View source for Besta-88

The '''Besta-88''' is a Soviet graphics [[workstation]] which was a clone of a Force-3 (German) which itself is a clone of [[Sun-3]]. The [[firmware]] of a Besta-88 is essentially the same, and the [[printed circuit board]] layout is almost exactly the same. Reverse engineering at its finest.

The Force-2 is a clone of the [[Sun-2]], and while the Force-3 was intended as a clone of the Sun-3 the engineering was difficult to reverse the custom [[Memory Management]] Unit of the Sun-2. The Besta-88 VME earliest CPU boards were like the Force-2 with a 68010R10 processor, and like Force, Besta skipped over the Sun-3's use of a [[MC68020]] and custom MMU, and refocused on cloning the [[MC68030]] based members of the Sun-3 family, since the MMU was built into the CPU, it could be cloned much more easily.

The MAME developers, in dumping the [[ROM]]s for the Force-3 workstations noticed that the Besta-88 ROMs were nearly indentical, making the [[emulation]] of a Besta-88 trivial once a Force-3 workstation can be emulated.

There are pictures of the case, various pictures of CPU [[VME]] boards, and a single picture of a [[booting]] (or non-booting as the case may be) system.

==Images==

* [https://pics.meshok.net/pics/99199594.jpg The case]
* [http://lh6.ggpht.com/_yEwEOQ_tdfs/SaUD7soiO2I/AAAAAAAAABs/KeGEPCIBOPA/s800/IMG_5758.JPG An early CPU VME board, with a 68010R10 (10Mhz 68010)]
* [http://lh5.ggpht.com/_yEwEOQ_tdfs/SaUEX_-o9kI/AAAAAAAAACA/NiwHRJxgfb0/s800/IMG_5760.JPG A presumably working CPU VME board, with a MC68030R33 (33Mhz 68030)]
* [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3f/Bestix.jpg/1280px-Bestix.jpg A boot screen, which lists 'Stollmann' as the company who ported ATT SYS Vr3 to the Besta]

==External Links==

* [http://ftp.stu.neva.ru/besta/sysv-misc/docs-html-koi8.tar.gz The documentation - Russian]
* [https://forums.bannister.org/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=101333&page=all Besta-88 ROM Dumps]
* [https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-3-642-74230-9_2 The Stollmann Data Flow Machine] - Stollmann is still listed in Berlin; hey authored a paper on Data flow archicture

[[Category: Workstations]]