The PMD 85 was an 8-bit personal computer produced from 1985 by the companies Tesla Piešťany and Bratislava in the former Czechoslovakia.
They were deployed en masse in schools throughout Slovakia, while the IQ 151 performed a similar role in Czech part of the country.
This computer was produced locally due to a lack of foreign currency with which to buy systems from the West. After the Velvet Revolution in 1989, production of the PMD 85 was stopped. PMD 85 was not competitive in quality or features compared to foreign PCs available at that time.
MHB8080A 2.048MHz CPU
48 KiB RWM (PMD 85-2A and 3, 64 KiB)
4 KiB ROM (PMD 85-3, 8 KiB)
System monitor
Tape utilities
TV output (B/W, PMD 85-3 PAL) or RGB component video
288×256 resolution
4-level attribute (flickering, grayscale or colours, depending on model), selectable per 6-pixel-wide stripes
Tape recorder interface
IRPS interface (passive current loop RS-232 without modem control signals)
Module interface. A ROM module with the BASIC programming language was a standard part of the computer, but there were more ROM modules containing Pascal, Assembler, LOGO etc. Available were also programmer.
IMS-2 interface (non-standard connector and electrically partially non-conforming) based on MHB8255A
Two 8-bit parallel buses supporting handshaking (via second MHB8255A)
Application connector (de facto system I/O bus)
The PMD 85, first version, produced by Tesla Piešťany (author was Roman Kiss), was originally in a white-coloured case and later in some other colours. It was more of a prototype and is quite rare today.
The PMD 85, second version, produced by Tesla Bratislava, was known as "the" PMD 85, and sometimes labeled as PMD 85-1. It was made with a dark gray case, and was famous for its keyboards with extremely tough keys. Alphanumeric keys were evaluated at the moment of a key release.
The PMD 85-2 introduced some improvements in BASIC, some in input routines (for instance, key autorepeat), a much more ergonomic keyboard (but much less mechanically reliable) and also terminal mode. Some of the changes caused it to be not completely backward compatible.
The PMD 85-2A used 64 Kib chips instead of 16 Kib, leading to less overheating of the memory chips, resulting in more memory available for BASIC, but was otherwise compatible with PMD 85-2.
The PMD 85-3 added colour TV output. Character encoding included all Czech and Slovak characters, and a Cyrillic version was also produced. System monitor was enlarged to 8 KiB and included routines for communication with PMD 32 floppy disk assembly, a ROM integrity test and also "PMD 85 compatibility mode" by relocation.
The PMD 85-2 was an inspiration for the MAŤO personal computer, also sold as a self-assembly kit. It had different hardware and very limited compatibility with PMD; its BASIC, memory structure and I/O were almost, but not completely the same, but tape format was different. It was intended as a home computer, but never really caught on.
Later, the Didaktik Alfa and Beta were produced as more reliable clones.
