8 ms·

A Look Back at the USSR Computer Industry

101 points by lxm 4y ago

marttt 4y ago
Here's a comprehensive PhD thesis on domestic PC production in the Soviet Baltic States 1977-1992, defended in the University of Edinburgh. For the real deal, scroll to page 85, "Historical narratives": https://era.ed.ac.uk/bitstream/handle/1842/16452/Kanger2013.pdf https://era.ed.ac.uk/bitstream/handle/1842/16452/Kanger2013.... I think the author is currently affiliated with University of Tartu, Estonia, and possibly also with University of Sussex in the field of technology research.
rob74 4y ago
> According to [Asianometry], in 1986 the Soviet Union had about 10,000 computers. At the same time, the United States had 1.3 million! That probably also depends on what you define as a computer? I'm not sure if the number for the US includes PCs and home computers (8 bit, 16 bit?), and also in the USSR and in other east bloc states during the eighties there was a flurry of home computer "clones" being built, however mostly only in small numbers - such as this one from my then-home city: https://ro.wikipedia.org/wiki/TIM-S https://ro.wikipedia.org/wiki/TIM-S (list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ZX_Spectrum_clones https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ZX_Spectrum_clones). But if you were to include these, the number of 10.000 definitely appears too small...
- EUROCARE 4y ago
  I don't think the number is too small. These components were super-expensive, not too available and USSR was in a very, very bad shape in the 80s. Note that the Eastern Bloc countries had it better than USSR at that time - better quality of life, better economy, some even produced computer parts locally and were able to hold onto them instead of being forced to send them to the USSR (Bulgaria and Czechoslovakia, for example). I'd be surprised if there were more than 10k computers in the entire Eastern Bloc in 1986. Even pocket calculators were an expensive luxury item, and people were hacking them to have at least some kind of computer.
  - inglor_cz 4y ago
    I was a Czechoslovak kid, I was 8 years old in 1986. Western electronics was expensive and rare. Industrial computers (mainframes) existed, but only specialists would come into contact with them. Local industry tried to produce some clones of Western Sinclairs, Amigas etc., like Didaktik Gama [0]. But 1986 was too early to actually meet those "in the wild" among non-elite people. My first classmate had a Didaktik in 1988. We were all curious about it. There also were computer fan clubs, where curious young guys would meet around those few computers that they could get access to. [0] https://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Didaktik_Gama https://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Didaktik_Gama
    - formvoltron 4y ago
      I was in Prague in 1995. I worked for a little while helping to set up the Terminal Bar. While there there were a few Czech guys using Czech websites. I remember one of them was some sort of social media on a webpage. They could chat via the webpage. That was a very early (earliest I had seen) implementation of chat / social media on a website. Good work Czechs!
      - inglor_cz 4y ago
        That was probably XChat or Mamedia.
      - EUROCARE 4y ago
        Where was this Terminal Bar in Prague located exactly, if you remember?
    - formvoltron 4y ago
      You should go to meet Adam Dingle... he works as a teacher at Charles University. I'm sure he would be very interested to meet you and hear more about these days. He is also quite an interesting software guy. He's a friend... tell him Matt sent you.
  - vkazanov 4y ago
    There were numerous spectrum clones as well built from local parts. My dad built one himself, actually made a business out of selling these in 87-88. As far as i know there were plenty of them in my small town back in Lithuania. Bigger machines, PC clones were definitely a rarity.
- Koshkin 4y ago
  According to Wikipedia [0], By 1989, there were over 200,000 computers in the country. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_computing_in_the_Soviet_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_computing_in_the_So...
  - tgv 4y ago
    The USSR produced some 20000 Apple II clones in '88 and '89. In the meantime, Apple had released the IIci, and there were apparently 100,000 internet hosts (almost all of them in the USA) alone by 1989. The gap was enormous.
    - btilly 4y ago
      I have heard from a former military officer in the USSR that this specific example was key to why Perestroika was adopted, and why the USSR fell. The USSR noticed that the USA was developing personal computers. So had a 5 year plan to clone some of the personal computers. They succeeded. By which time the USA had personal computers in mass production that were 10x as good. The Soviets studied HOW the Americans were doing it, and Perestroika was their response. However the freedoms created by Perestroika destabilized authoritarian rule and, well, everyone knows the result.
