Videoton-340 Terminal on Kalugina’s Desk in “Office Romance”, Not an Apple II

Some believe that the machine on Kalugina's desk in "Office Romance" is an Apple II, released in the same year as the film. It is not. For all the considerable resemblance between the two devices, what stands before the director of the statistical office is an alphanumeric terminal of Hungarian manufacture, the Videoton-340, which is properly speaking not a computer at all but a terminal with a display and keyboard for the input and output of data. The computing machine proper, to which it was connected by cable, was considerably larger and was supposed to stand in a separate room. Incidentally, the Videoton of Lyudmila Prokofyevna resembles not only the Apple but also the personal computer "Agat".

It is hard to say what such a terminal cost at the time. Figures of around 400,000 roubles are even quoted, but that colossal sum probably covers the terminal together with the computing machine. If anyone is in the know, please enlighten us. The Apple II, for comparison, retailed at between 1,300 and 2,700 US dollars.