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Soviet Computing Technology?

Posted by Cliff on from the what-did-they-use dept.

TSServo asks: "I started wondering about this the other day in one of my more dull moments at work. What was the USSR using for processors and an OS during the cold war and prior? I doubt that any US based company such as Intel had them on their mailing list. They developed some pretty darn sophisticated stuff and had to have been using something. Does anyone have any information on who the Soviet software and hardware tech leaders were, and moreso how this stuff stacked up against our products during that time?"

3 of 41 comments (clear)

  1. East German Computers by EABinGA · · Score: 3
    I am not too familiar with russian computers, but I have a lot more experience with East German computers, which the russians imported and used a lot.

    One of the last computers they build, was the Robotron ESER 1834, it was an IBM XT compatible. It used a 16 bit K1810WM86 microprocessor (16 bit) and the operating system was DCP 3.2 (Disk Control Programm, i.e. MS-DOS 3.2)It came in 256K or 640K RAM variants, 2x360/720Kb floppies and harddrive. In 1990 they came out with an EC1835, basically an IBM AT.

    Earlier computers ran SCP (a CP/M clone), I also have the manual for a P8000 unix system III. Interesting thing about the P8000, it was a hybrid 8 bit CP/M, 16 bit Unix machine.

    A history of computers build by Robotron can be found at http://robotron.informatik.hu-berlin.de/studienarb eit/files/hardware/hardware.html

  2. Demos OS by Sam+Lowry · · Score: 3

    Also, Russians made a damn good UNIX-clone called OS Demos. The project was started in 1982 in http://www.KIAE.ru and the OS quickily became pretty popular and run on many types of russian hardware of the mid-, end-80ies like CM-4, Electronika-1082, Elbrus or EC (PC XT/AT clone).

    Nowadays, I hear rumors about Linux and BSD clones like OC MCBC which are used by FAPSI (Federal Agency for Government Telecomminication and Information)

    and some other secretive institutions.
    1. Re:Demos OS by Sam+Lowry · · Score: 3

      Here is the link - http://www.demos.ru/cp866/company/truth.htm - unfortunately, in Russian - with the story of Demos OS. Sorry, Babelfish does not support Russian yet. So does Systran. Funny because AFAIK, SystranSoft has a Russian-to-English translation engine.

      Use http://www.translate.ru instead.