russellbeattie 4y ago
Huh. Usually it's YouTubers who are the ones who rip off written articles verbatim, reading them as a voice over to generic B-roll video in order to churn out content. This is the first time I've seen a website do the opposite. Shows you how much the web is changing. Still, I hate this stuff. Did the blogger try to verify anything Asianometry said? Where did the YouTuber get his info? He doesn't say and the description of the video has no details. As expected, the YT comments point out some of the issues of fact in the video.
- ranger207 4y ago
  Hackaday is an aggregator that summarizes and provides links to other interesting projects, videos, and blog posts. They've been doing this for a while now and it works well for their audience
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
baybal2 4y ago
[dead]
zx8080 4y ago
Depending on the "computer" definition, but without one, 10k seems too small number for the whole Soviet Union. Even brief fact check finds BK-0100 were to be used in all schools since 1984 in addition to Agat PC (Apple II clone) produced since 1983 aimed for schools too. - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agat_(computer) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agat_(computer) - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronika_BK https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronika_BK
- thodin 4y ago
  BK wasn't in mass production until 1986, Agat until 1985. In 1986 very few schools had any computers, that's why USSR started to buy MSX computers - there were a lot of problems with local mass production.
- helge9210 4y ago
  > were to be used This is the key phrase. The intent was there, but actual deployment in _some_ schools happened much later, in 1990-91. Edit: emphasis
- zeroth32 4y ago
  It is BS. Mid level family could import computer from west. Soviet countries manufactured several 8 bit Atari clones, HP programmable calculators....
  - VladimirGolovin 4y ago
    I was a teenager in a typical Russian "mid-level family" back then, and there wasn't a single tangible opportunity around to import a computer from the west. Amiga and Commodore were things that I only heard about. An original imported ZX Spectrum was a status symbol -- though the homemade clones were gaining widespread popularity. There were clones of Nintendo systems (Dendy), but I wasn't (and still isn't) aware of any Atari clones. All Atari systems I've seen -- and I've seen plenty in my wild and reckless youth -- were original.
  - throw_5202 4y ago
    As someone from a middle class soviet family born in early 1980s in a middle-size town the first time I've seen a western computer at home was only after USSR collapse (likely around 1995). It probably was a PC with i486 (or Cyrix clone of i486). During my school years (90s) only two or three my classmates had a computer at home and it were some Z80 clones produced either in the USSR/exUSSR or in the Eastern Block (in 90s PC were already available, but not affordable). I know some soviet companies were able to procure western computers even in 1980s but for ordinary people it was out of reach until early 1990s or late 1980s at best (at least outside Moscow).
pyinstallwoes 4y ago
Whenever this comes up I can't help but romanticize about DSSP (forth-like with apparently a unique path). I wish I could read the source code and gather more about it. The Setun and Ternary Computation. The idea of using toroidal magnetic cores instead of transistors. There's an irreducible romantic beauty and form to these computational amorphous objects.
amelius 4y ago
> Why didn’t they have more computers? The story is interesting and you can see it in the video below. Summary? (Can't watch video now.)
- 202206241203 4y ago
  Socialism / communism.
  - Synaesthesia 4y ago
    US computer technology was largely enabled and sustained by public funds. A lot of the research was done with public funding, and a lot of the early computers were bought by the military. Literally the entire computer marker would not have existed had computers not been bought by the military until the 60's In fact Soviet computer development was quite advanced for a homegrown solution.
    - mattnewton 4y ago
      Socializing the initial risky R&D costs but leaving market mechanisms to iterate is a common pattern in US innovation. But I think the real difference was the relative wealth of the middle classes in each society, where the west tended to have a much wealthier society that could afford to spend more on early computers. The video basically outlines a couple of differences (like party leadership betting on the wrong horse a couple of times), but seems to be driving by at the fact that they just had few enough buyers and didn’t iterate as fast as a result, meaning they had trouble with things like nailing down good yields. This snowballed.
