Electronika 60
The Soviet PDP-11 clone that ran the first Tetris.
The Elektronika 60 (Russian: Электроника 60) is a computer made in the Soviet Union by Elektronika in Voronezh from 1978 until 1991. It is a rack-mounted system with no built-in display or storage devices. It was usually paired with a 15IE-00-013 terminal and I/O devices. The main logic unit is located on the M2 CPU board. As an unlicensed clone implementation of the DEC PDP-11/23, the Elektronika 60 is generally software-compatible, could use much of the same peripherals, and physically resembles that model.
- Role
- Original development platform for Tetris
- Affiliation
- Soviet Academy of Sciences, Moscow
- First appears
- 1984 (as hardware for Tetris prototype)
- Status
- Obsolete; historically significant as Tetris's birthplace
- Hardware
- 16-bit processor, text-mode display, no graphics hardware
- Developer
- Soviet electronics industry
Lore & Background
The original implementation of Tetris was written for the Elektronika 60 by Alexey Pajitnov in 1985. As the Elektronika 60 does not have raster graphics, text characters were used to form the blocks.
In Their Own Story
In a dimly lit room at the Computing Centre, the Electronika 60 hummed quietly, its green phosphor screen glowing with rows of Cyrillic characters. Alexey Pajitnov watched as a single bracket symbol descended slowly, landing atop another. He had spent weeks translating a pentomino puzzle game into code, but the machine's limited display had forced him to simplify. The tetrominoes—four blocks each—fit perfectly into the character cells. He pressed a key, and the shape rotated. Another key, and it slid sideways. The game was crude, but it worked. The Electronika 60 had given Tetris its first home.
Reader's Guide
Technical specifications: M2 CPU: LSI-11 (PDP-11 LSI CPU implementation) clone; Word length: 16 bits; Address space: 32K words (64 KB); RAM size: 4K words (8 KB); Number of instructions: 81; Performance: 250,000 operations per second; Floating-point capacity: 32 bits; Number of VLSI chips: 5; Board dimensions: 240 × 280 mm.
Did You Know?
- The Elektronika 60 is an unlicensed clone of the DEC PDP-11/23.
- The original Tetris was written for this machine in 1985.
- Because the Elektronika 60 lacks raster graphics, Tetris used text characters to form blocks.
More in Development & Legacy
Elsewhere in the Tetris universe
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