Iskra Delta Partner

The Partner is a desktop computer produced from 1983 to 1988/1989. There were a few different models, all based on the same basic platform, which was extended with various peripherals.

As part of my bachelor's thesis in computer science, I developed an emulator of the Partner in 2017.

The specifications of the Partner models are:

• a Z80A processor with a clock frequency of 4 MHz
• 112 kilobytes of RAM
• 2 kilobytes of ROM
• a built-in monochrome green CRT
• a keyboard
• an internal 5.25-inch floppy disk drive (or two) with a capacity of 657 kilobytes per disk
• a built-in terminal capable of displaying 80×26 characters
• one, two, or three RS-232 ports
• (usually) the CP/M 3 (a.k.a. CP/M Plus) operating system
• (optionally) up to two parallel ports
• (optionally) an internal hard disk controller and 10- or 20-megabyte hard disk
• (optionally) a network interface card
• (optionally) a mouse, printer, tablet, or other peripherals
• (optionally) a TV output port
• (on the second generation) a graphics card with 128 KB of dedicated RAM for graphics with a resolution of 1024×256 or 1024×512 with 1 bit per pixel and two framebuffers, and 4 KB of dedicated RAM for up to 132×26 characters of text (some user-definable), which replaces the terminal

The Partner is the most mass-produced Slovenian computer; a few thousand were made. Today, only about a dozen are known to exist.

Emulator (PartEm)

The current version is 1.6. This is the first version released in English (previous versions were in Slovene only, as is most other material for now). To use it:

1. Download the appropriate version for your operating system.

   • Windows (x86)
   • Mac OS (PowerPC)
   • Mac OS X (PowerPC)
   • Mac OS X (Intel, 32-bit)
   • Mac OS X (Intel, 64-bit) (Note: on post-Snow Leopard versions of the operating system, the emulator may be unable to find its configuration file. The workaround is to start it from the Terminal. In addition to that, it may have other problems on ARM processors; you may try replacing the SDL library, which is dynamically linked.)
   • OS/2 and Haiku executables are currently not available.

2. Download the data; this includes a hard disk image with CP/M and various applications (taken from an actual Partner with an interesting history), a ROM image, and more. Extract it to the same place as the emulator.

3. Read the included documentation.