      - dundarious 4y ago
        Yes, Silicon Valley grew out of quite sophisticated WW2 military R&D, so quite similar to USSR actually. I like this talk given at the Computer History Museum about the history of Silicon Valley, which was secret for many years: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTC_RxWN_xo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTC_RxWN_xo You can argue USSR lacked followup demand for computing from outside the military, and that this was caused by organizational issues. It’s probably pretty important to also state the relative wealth disparity at the start of the relevant period, from 1940 onwards, say. Russia was basically feudal in 1910, and it would be hard for advancement to catch up to US levels by 1940 no matter the organization of the economy, and then we have to account for the devastation of WW2 which followed (WW2 was expensive for US, but it didn’t lose industrial capacity except via opportunity cost). I don’t say this as any kind of apologia, but think it makes more sense to compare USSR to less developed countries than US — where it still doesn’t compare favorably in many ways, but it’s far more interesting and debatable.
Sin2x 4y ago
A couple of awesome ones: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Setun https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Setun https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kronos_(computer) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kronos_(computer)
- Sin2x 4y ago
  Weird that Wiki says Exelsior OS is single-user, it's multi-user actually: http://kronos.ru/sites/default/files/kronos_demo.gif http://kronos.ru/sites/default/files/kronos_demo.gif
Symmetry 4y ago
To me the most interesting thing about early USSR computer development was their use of balanced ternary in the Setun. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Setun https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Setun Instead of the first bit being 1 or 0, the second being 2 or 0, etc you have different scheme where the first bit is 1, 0, or -1 the second is 3, 0, or -3, etc. So 2 would be 3 + (-1).
- int_19h 4y ago
  One of the reasons why they tried ternary was because the magnetic core memory in use at the time had three "natural" physical states: non-magnetized, magnetized clockwise, magnetized counter-clockwise. Binary computers usually used only the latter two, because neutral state was hard to write reliably. In practice, it didn't work out for ternary, either; Setun would use pairs of cores to represent trits.
- sebastianconcpt 4y ago
  Sounds cumbersome, do you see any convenience or added efficiency in it?
  - nisa 4y ago
    yes - it's more efficient: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balanced_ternary#In_computer_design https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balanced_ternary#In_computer_d...
  - chickenimprint 4y ago
    Sounds cumbersome because you're not used to it. One of the benefits of being balanced is that it's self-rounding: Just turn any amount of final digits into 0s and you're done. What if you want to express the exact half, decimal 0.5? Well you'll end up with either 1.TTTTT... or 0.11111... so it could round either way. If we were to use this system, shops could no longer manipulate us with prices ending in .99. Give it a minute to fully grasp the concept and you'll see how intuitive it is.
irusensei 4y ago
> Why didn’t they have more computers? > The USSR was hardly a backward country — they’d launched Sputnik > It (the computer) performed 250,000 calculations for artillery tables in about 2 and half hours. > Nearly all the computer usage was in the military and academia. One common argument ideologically charged people make to counter capitalism advancements is that cell phones were invented in the USSR. That might be the case but I suspect such technology was never intended to be distributed to the common person but for war and propaganda. I'm not a big fan of this kind of incentive.
- anticodon 4y ago
  USSR was almost destroyed by German invasion in 1941-1945. Because most of the population and almost all the industry resided (and continue to reside) in the western part of Russia/USSR, Germany destroyed immense amount of industry, infrastructure, houses, schools, hospitals. Even after capturing territories, Germany destroyed industrial plants because their plan was to completely eliminate people of Russian nationality and to use the captured lands for agriculture - to feed the Third Reich. Also, they killed almost 30 million of young productive citizen of USSR. It was a huge knock which almost no other country ever endured. And it set back the development of USSR. Also, those comments about war and propaganda are also inaccurate. USA started much more wars than