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What Were Soviet Computers Like?
kwertii asks: "Does anyone have any information on computing in the former Soviet Union? A Google search turned up this virtual museum, which has some good historical background on the development of early Soviet computer technology (a lot only in Russian, unfortunately) but not much on later systems. What sorts of architectures did Soviet computers use? Were there any radically different computing concepts in use, like a standard 9-bit byte or something? What kind of operating systems were common? How has the end of the Cold War and the large scale introduction of Western computer technology affected the course of Russian computer development?"
CPUs were made of black market levi jeans.
Case cooling was achieved through imported Coke mixed with domestic Vodka.
Gorky Park CDs were all a CD ROM drive could play.
Yakov Smirnov was a coding god.
At least thats how I picture it.....
Depends wether it was fixed price or time and materials :-)
This quote is from page 15 of the OpenVMS at 20 publication that Digital Published in 1997. The PDF is available from Compaq.
During the cold war, VAX systems could not be sold behind the Iron Curtain. Recognizing superior technology, technical people cloned VAX systems in Russia, Hungary, and China. After learning that VAX systems were being cloned, DIGITAL had the following words etched on the CVAX chip, "VAX...when you care enough to steal the very best."
"All I ever wanted was to see Larry Wall give Bill Gates a Perl necklace."
http://www.eisenschmidt.org/jweisen
[Adopt cod Russian accent:]
/
Glorious new Soviet People's Dual Potato 3000! With advanced UVR (Ultra Root Vegetable(tm)) technology and many obedient clock cycles working for common good. Running Mikkelzoft Window KGB. Own the means of production and experience many kilohertz of glorious revolution in the People's progress today, comrade!
Adski_
NB. Before you complain, I must point out that as a Linux user myself, I am of course a fervent communist.
Big Bubbles (no troubles) - what sucks, who sucks and you suck
I believe that the coolest invention the Russians ever made (concerning computers) was the ternary computer. More appropriately, the balanced ternary computer.
It was a bit like our binary computers, but it had real potential with the trigits having the values of up, down and neutral. The computer was called SETUN, although it was experimental and never truly realized since the 60's.
If anyone has a link concerning SETUN, I'd be interested, so far my only source has been the meager note on 'An introdunction to cryptography', Mollin.