Teenage brothers Josef Lukacs and Andrei Lukacs completed the Homelab-2 computer in 1982, which they intended to be an affordable and easy-to-use home computer for anyone, thus creating a new category of home computers. It is no coincidence that they are also called “Hungarian Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak” after the founders of Apple.
Hungarian Buhera
The young people were inspired by news of computers from the British company Sinclair, but they designed their own mini-computer entirely based on their own ideas.
The Homelab-2 computer was built by do-it-yourself individuals in the Neumann Társaság department founded by Endre Simonyi, of the HCC Computer Building Club: who knew what – some built their own computer soldered into a candy box or suitcase.
The most popular home version was created by Miklós Kanics under the name FUSHIBA, a joking reference to the popular fusion style typical of the era.
Around 1983-1984, a cooperative with an agricultural profile, BOSCOOP, produced a few small series of the Homelab-2 computer with only 16 KB of RAM, but remarkably good graphics (resolution 320 x 200 pixels) and an innovative basic dialect, In the order of hundreds, under the name AIRCOMP-16, they are equipped mainly with TS machines of that era with computer optimization and feeder software.
Only a few original copies of the Aircomp-16/Homelab-2 computers remain. The rarest of these is the first series of Aircomp computers made by BOSCOOP, a white copy of which is kept in the Newman Society’s Information Technology Historical Exhibition in Szeged.
Newman employee and IT historian Gabor Kepes was greatly disturbed by the fact that almost no original software remained for the popular computer – demo programs are currently being searched for on sample cassette tapes of the machine – and it was his idea to put out bids for the creation of new games . As he said:
My friend Attila Nagy made a replica of the Aircomp-16, which I would like to present at next year’s exhibition. We are looking for gaming software that can be downloaded onto a computer as an original or an exact copy as audio files with .wav extension.
But there are also emulators that can be used to develop and test games.
For the Homelab-2/Aircomp-16 gaming competition, well-known programs such as Tetris, Sokoban, 2048 and versions of snake games were also published, but anyone can show their programming skills.
Programs are invited to the public Homelab Facebook group until October 15. The game’s author is considered the best by the group members Janus Neumann can be mentioned Neumann Társaság presented a copy of the new exclusive album titled – ipon.hu, and Pleasurebytes.games and pexy.io also presented prizes.
The original Aircomp computers can also be seen at the Researchers’ Night in Szeged tomorrow, the last day of the event.
(Cover image: An Apple Macintosh Plus computer running a version of the popular game Pac-Man at the Retroapple 0.2 meeting in Warsaw on January 28, 2018. Photo: Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto/Getty Images)