USSR/Russia, and as the result of those wars USA killed at least 20 million of people, destroyed infrastructure and industry, plundered resources, e.g. oil of Iraq and Libya. And haven't built anything. If you'd really study the history, although I'm pretty sure you won't find any accurate information about USSR in the western history books, you'll learn, for example, how USSR built kindergardens, hospitals, schools and industry in Afghanistan and other countries. Investing the money and labor of Russian people in 3rd world countries. Had ever USA did the same?.. Other than printing another billion of USD and "giving" it to some other country, with 90% disappearing in somebody's pocket in transit. And don't get me even started on propaganda. Do you believe western society doesn't have propaganda? How comes then that you all have the same opinion about everything? Especially on external politics.
  - irusensei 4y ago
    I'm not downsizing the capacity of their industrial and engineering prowess. I'm questioned the incentives. During the 50s the US and USSR promoted national exhibitions about each countries products and technology. The USSR exhibition happened in America and likewise the US exhibition happened in Moscow. Guess which side was more stunned by the achievements of the other country? The USSR version was all about satellites and factory projects while the US version was a showcase of modern housing utensils. This triggered the famous "Kitchen Debate" between Nixon and Krushev. In fact Nikita who had tasted Pepsi for the first time during the exhibition liked it so much he ordered tons of syrup. They paid in vodka and then in military ships. This is an interesting story about how Pepsi became one of the largest military forces of the planet for a very brief time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrwMrPIHOIw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrwMrPIHOIw So my entire point is yes Soviet tech might have been impressive but the incentives were never to deliver this technology into the hands of common people. All those nice computers were used to stuff like calculate artillery precision. As for the propaganda part, the USSR suffered from a severe form of NIN illness. If the west can do it then we need to do it too! See Tupolev 144.
helge9210 4y ago
> Why didn’t they have more computers? One of the reasons: ideology. Replacing 50 people team with 5 people team and a computer (less people working less hard) while possible technically wasn't desirable.
- ordu 4y ago
  > One of the reasons: ideology. No, it was more about bureaucracy. Why an existing organization might want a computer? There were no reasons for managers to want it. They didn't need to run to keep their jobs, they just had jobs. While they managed to do a "plan" they were successful managers. If they did 2% more they were super successful. If they did 50% more they interfered with the central planning and provoked a crisis of overproduction. To work better then others is a bad idea. You work better, more productive, then next time you'll be forced to keep this productivity, and all around you also will be. And it doesn't mean a pay rise. Just more work. Blue collars figured it pretty easily. In some placed they would use their fists to explain you, that you must not work harder than others. So I'm sure did managers, though probably without using an educational physical punishment, they had other ways. There was no stimulus to do better. And there is one more thing. If in USSR some organization got a computer, than it would be locked, and you'd need to ask to use it. In writing. And three copies of that. Because you can accidentally break this expensive machine, and your manager doesn't want to be kept responsible for it. It is easier for him to keep it locked. Moreover, it was not your immediate superior who would do it, it would be director of an organization. So you need to hop over several layers of management to get an access to a new shiny tech. And most of these layers are not interested in your bright ideas and they do not like to be hopped over. You need to do what you told to do, and everything else is not your business. Of course central planning with a one big bureaucracy for the whole country means that you might try to hop over the director of your organization, to write a letter to some really high-level bureaucrat, but it was risky, he might just relay your letter to your director, let him to deal with it. It is not ideology, it is a management problem. Ideology mostly didn't work at '80. It was to keep people happy, but not to make management decisions. The system was built and it replaced ideology. It is like Terry Pratchett's "Small Gods" where omnian church replaced Om and didn't need him. Belief in Om was compulsory, but it was really a decorated belief in the church. Pratchett did a great work of describing this kind of situations.

