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It's a very interesting document. Must have been really boring to be a Soviet programmer, just cloning western stuff down to the exact commands all day. Also r

It's a very interesting document. Must have been really boring to be a Soviet programmer, just cloning western stuff down to the exact commands all day. Also related: https://aeon.co/essays/how-the-soviets-invented-the-internet-and-why-it-didnt-work https://aeon.co/essays/how-the-soviets-invented-the-internet... One reason the paper is interesting is that it seems clear eyed. Popular press articles about the USSR's failed attempts to build an internet or computer industry always try to put an incredibly positive spin on it. The AEON article is titled "How the Soviets invented the internet" but if you read it, you'll discover they never invented anything. The story of the Soviet internet never gets beyond a bunch of dreamers having those dreams repeatedly squashed by the central planners who didn't care or actively wanted to undermine them. They never did any actual R&D, like by designing a TCP/IP equivalent, they didn't set up real functioning networks. They basically said to the government "wouldn't a computer network be cool?" and the government said "no not really". End of story. It's silly and misleading to describe this as "how the Soviets invented the internet". There's a less detailed but more realistic take from the BBC here: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20161026-why-the-forgotten-soviet-internet-was-doomed-from-the-start https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20161026-why-the-forgotte... Even so it ends by saying "The Soviets may have lost the net race, but they were definitely in the game." even though by the BBC's own telling, behind the iron curtain the game never even started.

clarionbell 4y ago
IC development was even worse. We (some of my professors) were reverse engineering western CPUs etc. for domestic consumption. This involved gently shaving top of the package and retracing the circuitry for lithography. There were moments of genuine excitement however, when the sandpaper caught some of the circuit one had to imagine what should have been there. Thus creating novel design.
- origin_path 4y ago
  Did you have to do things like that because you were ordered to by the state, or because there was no funding to do any actual original design? Why did the industry never create anything new - presumably the Kremlin didn't actually say "don't be creative" to you and it was an emergent property of the system?
  - qikInNdOutReply 4y ago
    In socialists systems all incentives are aligned to gamble the system. You do gamble the system by fullfilling the bare minimum demanded from you and squeezing the most out of the rest of whats handed to you, because your material requirements are huge. Most likely, most of the resources for computer sciences were traded away for others amenities before they ever reached a computation lab. The mentality ist still there in the old citizens of the eastern block. All that remained was the bare minima to do the chop required by quota: "Copy that chip"
    - origin_path 4y ago
      Thanks! By the way, the term you're looking for is "game" not "gamble" i.e. people were gaming the system.
      - qikInNdOutReply 4y ago
        Ah, years of using it wrong come back to haunt me.. thanks
  - clarionbell 4y ago
    All three. The order came from above, that's how command economy (what socialist regimes generally implement) works. However, that order was result of insufficient funding, which left nothing to set up independent research pipeline in the area. At the same time, Kremlin did often stifle development on purpose, under guise of "common good". Especially in dependent states across Europe and smaller Soviet Republics. In theory, this was meant to prevent internal competition and waste of resources. In practice it was a way to sell inferior goods and create dependency on the central authority. This happened with everything, computers, trains, cars.
    - actionfromafar 4y ago
      So, a very imperialist Kremlin.
- severino 4y ago
  I'd say that reverse engineering an 80's CPU was everything but boring.
- kps 4y ago
  DEC's first VAX microprocessor was cloned¹. On the successor CVAX² die, DEC included Russian text³ saying (supposedly) “When you care enough to steal the best”. ¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MicroVAX_78032#Other_vendors https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MicroVAX_78032#Other_vendors ² https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CVAX https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CVAX ³ https://i.stack.imgur.com/xmYaT.jpg https://i.stack.imgur.com/xmYaT.jpg
  - tetromino_ 4y ago
    FYI, that text is completely incomprehensible in Russian. It looks like the chip designer translated an English phrase word-for-word using a dictionary, didn't conjugate verbs or decline adjectives, added some gratuitous misspellings, and ended up with Engrish type nonsense.
dmazin 4y ago
I think the situation had vastly improved by the mid-late 80s. Contrary to the prediction in the paper in the original post, by the 90s there was a burgeoning software scene in Russia (and I'm sure other Soviet states). My dad worked at a manufacturer where, in the late 80s, he developed FEA software that he still sells to this day (https://quickfield.com https://quickfield.com).
- linksnapzz 4y ago
  A former co-worker of mine started a CAD/CAM software company in Russia in the late 80s-early 90s. He was targeting soviet x86 & VAX clones. Business was not bad; but the weird postsoviet economy made it untenable. He told me: "I was making good money on paper; but still, I had to spend a whole month's paycheck to buy four new tires for my car. They were not even particularly good tires, and it wasn't a very good car!"
cscurmudgeon 4y ago
Central waterfall-like planning for software at the company level is harmful. Imagine this at the national level.
- 082349872349872 4y ago
  The soviets (according to TFA) were depreciating their CAD/CAM setups over 20 years. So Госплан probably thought they weren't doing waterfall — after all, they had short, 5 year, sprints (пятилетка)!
MichaelMoser123 4y ago
Many programmers were busy doing payroll processing software for the various organization. Each org had to have it's own thing for its payroll (which is sort of surprising)
- bvrmn 4y ago
  It really fast converged to using Excel by accountants themselves or using/programming "ERP" 1C[1]. [1] https://1c-dn.com/ https://1c-dn.com/

