History of computer hardware in Soviet Bloc countries

The history of computing hardware in the former Soviet Bloc is somewhat different from that of Western countries. Computers were not imported in a large scale from the West. All computer hardware was either designed locally or tacitly studied and reproduced. This redevelopment led to some incompatibilities with Western standards, such as Integrated circuit pins on 2.5 mm spacing instead of 2.54 (0.1 inch) spacing. This made Soviet chips unsaleable on the world market, and made test machinery more expensive. [ Fred Langa, "An Editor's View" sidebar to " Computing in the U.S.S.R.", April 1991 BYTE Magazine, page 129 ]

oviet computers

MESM

One of the first universally programmable computers in continental Europe was created by a team of scientists under the direction of Sergei Alekseyevich Lebedev from the Kiev Institute of Electrotechnology in the Soviet Union (now Ukraine).

The computer was known as MESM ("МЭСМ", "Малая Электронно-Счетная Машина", "Small Electronic Calculating Machine"), and became operational in 1950. It had about 6,000 vacuum tubes and consumed 25 kW of power. It could perform approximately 3,000 operations per minute.

trela

The Strela computer 1953–1956, used 43-bit floating point words, with a signed 35-bit mantissa and a signed 6-bit exponent.

Seven Strelas were manufactured in Moscow by a factory in the Ministry of Instrument Making and Automation Means of the USSR; they were the primary debugging platforms for computing, and the most productive computers in the Soviet Union during this period. Strelas could process 2000 instructions per second. The last version of Strela used a 4096-word magnetic drum, rotating at 6000 rpm.

Micro-80

Micro-80 was the first DIY home computer. Schematics and information was published in the well-known local DIY electronic magazine "Radio" in 1983. It was complex, using an Intel 8080-based system which contained about 200 ICs. This system gained low popularity, but set a precedent in getting attention of hobbyist for DIY computers, and later other DIY computers were published by Radio and other DIY magazines.

Radio-86RK

The Radio-86RK was the second DIY computer featured in "Radio" magazine, in an edition published in 1986. It was more popular than the Micro-80 because it was much simpler (29 IC's, i8080 @1.78 MHz with i8257 and i8275 based CRT terminal). Many factories started production of home computers based on this design (such as the Apogey BK-01, Mikrosha, Krista, Partner 01.01, and the Spektr-001). These computers had limited compatibility with the original software, although their schematics were very close to the original.

pecialist

The "Specialist" was the first DIY computer which was published in a magazine other than "Radio" ; it was published in "Modelist-Konstructor", a DIY magazine which was not exclusively focused on electronics. The computer was named the Specialist, and the magazine detailing its specifications was published in 1987, although it was developed by one hobbyist two years earlier. It was much more advanced than previous DIY computers, because it had a higher graphical resolution (384x256) and a "transparent" video system, which did not slow down the CPU when both the CPU and the video system tried to access the RAM simultaneously. It gained limited popularity with hobbyists, though some factories produced DIY kits (Lik for example).

UT-88

"Yunij Technik" ("Junior Engineer") released details for one DIY home computer, the UT-88, which was published in 1988. It was a step back to the Micro-80 conception but was much simpler and used very widespread elements, which made it available for less skilled hobbyists.

Orion-128

The Orion-128 was the last DIY computer published in "Radio" magazine and the last i8080-based DIY computer in Russia. It used the same concepts as the Specialist and had similar specifications, with both advances and flaws. It gained more popularity because it was supported by a more popular magazine, though it was never produced by factories in any form. Much of the software for the Orion-128 was ported by hobbyists from the Specialist and the ZX Spectrum.

Vector-06C

One of the last Soviet-designed, 8-bit home computers was the Vector-06C with an i8080 CPU clone @3 MHz, which is still used by some enthusiasts.

East German computers

In the 1980s Bulgaria manufactured computers according to an agreement within the COMECON:
* Mainframes: IZOT series and ES EVM series (abbreviation from Edinnaya Sistema Elektronno Vichislitelnih Machin, or Unified Computer System — created in 1969 by USSR, Bulgaria, Hungary, GDR, Poland and Czechoslovakia).
* Personal computers: IMKO, Pravetz-82/8M/8A/8E/8C/8D — an 8-bit machine, based on Bulgarian-made 6502 variants, IZOT 1030 — based on Czech-made U880 (a Z80A clone), Pravetz-16/16A/16H/286 (16-bit) — based on Bulgarian clones of 8086/186/286.

For example, the Pravetz-8M featured two processors (primary: Bulgarian-made clone of 6502, designated SM630 at 1.018 MHz, secondary: Z80A at 4 MHz), 64KB DRAM and 16KB EPROM.

The largest computer factory was some 60 km from Sofia, in Pravetz. Another big facility was the plant "Electronika" in Sofia. Smaller plants throughout the country produced monitors and peripherals, notably DZU (Diskovi Zapametyavashti Ustroistva — Disk Memory Devices) — Stara Zagora made hard disks for mainframes and personal computers.

At its peak, Bulgaria supplied 40 percent of the computers in COMECON. The electronics industry employed 300,000 workers, and it generated 8 billion rubles a year (US$13.3 billion). Since the democratic changes in 1989 and the subsequent chaotic political and economic conditions, the once blooming Bulgarian computer industry was allowed to disintegrate almost completely.

ee also

* History of computing hardware
* List of Soviet computer systems
* BESM
* HRS-100 — a hybrid computer jointly designed by engineers from USSR and Mihajlo Pupin Institute and deployed in Russian Academy of Sciences in 1971.

References

External links

* [http://www.rk86.com/frolov/ Soviet calculators and computers collection by Sergei Frolov]
* [http://www.sovietcomputing.com/ Pioneers of Soviet Computing]
* [http://bulgariancomputers.freeservers.com/ Bulgarian Computers]
* [http://www.geocities.com/todprog/spis/bulgarian_computers_v102_11102003.txt Bulgarian Computers Information File]
* [http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/creatures/pages/russians.html Steal The Best] , a microphotography of a Digital CVAX microprocessor used in the MicroVAX 3000 and MicroVAX 6200 series. It contains "VAX — when you care enough to steal the very best" translated in broken Russian as a message to Soviet reverse engineers.
* [http://www.homecomputer.de/pages/easteurope_ro.html Soviet Block Computers with references to Romania]
* [http://www.robotrontechnik.de/ Computing in East Germany] (in German)