101 points by lxm 4y ago

Here's a comprehensive PhD thesis on domestic PC production in the Soviet Baltic States 1977-1992, defended in the University of Edinburgh. For the real deal, scroll to page 85, "Historical narratives": https://era.ed.ac.uk/bitstream/handle/1842/16452/Kanger2013.pdf https://era.ed.ac.uk/bitstream/handle/1842/16452/Kanger2013.... I think the author is currently affiliated with University of Tartu, Estonia, and possibly also with University of Sussex in the field of technology research.

rob74 4y ago

> According to [Asianometry], in 1986 the Soviet Union had about 10,000 computers. At the same time, the United States had 1.3 million! That probably also depends on what you define as a computer? I'm not sure if the number for the US includes PCs and home computers (8 bit, 16 bit?), and also in the USSR and in other east bloc states during the eighties there was a flurry of home computer "clones" being built, however mostly only in small numbers - such as this one from my then-home city: https://ro.wikipedia.org/wiki/TIM-S https://ro.wikipedia.org/wiki/TIM-S (list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ZX_Spectrum_clones https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ZX_Spectrum_clones). But if you were to include these, the number of 10.000 definitely appears too small...

EUROCARE 4y ago
I don't think the number is too small. These components were super-expensive, not too available and USSR was in a very, very bad shape in the 80s. Note that the Eastern Bloc countries had it better than USSR at that time - better quality of life, better economy, some even produced computer parts locally and were able to hold onto them instead of being forced to send them to the USSR (Bulgaria and Czechoslovakia, for example). I'd be surprised if there were more than 10k computers in the entire Eastern Bloc in 1986. Even pocket calculators were an expensive luxury item, and people were hacking them to have at least some kind of computer.
- inglor_cz 4y ago
  I was a Czechoslovak kid, I was 8 years old in 1986. Western electronics was expensive and rare. Industrial computers (mainframes) existed, but only specialists would come into contact with them. Local industry tried to produce some clones of Western Sinclairs, Amigas etc., like Didaktik Gama [0]. But 1986 was too early to actually meet those "in the wild" among non-elite people. My first classmate had a Didaktik in 1988. We were all curious about it. There also were computer fan clubs, where curious young guys would meet around those few computers that they could get access to. [0] https://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Didaktik_Gama https://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Didaktik_Gama
  - formvoltron 4y ago
    I was in Prague in 1995. I worked for a little while helping to set up the Terminal Bar. While there there were a few Czech guys using Czech websites. I remember one of them was some sort of social media on a webpage. They could chat via the webpage. That was a very early (earliest I had seen) implementation of chat / social media on a website. Good work Czechs!
    - inglor_cz 4y ago
      That was probably XChat or Mamedia.
    - EUROCARE 4y ago
      Where was this Terminal Bar in Prague located exactly, if you remember?
  - formvoltron 4y ago
    You should go to meet Adam Dingle... he works as a teacher at Charles University. I'm sure he would be very interested to meet you and hear more about these days. He is also quite an interesting software guy. He's a friend... tell him Matt sent you.
- vkazanov 4y ago
  There were numerous spectrum clones as well built from local parts. My dad built one himself, actually made a business out of selling these in 87-88. As far as i know there were plenty of them in my small town back in Lithuania. Bigger machines, PC clones were definitely a rarity.
Koshkin 4y ago
According to Wikipedia [0], By 1989, there were over 200,000 computers in the country. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_computing_in_the_Soviet_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_computing_in_the_So...
- tgv 4y ago
  The USSR produced some 20000 Apple II clones in '88 and '89. In the meantime, Apple had released the IIci, and there were apparently 100,000 internet hosts (almost all of them in the USA) alone by 1989. The gap was enormous.
  - btilly 4y ago
    I have heard from a former military officer in the USSR that this specific example was key to why Perestroika was adopted, and why the USSR fell. The USSR noticed that the USA was developing personal computers. So had a 5 year plan to clone some of the personal computers. They succeeded. By which time the USA had personal computers in mass production that were 10x as good. The Soviets studied HOW the Americans were doing it, and Perestroika was their response. However the freedoms created by Perestroika destabilized authoritarian rule and, well, everyone knows the result.

