
How Microsoft Created a Revolution in Soviet Computing - lermontov
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/how-microsoft-created-a-revolution-in-soviet-computing
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ommunist
That was devolution, not revolution. The only reason US companies got to that
market was political decision in Moscow to halt development of their own
original systems and start to copy. That was very wrong decision, led to 99%
dependency of later Russia from Wintel. Now Russia struggles to get out of
this dependency, but I am afraid its too late.

~~~
anon4
I have no idea what you're smoking, but I'd like some of that, please. If they
had developed their own system, they would be absolutely incompatible with
standard systems and have to reinvent everything, while now they can just
build on what's already there. The slight specific advantage of doing one or
two things differently is massively overshadowed by the advantage of being
able to coöperate and exchange data easily with the rest of the world.

~~~
tov_objorkin
This one
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ternary_computer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ternary_computer)
incompatible with everything ahaha

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flohofwoe
I can only speak from the East-German perspective not Soviet/Russian, things
might have been very different over there, but the article paints a too
simplistic and too 'business-oriented' Western view and I wouldn't call it a
'revolution' at all.

Here's what changed from the 80's to the 90's from my perspective (as an 80's
computer kid):

What became better:

\- computers got a whole lot cheaper and easier to buy, the domestic 8-bit
computers were astronomically priced, and 'grey imports' like a C64 or Amiga
cost as much as an expensive car (and those were _expensive_ ) and were
completely unreachable unless you had relatives in the West

\- since it was suddenly possible to easily get a private phone for everyone,
information exchange also got a lot easier (and legal!, e.g. in Eastern
Germany, access to copying machines was restricted, owning a computer printer
was legal though), information exchange between computer enthusiasts mostly
happened via snail mail in the 80's

What was lost:

\- the 8-bit computers in the East were mostly about education, there was
(nearly) no commercial interest to sell 'gaming computers', and of course we
wrote our own games because there was nothing to play on those things. Without
being saturated with distractions, there was more motivation to explore and
learn how those computers actually work

\- shift to very few computer architectures that were successful at that time
in the West (at least in Eastern Germany (in the 90's) it was either Amiga or
PC, with a few Macs in schools in the 90's). But in 80's Eastern Germany
alone, 5 different 8-bit architectures were built, with 9 or 10 different
models, none of them a direct clone of western computers (with one exception,
a late CPC clone in 1989), other Eastern Bloc countries very likely had the
same number of domestically developed computers. Sure, the chips were direct
clones (only Z80, no 6502, at least in Eastern-Germany), but the computer
architecture and operating systems had a few unique and interesting ideas in
them

\- before the 90's, copyright simply didn't exist in the East, everything was
copied and modified as needed without anyone giving a shit who invented or
built it originally, I'd argue that this had overall a positive effect on
knowledge exchange, similar to what open source is today

Looking back, I think the 90's were the dark age of computing. The boring
(compared to Amiga or Atari) PC had won, Silicon Graphics went down. Nearly
all useful software was commercial and expensive. It was only since the
mid-2000s after Open Source and Linux had won, that things started to get
interesting again.

All IMHO of course :)

~~~
tdsamardzhiev
Same story in Bulgaria, except 6502s instead of Z80s.

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avmich
An obligatory quote, which, while hyperbolic, touches some peculiarities of
the time and place:

[http://www.vladware.com/Personal/Programmers.htm](http://www.vladware.com/Personal/Programmers.htm)

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olewhalehunter
Developers sneaking in pirated copies of software from companies like Borland
into the office long preceded and anticipated their entry.

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random778
I knew the Amstrad was old, but really...

