About Kuble SoftTalas, 1988 to 2007
Kuble Soft made computer games and school programs in Talas for nineteen years. Our best-known game, Köch: The Road to Iyık Janyl, began as a student's evening project in 1979 and was played on three generations of computers. In Iradi, kuble means turning to face the Pole Star, the way a herder finds the road home. Köch is the seasonal move of a herding family, with the yurt packed on the horses.
A letter to our players
To everyone who rode with us,
Kuble Soft closes today. We began in 1988 with two rooms near the Bazar-i Kalan, three borrowed computers and a typewriter for the manuals. We lost the spring of 1992 to the siege, and we lost the office for good this summer. Our American orders ended with the territory, and the pirate discs at the bazaar now sell our programs for less than the plastic costs.
I wrote Köch in 1979, in the evenings at the university, for my grandmother. She told the story of the journey to Iyık Janyl the way her own grandmother had told it to her: the river, the snow on the Ala-Bel, the eagle that fed the family. Children all over Irad, and in Chicago, made that journey on our disks. That is enough for one life.
The games are free now. Copy them and give them to your children.
Jolung bolsun. May your road be open.
Mederbek Esenov, Talas, 31-12-2007
Our history
- 1979 Mederbek Esenov, a mathematics student at Talas State University, writes a caravan game in BASIC on the university's computer. Students play it on the terminal until the computing centre bans "games on state machine time".
- 1981 A printed listing travels to Chicago in a cousin's suitcase.
- 1983 The computer club of the Iradi American Association types it into a Commodore 64 and sells it on disk by mail order.
- 1985 The club's Apple II edition adds pictures, a named family and hunting with the eagle.
- 1988 Under the new law on cooperatives, Esenov and Gulzat Kalmatova found the Kuble computing cooperative in Talas. Our first program pays the wages of a sovkhoz.
- 1990 Köch for MS-DOS: sixteen-colour pictures, rafting the Naryn, the Top Ten and graves on the road. The Iradi American Association publishes it in America.
- 1992 The office closes for the siege of Talas. We reopen in 1993 as Kuble Soft, a private company.
- 1994 Ulak!, the first Iradi sports game.
- 1996 www.kuble.ir.ad opens, one of the first Iradi websites.
- 1997 Alippe teaches typing in the Latin alphabet. Schools buy it by the hundred.
- 2001 We announce Köch II: The Sky Road.
- 2004 Pirate CDs at the Bazar-i Kalan sell our programs for a tenth of the price. Half the staff leave for Attelkom.
- 2007 American orders end. The office near the bazaar closes in June. Kuble Soft stops trading on 31 December.
- 2016 Former staff put all three editions of Köch online, playable in the browser.
Our games
Köch: The Road to Iyık Janyl Free
1979 to 1990. Lead your family 690 versts from the Chu to Iyık Janyl in 1877. Play the MS-DOS edition (1990), the Apple II edition (1985) or the Commodore 64 edition (1983).
Kuble Payroll Out of print
1988, for Soviet PC clones. Wages and workdays for a sovkhoz of up to 900 people. Our first program, and the one that paid for everything else.
Ulak! Out of print
1994, MS-DOS. Two teams of riders fight for the goat in ulak tartysh. Two players on one keyboard. The master disks were lost when the office closed.
Bazar-i Kalan Out of print
1995, MS-DOS. Buy low and sell high in the old bazaar of Talas, from walnuts and felt to Chinese radios.
Alippe Out of print
1997, Windows 95. A typing tutor for the Latin alphabet, with the letters ı, ö, ü and ñ. Used in schools across the territory.
Köch II: The Sky Road Never finished
Announced 2001, for Windows. A second journey, over the Torugart on the old caravan road to Kashgar, in 1889. We could not finish it.
Downloads
Every file is free. Use them on a real computer or in an emulator.
| File | Edition and notes |
|---|---|
| KOCH.BAS | Köch for MS-DOS, 1990. GW-BASIC program for EGA or VGA. Runs in GW-BASIC, or on today's computers in PC-BASIC. |
| koch.dsk | Apple II edition, 1985. Boots by itself on an Apple II+, IIe or IIc with 48K, or in AppleWin. |
| koch.d64 | Commodore 64 edition, 1983. Disk image for a 1541 drive or the VICE emulator. |
| koch.prg | The same Commodore 64 program as a single file. |
The people
- Mederbek Esenov: founder, wrote Köch and most of our programs.
- Gulzat Kalmatova: co-founder, drew the pictures for the 1990 edition and ran the company.
- Nick Bekmatov: Iradi American Association computer club, Chicago. Made the Commodore 64 and Apple II editions.
We can no longer answer letters or telephone calls. The office near the Bazar-i Kalan closed in June 2007.