russellbeattie 4y ago

Huh. Usually it's YouTubers who are the ones who rip off written articles verbatim, reading them as a voice over to generic B-roll video in order to churn out content. This is the first time I've seen a website do the opposite. Shows you how much the web is changing. Still, I hate this stuff. Did the blogger try to verify anything Asianometry said? Where did the YouTuber get his info? He doesn't say and the description of the video has no details. As expected, the YT comments point out some of the issues of fact in the video.

ranger207 4y ago
Hackaday is an aggregator that summarizes and provides links to other interesting projects, videos, and blog posts. They've been doing this for a while now and it works well for their audience
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

baybal2 4y ago

[dead]

zx8080 4y ago

Depending on the "computer" definition, but without one, 10k seems too small number for the whole Soviet Union. Even brief fact check finds BK-0100 were to be used in all schools since 1984 in addition to Agat PC (Apple II clone) produced since 1983 aimed for schools too. - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agat_(computer) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agat_(computer) - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronika_BK https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronika_BK

thodin 4y ago
BK wasn't in mass production until 1986, Agat until 1985. In 1986 very few schools had any computers, that's why USSR started to buy MSX computers - there were a lot of problems with local mass production.
helge9210 4y ago
> were to be used This is the key phrase. The intent was there, but actual deployment in _some_ schools happened much later, in 1990-91. Edit: emphasis
zeroth32 4y ago
It is BS. Mid level family could import computer from west. Soviet countries manufactured several 8 bit Atari clones, HP programmable calculators....
- VladimirGolovin 4y ago
  I was a teenager in a typical Russian "mid-level family" back then, and there wasn't a single tangible opportunity around to import a computer from the west. Amiga and Commodore were things that I only heard about. An original imported ZX Spectrum was a status symbol -- though the homemade clones were gaining widespread popularity. There were clones of Nintendo systems (Dendy), but I wasn't (and still isn't) aware of any Atari clones. All Atari systems I've seen -- and I've seen plenty in my wild and reckless youth -- were original.
- throw_5202 4y ago
  As someone from a middle class soviet family born in early 1980s in a middle-size town the first time I've seen a western computer at home was only after USSR collapse (likely around 1995). It probably was a PC with i486 (or Cyrix clone of i486). During my school years (90s) only two or three my classmates had a computer at home and it were some Z80 clones produced either in the USSR/exUSSR or in the Eastern Block (in 90s PC were already available, but not affordable). I know some soviet companies were able to procure western computers even in 1980s but for ordinary people it was out of reach until early 1990s or late 1980s at best (at least outside Moscow).

pyinstallwoes 4y ago

Whenever this comes up I can't help but romanticize about DSSP (forth-like with apparently a unique path). I wish I could read the source code and gather more about it. The Setun and Ternary Computation. The idea of using toroidal magnetic cores instead of transistors. There's an irreducible romantic beauty and form to these computational amorphous objects.

amelius 4y ago

> Why didn’t they have more computers? The story is interesting and you can see it in the video below. Summary? (Can't watch video now.)

