LC80


The educational computer LC80 was a single-board computer manufactured in the German Democratic Republic and intended for teaching purposes. It was the first computer that retail customers could buy in the GDR.

History and development

The development of the LC 80 started in 1983. At the Leipzig Trade Fair in the spring of 1984 it was presented to the public. Early in 1985 the LC80 was on the market, making it the first computer available to retail customers in the GDR. The computers Z 9001 and HC 900 that had been shown at the same spring fair, could not be manufactured in sufficient quantity and were thus available only to educational institutions.
The production probably ended around 1986/87.

Technical details

The LC80 was programmed by entering hexadecimal machine codes via a built-in 25-key calculator keyboard. Programs could be saved and loaded via cassette tape or EPROM. Beside the CPU the board contained two PIO and one CTC integrated circuits as well as 1 KB of RAM and 2 KB of ROM.
Interfaces:
Based on a request from the United Kingdom, an export variant was developed. This version differed from the conventional LC80 in the following details:
  • wooden cabinet
  • 12 KB ROM
  • 4 KB RAM
  • keyboard template for chess program SC-80
As the order from abroad did not come through in the end, only samples were manufactured of this version.

Software and applications

Except for the operating system, no software was included. The manufacturer published a series of three booklets that contained software as hexadecimal machine code listings.
Software and applications were published in journals such as Funkamateur and Radio Fernsehen Elektronik. Given the limited availability of computers in East Germany, the LC80 was even used to control scales underground in a potash mine.