3 ms·

I wonder what this would mean in regards to any Soviet clones. Those probably would have just copied the microcode though.

kjs3 3y ago
Depends on the clones. Some things they straight up copied, some things they 'reverse engineered' and produced a functional not exact copy. For example, they couldn't straight copy something that they didn't have the process to fabricate. We sometimes forget/ignore the fact the Soviets had very, very good engineers even if the system they were embedded in limited their achievement. For amusement: https://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/creatures/pages/russians.html https://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/creatures/pages/russians.html
- mananaysiempre 3y ago
  > "СВАКС... Когда вы забатите довольно воровать настоящий лучший" [...] is Cyrillic using Russian words for the phrase: "[C]VAX - when you care enough to steal the very best". That is... an accurate description of this string, yes. That is to say, it translates each English word with what could be a good translation in some context (except for one misspelling). The resulting sentence, though, is completely incoherent and impossible to understand if you can’t back-translate to English. (The alleged translation here was obviously done by some who didn’t know the language. As a side note, however, it’s also a fairly hard phrase to translate: slogans often are, because you don’t have as much surrounding text to reshape around any syntactical awkwardness; but this one specifically as well, because Russian lacks a good counterpart of the phrase “care enough to”, unless you can round it off to “need to”. And what do you know, I just checked both Google Translate and DeepL, and they both produce passable Russian meaning the wrong thing. ChatGPT 3.5 produces a plausible if imprecise try, then a marginally ungrammatical one once asked for more precision, and gives its usual slippery vacillations when asked if the translation is precise.) > Apparently this quotation was gleaned from a sign on a purloined VAX 780 used by the Soviet military So I doubt this part, unless the authors only had an English translation of the Russian original at them.
  - kjs3 3y ago
    The chip, and the engraving, are from 1987. Clearly, this will be a complete surprise to you, but in 1987 we didn't have google translate and chatgpt to think for us.
    - mananaysiempre 3y ago
      I mean, given that both of those produced nice-sounding but wrong translations, that doesn’t count for much, does it? To borrow a saying, the correct tool to translate things into Russian is a Russian speaker (native or otherwise). But I didn’t actually mean to criticise, really. It’s just funny. (Not nearly as hilarious, say, the Russian passport in The Bourne Identity, but still pretty funny.)
      - kjs3 3y ago
        In 1987, before the fall of the Soviet Union and all the tension that engendered, some American engineers didn't seek out a native Russian speaker to round out their inside joke with a perfect translation. One that could only be seen under a microscope. Weird, huh? /sarcasm Russian passport in The Bourne Identity Oh...you have some weird axe to grind. Figures.
orbital-decay 3y ago
Depends. Some CPUs were just ISA-compatible independent designs, such as the K1801VM1 popular in home computers, which used PDP-11 ISA; there never were any single-chip designs using that ISA to copy from. Some CPUs were clones modified to fit weaker domestic manufacturing capabilities, like KR580VM80A which had a revised design of the i8080. Some CPUs were almost literal reverse-engineered clones, including the copied microcode, for example K1810VM86 (8086).

kjs3 3y ago

Depends on the clones. Some things they straight up copied, some things they 'reverse engineered' and produced a functional not exact copy. For example, they couldn't straight copy something that they didn't have the process to fabricate. We sometimes forget/ignore the fact the Soviets had very, very good engineers even if the system they were embedded in limited their achievement. For amusement: https://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/creatures/pages/russians.html https://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/creatures/pages/russians.html

mananaysiempre 3y ago
> "СВАКС... Когда вы забатите довольно воровать настоящий лучший" [...] is Cyrillic using Russian words for the phrase: "[C]VAX - when you care enough to steal the very best". That is... an accurate description of this string, yes. That is to say, it translates each English word with what could be a good translation in some context (except for one misspelling). The resulting sentence, though, is completely incoherent and impossible to understand if you can’t back-translate to English. (The alleged translation here was obviously done by some who didn’t know the language. As a side note, however, it’s also a fairly hard phrase to translate: slogans often are, because you don’t have as much surrounding text to reshape around any syntactical awkwardness; but this one specifically as well, because Russian lacks a good counterpart of the phrase “care enough to”, unless you can round it off to “need to”. And what do you know, I just checked both Google Translate and DeepL, and they both produce passable Russian meaning the wrong thing. ChatGPT 3.5 produces a plausible if imprecise try, then a marginally ungrammatical one once asked for more precision, and gives its usual slippery vacillations when asked if the translation is precise.) > Apparently this quotation was gleaned from a sign on a purloined VAX 780 used by the Soviet military So I doubt this part, unless the authors only had an English translation of the Russian original at them.
- kjs3 3y ago
  The chip, and the engraving, are from 1987. Clearly, this will be a complete surprise to you, but in 1987 we didn't have google translate and chatgpt to think for us.
  - mananaysiempre 3y ago
    I mean, given that both of those produced nice-sounding but wrong translations, that doesn’t count for much, does it? To borrow a saying, the correct tool to translate things into Russian is a Russian speaker (native or otherwise). But I didn’t actually mean to criticise, really. It’s just funny. (Not nearly as hilarious, say, the Russian passport in The Bourne Identity, but still pretty funny.)
    - kjs3 3y ago
      In 1987, before the fall of the Soviet Union and all the tension that engendered, some American engineers didn't seek out a native Russian speaker to round out their inside joke with a perfect translation. One that could only be seen under a microscope. Weird, huh? /sarcasm Russian passport in The Bourne Identity Oh...you have some weird axe to grind. Figures.

orbital-decay 3y ago

Depends. Some CPUs were just ISA-compatible independent designs, such as the K1801VM1 popular in home computers, which used PDP-11 ISA; there never were any single-chip designs using that ISA to copy from. Some CPUs were clones modified to fit weaker domestic manufacturing capabilities, like KR580VM80A which had a revised design of the i8080. Some CPUs were almost literal reverse-engineered clones, including the copied microcode, for example K1810VM86 (8086).