202206241203 4y ago
Socialism / communism.
- Synaesthesia 4y ago
  US computer technology was largely enabled and sustained by public funds. A lot of the research was done with public funding, and a lot of the early computers were bought by the military. Literally the entire computer marker would not have existed had computers not been bought by the military until the 60's In fact Soviet computer development was quite advanced for a homegrown solution.
  - mattnewton 4y ago
    Socializing the initial risky R&D costs but leaving market mechanisms to iterate is a common pattern in US innovation. But I think the real difference was the relative wealth of the middle classes in each society, where the west tended to have a much wealthier society that could afford to spend more on early computers. The video basically outlines a couple of differences (like party leadership betting on the wrong horse a couple of times), but seems to be driving by at the fact that they just had few enough buyers and didn’t iterate as fast as a result, meaning they had trouble with things like nailing down good yields. This snowballed.
    - dundarious 4y ago
      Yes, Silicon Valley grew out of quite sophisticated WW2 military R&D, so quite similar to USSR actually. I like this talk given at the Computer History Museum about the history of Silicon Valley, which was secret for many years: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTC_RxWN_xo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTC_RxWN_xo You can argue USSR lacked followup demand for computing from outside the military, and that this was caused by organizational issues. It’s probably pretty important to also state the relative wealth disparity at the start of the relevant period, from 1940 onwards, say. Russia was basically feudal in 1910, and it would be hard for advancement to catch up to US levels by 1940 no matter the organization of the economy, and then we have to account for the devastation of WW2 which followed (WW2 was expensive for US, but it didn’t lose industrial capacity except via opportunity cost). I don’t say this as any kind of apologia, but think it makes more sense to compare USSR to less developed countries than US — where it still doesn’t compare favorably in many ways, but it’s far more interesting and debatable.

Sin2x 4y ago

A couple of awesome ones: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Setun https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Setun https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kronos_(computer) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kronos_(computer)

Sin2x 4y ago
Weird that Wiki says Exelsior OS is single-user, it's multi-user actually: http://kronos.ru/sites/default/files/kronos_demo.gif http://kronos.ru/sites/default/files/kronos_demo.gif

Symmetry 4y ago

To me the most interesting thing about early USSR computer development was their use of balanced ternary in the Setun. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Setun https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Setun Instead of the first bit being 1 or 0, the second being 2 or 0, etc you have different scheme where the first bit is 1, 0, or -1 the second is 3, 0, or -3, etc. So 2 would be 3 + (-1).

int_19h 4y ago
One of the reasons why they tried ternary was because the magnetic core memory in use at the time had three "natural" physical states: non-magnetized, magnetized clockwise, magnetized counter-clockwise. Binary computers usually used only the latter two, because neutral state was hard to write reliably. In practice, it didn't work out for ternary, either; Setun would use pairs of cores to represent trits.
sebastianconcpt 4y ago
Sounds cumbersome, do you see any convenience or added efficiency in it?
- nisa 4y ago
  yes - it's more efficient: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balanced_ternary#In_computer_design https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balanced_ternary#In_computer_d...
- chickenimprint 4y ago
  Sounds cumbersome because you're not used to it. One of the benefits of being balanced is that it's self-rounding: Just turn any amount of final digits into 0s and you're done. What if you want to express the exact half, decimal 0.5? Well you'll end up with either 1.TTTTT... or 0.11111... so it could round either way. If we were to use this system, shops could no longer manipulate us with prices ending in .99. Give it a minute to fully grasp the concept and you'll see how intuitive it is.

irusensei 4y ago

> Why didn’t they have more computers? > The USSR was hardly a backward country — they’d launched Sputnik > It (the computer) performed 250,000 calculations for artillery tables in about 2 and half hours. > Nearly all the computer usage was in the military and academia. One common argument ideologically charged people make to counter capitalism advancements is that cell phones were invented in the USSR. That might be the case but I suspect such technology was never intended to be distributed to the common person but for war and propaganda. I'm not a big fan of this kind of incentive.

