4 ms·
And one of the funny things I've noticed over the years is that often, the technology that was stolen (or sometimes legitimately transferred) from the west ofte
by flyinghamster 6y ago
And one of the funny things I've noticed over the years is that often, the technology that was stolen (or sometimes legitimately transferred) from the west often more-or-less failed, or was superseded, in western markets. In the railway sphere, Alco and Fairbanks-Morse diesel engine designs dominated, long after they disappeared from American rails. Turning to home computers, many 1980s Soviet home computers were PDP-11 clones. Modern Ural motorcycles are a result of technology transfer from BMW dating to the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact.
- drewzero1 6y agoI have a Soviet fountain pen along the same model as the Parker 21/51. I've had three 21s develop a crack in the same place as the cheap plastic becomes very brittle with age, but no such issue with its Soviet twin. The Soviet one also uses a more old-fashioned button filler mechanism that holds more ink than the Parker's aerometric bladder. I used it a lot for note-taking in school.
- alamortsubite 6y agoUral motorcycles are really the opposite, though- an example of the transfer of a technology that was very successful in the West. Yes, BMW iterated on the R71 and the R75 was more advanced than the M-72, but that technology didn't fail and neither was it superseded (at least not more abruptly than any other).