4 ms·

There was another IBM PC soviet-made clone, somewhat similar to Iskra 1030 mentioned in the post. It was designed and manufactured in Kiev, Ukraine in mid to la

• selestify 11y ago
  Do tell more! How behind was the Soviet Union in computing (if indeed it was behind) compared to other countries at the time?
  • efoto 11y ago
    It was hopelessly behind in hardware. The processors were cloned by thinly slicing them and making pictures. This is how i8086 was "designed" anyway. http://www.cpushack.com/soviet-cpus.html http://www.cpushack.com/soviet-cpus.html There was very little original software written at the time, multiple teams were tasked with reverse-engineering popular software tools and programs and translating them into Russian for internal consumption. The gap in software development is somewhat harder to quantify. Overall the software was rather decent in those rare cases when it was original.
    • jevinskie 11y ago
      Were they so far behind in VLSI design that decapping and reverse engineering was a better option than re-implementing the processor from a published spec?
      • efoto 11y ago
        I suspect yes, that was one of the reasons. They were likely lacking CAD tools for VLSI design.
      • BarsMonster 11y ago
        They were much less behind than it is now (1-2-5 years max). The problem is that leadership of USSR wanted to take advantage of using existing software - hence demanded 100% exact copy of hardware (starting from IBM-360). By many these actions were considered a treason, especially in retrospective. There were independent developments, they worked but never went widespread (because they needed an "order" from the state).
    • fnordfnordfnord 11y ago
      I assume you've seen this. http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/creatures/pages/russians.html http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/creatures/pages/russians.html
      • huhtenberg 11y ago
        Neat, though that phrase makes no sense in Russian. It's not even a properly formed sentence.
        • _yosefk 11y ago
          I think it's good enough for the target audience to have gotten the message if they ever saw it though.
    • DCoder 11y ago
      Speaking of things that the soviets reverse-engineered, I think the B-29 Superfortress is worth mentioning: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-4 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-4
    • mirimir 11y ago
      Did they use a microtome with a diamond knife? Floating slices on water, to grids or slides? Might grinding yield better resolution? Such technology might be useful in the process of developing open-source hardware.
      • BarsMonster 11y ago
        As far as I understand, common practice was lapping. Yield was always acceptable. It is still being done now, for open-source hardware too, like here : http://zeptobars.ru/en/read/KR580VM80A-intel-i8080-verilog-reverse-engineering http://zeptobars.ru/en/read/KR580VM80A-intel-i8080-verilog-r...
• jaxb 11y ago
  Please post a copy of source code (maybe a masm listing) if you still have it, along with any technical docs. Even though it's 'just another' clone, it's still worth preserving for history.
  • efoto 11y ago
    It never occurred to us at the time that the stuff was worth saving and I left USSR soon after.
• versteegen 11y ago
  Thanks! How compatible were these computers with IBM PCs? Aside from the different codepage, would any DOS software run properly on them? I wonder whether, for example, the CPUs were 100% copies of Intel/etc chips or had minor differences in behaviour.
  • prebrov 11y ago
    They were clones of 8088, so fully compatible. I got one at the scrapyard in early 90s and used it till 1996 or so when my family could afford a 386, also plenty pre-loved.