anticodon 4y ago
USSR was almost destroyed by German invasion in 1941-1945. Because most of the population and almost all the industry resided (and continue to reside) in the western part of Russia/USSR, Germany destroyed immense amount of industry, infrastructure, houses, schools, hospitals. Even after capturing territories, Germany destroyed industrial plants because their plan was to completely eliminate people of Russian nationality and to use the captured lands for agriculture - to feed the Third Reich. Also, they killed almost 30 million of young productive citizen of USSR. It was a huge knock which almost no other country ever endured. And it set back the development of USSR. Also, those comments about war and propaganda are also inaccurate. USA started much more wars than USSR/Russia, and as the result of those wars USA killed at least 20 million of people, destroyed infrastructure and industry, plundered resources, e.g. oil of Iraq and Libya. And haven't built anything. If you'd really study the history, although I'm pretty sure you won't find any accurate information about USSR in the western history books, you'll learn, for example, how USSR built kindergardens, hospitals, schools and industry in Afghanistan and other countries. Investing the money and labor of Russian people in 3rd world countries. Had ever USA did the same?.. Other than printing another billion of USD and "giving" it to some other country, with 90% disappearing in somebody's pocket in transit. And don't get me even started on propaganda. Do you believe western society doesn't have propaganda? How comes then that you all have the same opinion about everything? Especially on external politics.
- irusensei 4y ago
  I'm not downsizing the capacity of their industrial and engineering prowess. I'm questioned the incentives. During the 50s the US and USSR promoted national exhibitions about each countries products and technology. The USSR exhibition happened in America and likewise the US exhibition happened in Moscow. Guess which side was more stunned by the achievements of the other country? The USSR version was all about satellites and factory projects while the US version was a showcase of modern housing utensils. This triggered the famous "Kitchen Debate" between Nixon and Krushev. In fact Nikita who had tasted Pepsi for the first time during the exhibition liked it so much he ordered tons of syrup. They paid in vodka and then in military ships. This is an interesting story about how Pepsi became one of the largest military forces of the planet for a very brief time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrwMrPIHOIw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrwMrPIHOIw So my entire point is yes Soviet tech might have been impressive but the incentives were never to deliver this technology into the hands of common people. All those nice computers were used to stuff like calculate artillery precision. As for the propaganda part, the USSR suffered from a severe form of NIN illness. If the west can do it then we need to do it too! See Tupolev 144.

helge9210 4y ago

> Why didn’t they have more computers? One of the reasons: ideology. Replacing 50 people team with 5 people team and a computer (less people working less hard) while possible technically wasn't desirable.

ordu 4y ago
> One of the reasons: ideology. No, it was more about bureaucracy. Why an existing organization might want a computer? There were no reasons for managers to want it. They didn't need to run to keep their jobs, they just had jobs. While they managed to do a "plan" they were successful managers. If they did 2% more they were super successful. If they did 50% more they interfered with the central planning and provoked a crisis of overproduction. To work better then others is a bad idea. You work better, more productive, then next time you'll be forced to keep this productivity, and all around you also will be. And it doesn't mean a pay rise. Just more work. Blue collars figured it pretty easily. In some placed they would use their fists to explain you, that you must not work harder than others. So I'm sure did managers, though probably without using an educational physical punishment, they had other ways. There was no stimulus to do better. And there is one more thing. If in USSR some organization got a computer, than it would be locked, and you'd need to ask to use it. In writing. And three copies of that. Because you can accidentally break this expensive machine, and your manager doesn't want to be kept responsible for it. It is easier for him to keep it locked. Moreover, it was not your immediate superior who would do it, it would be director of an organization. So you need to hop over several layers of management to get an access to a new shiny tech. And most of these layers are not interested in your bright ideas and they do not like to be hopped over. You need to do what you told to do, and everything else is not your business. Of course central planning with a one big bureaucracy for the whole country means that you might try to hop over the director of your organization, to write a letter to some really high-level bureaucrat, but it was risky, he might just relay your letter to your director, let him to deal with it. It is not ideology, it is a management problem. Ideology mostly didn't work at '80. It was to keep people happy, but not to make management decisions. The system was built and it replaced ideology. It is like Terry Pratchett's "Small Gods" where omnian church replaced Om and didn't need him. Belief in Om was compulsory, but it was really a decorated belief in the church. Pratchett did a great work of describing this kind of situations.