sound external sound card, Nemo-bus compatible; General Sound memory module. * Kempston and Sinclair

joystick A joystick, sometimes called a flight stick, is an input device consisting of a stick that pivots on a base and reports its angle or direction to the device it is controlling. Also known as the control column, it is the principal control devic ...

s. * Complete Centronics printer interface.

References

{{Sinclair computers and clones ZX Spectrum clones