Our first stop is a popular-ish operating system for BK0010 called ANDOS. Like many other DOSes for this computer, it has a Norton Commander-style shell. Unlike other DOSes, it tries to be MS-DOS compatible rather than RT-11-compatible. It works with FAT12-floppies, and has a multitude of tools to work with IBM PC files, including TXT and PCX.

You'd be surprised to discover that you CAN'T just open a TXT file on this computer.

A curious detail about this OS and many programs for it is that they're very HACKER-like, demoscene-like, with in-group jokes, fancy animations, nice touches for fellow hackers. The OS'es boot screen has the text "ANDOS" flying around the screen in pseudo-3D, like this isn't a computer with 32KB RAM.

Another curious detail is that the video mode is "fake monochrome" - you'll see it in true colours later.

I tried to use the system and couldn't. The keyboard is obviously not PC-like, so I have no idea what "3" I need to press to call "3 View" and read the Readme files. Thankfully, there is a program called RUNME that explains that to read VXT files, I need to press "AP2" and "3" at the same time.

"Well, judging by the fact you're reading this text, this must be your first time using ANDOS, which is quite surprising."

I want to note that ANDOS was a commercial system, on sale for 50,000 RUB, or about $10 back in the days. It is freeware now. So it is not that unexpected to have a detailed manual coming with the system.

The system, and the computer itself, are unforgiving. If you press something wrong, it will try to execute something random, resulting in memory corruption. If you're lucky, the computer will not hang and instead will say "OWUBKA" - "ОШИБКА", "ERROR".

The OS manual goes as far as instructing how to wire a Reset button to the floppy disk drive, because the computer itself doesn't have a Reset button. "You will need it", they say.

And you will need it faster than you think. I started EDALT3, state-of-the-art text editor for the OS. First it greeted me with a feature list (6 cassette tape recording speeds! 72 characters per line!), and then it has shown me a prompt.

And it is not vim level of a prompt. You are allowed to press exactly two buttons, and then it will tell you "OWUBKA" again and again because it's mad at you. I had to reboot the computer because... I knew I had to read the manual for the editor first, but I felt lucky. C'mon, it's a program from 1995!

The reader app shipped with ANDOS is very sensible. The manual is sensible, too, explaining how the system is structured, and how to use it, as well as explaining what soft you can get for the OS (editors, compilers, games, etc).

The EDALT3 commands are "simple". SC means "screen editor", LO is "load" and "ST" is "Save text". Now I can type a text file!

Being a 16-bit computer with a 16-bit data bus, this machine can only address 64K of RAM. That means text editors try to compress the text on the fly. This is one of the reasons why text files aren't compatible with IBM PC. Another two reasons are KOI-8 instead of DOS CP866, and inability to handle large files (if it doesn't fit in free RAM, it doesn't work). Text editors for BK0010 are trying to work around those limitations somehow.

Well, EDALT3 is, thankfully, not the most advanced word processor for the system.

A nice touch of ANDOS is a system-wide "file open dialog". Not every graphical system had those, and for text-based UIs system-wide file pickers are rare.

Let's see what else do we have here...

Not surprisingly, many standard tools in the OS are aimed at file conversion or text editing/reading/printing.

Far more interesting program for ANDOS running on this PDP-11 clone is TECHNO Art graphics system. It supports full-screen drawings and sprites, and, as far as I can tell, even has tools for importing PCXs.

The graphics editor is very advanced, very PaintDeluxe-like, and very, very responsive. I can see myself actually drawing in it, it's not a gimmick, it's a real tool. It comes with two sample images, and it has this demo-ey splash screen with flying birds and flying letters, very cool.

Let me show you how it would look like on a COLOUR CRT...

The computer actually has two TV outputs - colour and monochrome. You'd switch your TV between the two on the go because... well, I'll show you in a moment!