Electronica CIP-03 ZX Spectrum Clone: Part 1 (Quick Look) [TCE

 

Let's have a quick look at this rather smart-looking Romanian clone of the Sinclair ZX Spectrum. The CIP apparently means "Calculator pentru Instruire Personala" or "Computer for Personal Teaching". Lots of info here (manual, ROMs, schematic):
Its CPU is the Romanian MMN80CPU clone of the Z80, with the remaining chips being a mixture of Soviet, Romanian (ME and ss branded), Polish (CEMI) and a Western EPROM. Interestingly the EPROM is a 27256 ... 32KBytes ... which is larger than required for the standard 16KByte Spectrum ROM. It's accompanied by a Romanian MMN2616 PROM (2KBytes). I'm not sure what's on these. The motherboard is nicely laid out and uses discrete logic - no gate array, ULA or BMC/БМК. It comes with a massive 5VDC power supply (measured at almost 6VDC) - it uses a Romanian version of the LM323 linear regulator, so I might swap this out. Of course, it could also be powered via a small USB charger as well. 00:00 ... Update on the Сириус/Sirius 02:26 ... Quick look at the CIP-03 04:50 ... Look at the back ports 05:40 ... Look inside the CIP-03 07:15 ... Closeup of motherboard 11:25 ... Power supply teardown 21:05 ... Channel thanks & outro -------------------------------- Check out my Patreon for regular blog-type updates between videos - there is a free membership tier and two paid tiers (US$2 and US$5). There is also a one-week trial for the paid tiers so if you don't think it's worth it, then cancel ... no hard feelings ... I appreciate any support, even if it's just subscribing to my YouTube channel!   / thecluelessengineer   -------------------------------- Music by Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio
   / @whitebataudio