clarionbell 4y ago

IC development was even worse. We (some of my professors) were reverse engineering western CPUs etc. for domestic consumption. This involved gently shaving top of the package and retracing the circuitry for lithography. There were moments of genuine excitement however, when the sandpaper caught some of the circuit one had to imagine what should have been there. Thus creating novel design.

origin_path 4y ago
Did you have to do things like that because you were ordered to by the state, or because there was no funding to do any actual original design? Why did the industry never create anything new - presumably the Kremlin didn't actually say "don't be creative" to you and it was an emergent property of the system?
- qikInNdOutReply 4y ago
  In socialists systems all incentives are aligned to gamble the system. You do gamble the system by fullfilling the bare minimum demanded from you and squeezing the most out of the rest of whats handed to you, because your material requirements are huge. Most likely, most of the resources for computer sciences were traded away for others amenities before they ever reached a computation lab. The mentality ist still there in the old citizens of the eastern block. All that remained was the bare minima to do the chop required by quota: "Copy that chip"
  - origin_path 4y ago
    Thanks! By the way, the term you're looking for is "game" not "gamble" i.e. people were gaming the system.
    - qikInNdOutReply 4y ago
      Ah, years of using it wrong come back to haunt me.. thanks
- clarionbell 4y ago
  All three. The order came from above, that's how command economy (what socialist regimes generally implement) works. However, that order was result of insufficient funding, which left nothing to set up independent research pipeline in the area. At the same time, Kremlin did often stifle development on purpose, under guise of "common good". Especially in dependent states across Europe and smaller Soviet Republics. In theory, this was meant to prevent internal competition and waste of resources. In practice it was a way to sell inferior goods and create dependency on the central authority. This happened with everything, computers, trains, cars.
  - actionfromafar 4y ago
    So, a very imperialist Kremlin.
severino 4y ago
I'd say that reverse engineering an 80's CPU was everything but boring.
kps 4y ago
DEC's first VAX microprocessor was cloned¹. On the successor CVAX² die, DEC included Russian text³ saying (supposedly) “When you care enough to steal the best”. ¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MicroVAX_78032#Other_vendors https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MicroVAX_78032#Other_vendors ² https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CVAX https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CVAX ³ https://i.stack.imgur.com/xmYaT.jpg https://i.stack.imgur.com/xmYaT.jpg
- tetromino_ 4y ago
  FYI, that text is completely incomprehensible in Russian. It looks like the chip designer translated an English phrase word-for-word using a dictionary, didn't conjugate verbs or decline adjectives, added some gratuitous misspellings, and ended up with Engrish type nonsense.

dmazin 4y ago

I think the situation had vastly improved by the mid-late 80s. Contrary to the prediction in the paper in the original post, by the 90s there was a burgeoning software scene in Russia (and I'm sure other Soviet states). My dad worked at a manufacturer where, in the late 80s, he developed FEA software that he still sells to this day (https://quickfield.com https://quickfield.com).

linksnapzz 4y ago
A former co-worker of mine started a CAD/CAM software company in Russia in the late 80s-early 90s. He was targeting soviet x86 & VAX clones. Business was not bad; but the weird postsoviet economy made it untenable. He told me: "I was making good money on paper; but still, I had to spend a whole month's paycheck to buy four new tires for my car. They were not even particularly good tires, and it wasn't a very good car!"

cscurmudgeon 4y ago

Central waterfall-like planning for software at the company level is harmful. Imagine this at the national level.

082349872349872 4y ago
The soviets (according to TFA) were depreciating their CAD/CAM setups over 20 years. So Госплан probably thought they weren't doing waterfall — after all, they had short, 5 year, sprints (пятилетка)!

MichaelMoser123 4y ago

Many programmers were busy doing payroll processing software for the various organization. Each org had to have it's own thing for its payroll (which is sort of surprising)

bvrmn 4y ago
It really fast converged to using Excel by accountants themselves or using/programming "ERP" 1C[1]. [1] https://1c-dn.com/ https://1c-dn.com/