
Pioneers of Soviet Computing - gnufs
http://www.sigcis.org/?q=node/85/
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mynegation
Some of the people mentioned in the book were my lecturers in Moscow State
University. All great people, but sometimes courses like 'Computer
architecture' left me with a mixed feeling. They used all these old
architectures like BESM-6 as examples. It was great to know how it all
started, but I felt like I am not getting enough knowledge about actual modern
architectures, and I went through couple of electives to make up for it.

Note to the translator and readers: please do not use Russian patronymic names
in the translation. It is common for Russians to address each other with name
and patronymic (a sign of respect). But patronymics confuse non-Russians. For
example the book refers to Sergei Lebedev (or Sergei Alexeevich Lebedev if we
use patronymic) as 'Sergei Alexeevich' many times over and over, and to non-
Russians 'Alexeevich' sounds like a family name.

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danohuiginn
If you're interested in this area, I highly recommend Francis Spufford's book
"Red Plenty". It's a fictionalised account of some of this history (Lebedev is
a character, for example). Its main focus is the interaction between Soviet
computer science, economics and political idealism.

Here's one review:
[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/bookreviews/7956346...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/bookreviews/7956346/Red-
Plenty-by-Francis-Spufford-review.html)

