VEB Robotron

This article is about the East German computer company. For other uses, see Robotron (disambiguation).

VEB Kombinat Robotron

Company type	Volkseigener Betrieb
Industry	Electronics manufacturer, computer software
Founded	1 April 1969 (1969-04-01) in Dresden, German Democratic Republic
Defunct	1 July 1990 (1990-07-01)
Fate	Liquidated / converted into corporations
Headquarters	Dresden , German Democratic Republic
Key people	Friedrich Wokurka
Products	A 5120, PC 1715, Robotron K 1840, Robotron KC 87, …
Number of employees	68,000 (1989)

VEB Kombinat Robotron (Template:IPA-de) (or simply Robotron) was the largest East German electronics manufacturer. It was based in Dresden and employed 68,000 people in 1989. It produced personal computers, SM EVM minicomputers, the ESER mainframe computers, various 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, personal computers, minicomputers, mainframes
• VEB Robotron-Meßelektronik Dresden — measurement and testing devices, home computers
• VEB Robotron-Projekt Dresden — software department
• VEB Robotron-Buchungsmaschinenwerk Karl-Marx-Stadt — personal computers, floppy disk drives
• VEB Robotron-Elektronik Hoyerswerda — monitors, power supply units
• VEB Robotron-Elektronik Radeberg — mainframes, radio receivers, portable television receivers, directional radio systems
• VEB Robotron Vertrieb Dresden, Berlin and Erfurt — sales departments
• VEB Robotron-Elektronik Zella-Mehlis — computer terminals, hard disk drives
• VEB Robotron-Büromaschinenwerk Sömmerda — personal computers, printers, electronic calculators (Soemtron 220, 222, 224), invoicing machines (EFA 380), punched card indexers and sorters (Soemtron 432).
• VEB Robotron Elektronik Riesa — printed circuit boards
• VEB Robotron-Anlagenbau Leipzig — 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.

• 
  Final assembly at VEB Robotron Elektronik Dresden, 1981
• 
  Quality conformance testing at VEB Robotron Elektronik Dresden, 1984
• 
  A worker at an assembly plant producing the ES 2655 mainframe in 1985.
• 
  One of the 17,000 manual workers at Robotron in 1987 is working at weekend to make typewriters

Robotron computers and software

Robotron product series include:

• Midrange computer EDVA Robotron 300 (based on IBM 1401),
• R 4000 and R 4200 computers (based on Honeywell Series 16),
• ES EVM systems EC 1040, EC 1055, EC 1056, EC 1057 (based on IBM System/360, IBM System/370),
• Minicomputer and Superminicomputer K 1600 (DEC PDP-11), 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 modular microcomputer systems K 1510, K 1520, K 1700
• Operating systems such as Single User Control Program (based on CP/M), JAMB, Disk Control Program [de] (based on MS-DOS) and KOBRA

• 
  Robotron A 5120 office computer, 1982
• 
  Robotron KC 87 home computer, 1987
• 
  Robotron A 7100 and EC 1834 (XT-compatible) personal computer, 1986
• 
  PC 1715
• 
  Robotron RVS K 1840 (SM 1710), DEC VAX-11/780 Clone, 1988, recorded in the Technical Collections Dresden
• 
  A Robotron 204 electric typewriter from the 1980s
• 
  VEB Robotron K 8911
• 
  Robotron calculator with a printer

Rebranding of products

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 printers were sold under the Robotron brand that still had the Epson logo on the back.

K 1520 bus standard

The K 1520 bus was an early computer bus, 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, whose industry relied heavily on the U880 microprocessor, a clone of the Zilog Z80.

Among the large number of boards developed using the standard were CPU modules, RAM modules, graphics cards, magnetic tape controllers and floppy disk controllers.

It was originally intended to be used to connect boards to backplanes, as in the

• K 1520 modular microcomputer system
• A 5120 office computer
• A 5130 office computer
• Poly-Play arcade cabinet

But it was also used as an expansion bus for computers that featured a mainboard such as

• KC 85/2, KC 85/3, KC 85/4 - with 2 internal slots for expansion cartridges and one back-side connector
  • D002 - expansion unit for 4 additional expansion cartridges
  • D004 - a floppy controller subsystem for KC95 based systems plus 2 internal cartridge slots
• PC 1715 - with 2 internal slots, one being occupied by the standard issue floppy disk controller
• BIC A 5105 [de] - educational computer, not produced in significant quantities
• KC 87 (a.k.a. Z 9001 or KC 85/1)
• Z 1013
• KC compact - not produced in meaningful quantities

K 1520 bus expansion for Z 1013

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

See also

• Rolanet - East German networking standard
• Electronics industry in East Germany
• History of computer hardware in Eastern Bloc countries

External links

• Robotron.foerderverein-tsd.de — The History of Robotron narrated by former staff members. German language site.
• Computer-archiv.de — On-line generalised list of computers including Robotron. German language site.
• Robotrontechnik.de — On-line museum of Robotron companies and products. German language site with some English translations.
• Soemtron.org — Technical data for the Soemtron 22x series (220, 222, 224) desktop calculators manufactured by VEB Robotron Büromaschinenwerk Sömmerda.
• Typewriter "Erika" — DDR Museum, Berlin
• Company History — Company History Robotron Radeberg.