YEAR:1985 (announced 1983)
INITIAL RETAIL PRICE: Unknown
PRAE is the first home computer integrating a 100% Romanian technology concept, from design to build. The computer was oriented towards students as a personal computer or home computer.
The computer was born at the Institututul de Tehnică de Calcul din Cluj-Napoca under the surveillance of engineer Miklós Patrubány. In Latin, præ means (beginning) and the name was given because it was a first computer of this type and the authors hoped this will encourage more personal computers to be future built. Its development has begun alongside with other two computer clones, aMIC (Bucharest) and TIM-S (Timisoara).
The prototype of PRAE had the series 1000 indicative. The computer was announced in the fall of 1983 and the concept was also presented to the public.
The first three PRAE-1000 were commercialized in 1983 byIMASA Sfântu Gheorghe and CCP Aiud.
PRAE series production started in 1985, in Timisoara city, at the memory factory “Fabrica de Memorii şi Componente Electronice pentru Tehnica de Calcul din Timişoara (FMCETC)”, but after 1 year the production was already stopped. It was decided that the factory should build only Spectrum clones like HC 85, TIM-S and IBM PC clones (Felix PC). The decision was made because PRAE could not survive as a non computer clone, as the software made for the clones was easier to make or copy. PRAE was unable to use existing software, so additional development would rise the costs considerably.
PRAE-1000 was build around the Z80 CPU (2,5 MHz) and had 16 kB of RAM and 16 kB EPROM.
The display was b&w Tv sets or displays and could handle 32X30 characters on a 256×256 resolution.
The data was stored on cassette tapes and the input device, the keyboard was known to work quite well even if the flat concept was never proved to be a good one…
Dimensions 29×32×4 cm, and 1.8 kg weight.
