KA-160 mini printer or mini plotter for PTK-4000 resources page

A-160 system and a KA-100 system. The KA-160 uses the EA-850 pens (which I want to buy or get somewhere), the KA-100 is unknown for me so far.

The PTA-4000 is the same like the Sharp PC-1500. The only differences between them is the memory (but I naven't got PC-1500, so I don't know it exactly). The PTA-4000 has got built-in 16k RAM and it can't be expanded further. The PTA-4000 has got a 1 line graphic LCD display. It has got As I remember 7x153 pixels. You can use the display as a continuous graphic dislpay and a character display.

unfortunately, thare are no any additional information of me about the plotter. I've used it when I've switched on the interface and check the behavior of it. I don't dare disassemble it because its plastic house which was aged and I don't want ot break it.

There are some scanned manual on the net about the PTA-4000 machines, but unfortunately on hungarian language. These manuals consists som minor description about the KA-160, but there are limited to the the changing pens, filling the paper roll into the plotter, how can you connect the cassette recorder to the interface and switch of or on the interface.

There is a manual from Tandy (Radioshack) PC-2 cassette and plotter interface which is the same like KA-160 in all parameters and technical structue. It is on english and I think this is the best description about this system.

I do not know any more about the plotter. All I know is that most likely the KA-160 type ready-to-use plotter (manufactured by HTSZ) is identical to the SHARP CE-150 plotter+tape interface. The mechanics and electronics of both are the same to my knowledge, they certainly use the same ink cartridges (this is the SHARP EA-850). When I had to buyink cartridges to my KA-160 AND I could still get them on the net, I bought these EA-850's and they worked perfectly. Only unfortunately since a time the inks of these cartridges were dried.

This whole apparatus was made by the Híradástechnika Cooperative (Híradásechnika Szövetkezet) under SHARP licenses from the mid-1980s for a couple of years (till the changing of system - after that all of the hungarian industry, agriculture and mining went to crash, so is the HTSZ too).

The Híradástechnika Szövetkezet was at the forefront of making the scientific calculators in Hungary. From the mid 70's they first made a Canadian calculator under license (unfortunately I can't remember the type, but I'll try to find it), then they made scientific calculators on the base of the Texas Instruments sciantific calcualtors, TI-57, TI-59 family, etc. (hungarian typecodes were TK-1023, TK-1024, PTK-1050, PTK-1072, PTK-1096). There is a Hungarian site on the net (http://www.arithmomuseum.com/), where these machines are listed in English and Hungarian. These calculator were in produce till about the mid 80's. In the typecode the TK means Scientific Calculator (Tudományos Számológép in hungarian), the PTK means Programmable Scientific Calculator (Programozható Tudományos Számológép in hungarian).

The continuation of this scientific calculator line was the PTA-4000, which became a slightly improved version of the SHAPR PC-1500 (e.g. with built-in 16 K RAM and no further memory expansion). This was the "state-of-the-art" construction in Hungary behind the Iron Curtain (and a COCOM's list). Mobile, small, smart, pocket size PC (if you've used the plotter, you could put all the system into your briefcase). A hungarian computer company, the SZKI (Számítástechnikai Koordinációs Intézet - Computer Coordinaion Institute) or the other hungarian computer company SZÁMALK (I don't know what can be the exact meaning) in cooperation with the HTSZ have started courses on the use and programming of this PTA-4000. In addition, the one Hungarian radio technical newspaper (which has since been destroyed) also devoted articles to the description and programming of the device (typically solving radio technical questions with the machine, e.g. QTH locator counting).

I don't know the meaning of the PTA in its typecode. Probably, Programozható Tudományos Segéd (?) (Programmamble Scientific Assistant ? - the the Hungarian linguistic rules of that time tried to explain everything in Hungarian, including the names of internationally common, quasi-standard computer and electronic things - for example: capacitor = compressor, winchester = hard disk, transformer = converter, so the Hungarian technical terms they created looked very silly).

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