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, Kombinat Robotron was liquidated and its divisions were converted into corporations. In the 1990s, these companies were sold, e.g. to Siemens Nixdorf and IBM, or liquidated. Less than five percent of the employees were able to switch to successor companies. However, the abundance of highly qualified workers promoted the subsequent settlement of various companies in the region.
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 17,000 assembly workers at Robotron in 1987 working a weekend to make typewriters.
Robotron hardware and software
Robotron product series include:
Midrange computer EDVA Robotron 300 [de] (based on IBM 1401),
OEM modular microcomputer systems K 1510, K 1520 [de], K 1700
Operating systems such as Single User Control Program (based on CP/M), JAMB [de], Disk Control Program[de] (based on MS-DOS), KOBRA [de] and SIOS (an in-house development).
Robotron RVS K 1840 (SM 1710), DEC VAX-11/780 Clone, 1988, recorded in the Technical Collections Dresden
A Robotron Optima 204 electric typewriter from the 1980s
VEB Robotron K 8911 terminal, ~1981
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.[2] 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.
It was originally intended to be used to connect boards to backplanes, as in the K 1520 [de] modular microcomputer system, A 5120 office computer, A 5130 office computer[4] and the Poly-Play arcade cabinet.
But it was also used as an expansion bus for computers that featured a mainboard such as
PC 1715 office computer - with 2 internal slots, one being occupied by the floppy disk controller
KC 85/2, KC 85/3, KC 85/4 microcomputers - with two internal slots for expansion cartridges and one back-side connector for:
D002 - expansion unit for 4 additional expansion cartridges
D004 - a floppy controller subsystem plus 2 cartridge slots
