
Pioneers of Soviet Computing [pdf] - heyts
http://www.sigcis.org/files/SIGCISMC2010_001.pdf
======
glangdale
Those working on regular expression matching or related tasks should be well
aware of some of the names here, especially Victor Glushkov. We still use
Glushkov's NFA construction (which dates to 1961 or earlier) in our regular
expression matcher (Hyperscan). It was interesting to hear about what a major
figure Glushkov was beyond his work on automata, which was all I really knew
about.

------
rdtsc
> By the late 1960s Lebedev, Glushkov,and their followers believed that Soviet
> scientists had accumulated a significant amount of experience in computer
> technology and had a considerable production potential. They wanted to
> collaborate with large Western European computer manufacturers in developing
> a fourth-generation machine before the Americans did. Lebedev’s political
> adversaries proposed a different option – to duplicate the American third-
> generation IBM-360 system, created several years earlier. Although no
> scientists of Lebedev’s caliber were among them, they were the political
> figures who had decision-making power. The Soviet government passed a
> resolution to develop a Unified System of Computers, reverse - engineered
> from the configurations of the IBM - 360.

The history there takes a turn and after 70s they just started mostly copying
Western machines. It was interesting how they would justify it to themselves
copying the product of the "decadent and failing Western capitalism" while
they also had to attend parades and sing songs to Lenin about how their
country was at the forefront and leading the world to better and brighter
future.

However, to be fair, I also learned computers by using a crapy Soviet ZX
Spectrum clone. So on a practical level copying became an obvious choice
perhaps. At least it would have been soon enough.

Also, I always liked Setun, the ternary computer. It ends in kind of a sad
story though:

> Unfortunately, after the Setun-70 project, Brusentsov’s lab was relocated
> from the Computer Center at Moscow University to a windowless attic in a
> student dormitory and was deprived of any serious support. The new
> university rector considered computer design a pseudo-science. Brusentsov’s
> original Setun computer, an experimental prototype that had faithfully
> worked for seventeen years, was barbarically destroyed and carted off to the
> dump.

~~~
MichaelMoser123
Russian wikipedia
[https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/ЕС_ЭВМ#cite_note-.D0.B8.D1.81....](https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/ЕС_ЭВМ#cite_note-.D0.B8.D1.81.D1.82._.D0.BE.D0.B1.D0.B7.D0.BE.D1.80-1)
says that second generation soviet systems were oriented towards numerical
computations and that they had a real problem with system software (no OS,
even no assembler).

Now the architecture/os/system of the IBM S360 took some money to develop -
here it says it was 5 billion $ (comparable in magnitude to the moon program -
that was 25 billion $) [http://www.smashcompany.com/business/cost-overruns-
and-the-i...](http://www.smashcompany.com/business/cost-overruns-and-the-
ibm-360) . So I guess that Kosygin was trying to avoid this expenditure.

Therefore a major point is that software development costs a lot, and they
could just pirate that by copying the OS360.

On the other hand they could have done a similar thing as
Amdahl/Siemens/Hitachi - copy the architecture while producing a hardware
design of their own, so go figure.

~~~
yaakov34
They did do exactly that in many cases - the ES systems were not transistor-
by-transistor copies of the IBM systems. The original article (PDF link) has a
letter from Andrei Gagarin which mentions that the ES1065 had entirely
original hardware design and architecture (while presumably being ISA-
compatible with the IBM systems). Also, not all ES systems were IBM 360
compatible - the ES project was an overall scheme for improving and
modernizing the computer industry of the Socialist block (the name ES was in
fact created when Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and other countries joined
the project, which grew out of a USSR-only project called "Ryad"), and
although the IBM 360 architecture was central to ES, there were completely
incompatible systems in the ES line.

------
CalChris
Kind've post-Soviet but there was a link between Elbrus (Boris Babayan) and
Transmeta.

[https://www.theregister.co.uk/1999/10/24/russian_merced_kill...](https://www.theregister.co.uk/1999/10/24/russian_merced_killer_firm_confirms/)

I believe that Babayan was the originator of the Code Morphing idea. However,
Ditzel had also done something earlier with CRISP at Bell Labs where complex
instructions were translated/decoded into horizontal microcode instructions
and cached, the precursor to the x86 μ-store. Translated != Compiled.

[https://www.technologyreview.com/s/400837/the-software-
chip/](https://www.technologyreview.com/s/400837/the-software-chip/)

Babayan went on to work for Intel where he is now an Intel Fellow.

[https://newsroom.intel.com/biography/boris-a-
babayan/](https://newsroom.intel.com/biography/boris-a-babayan/)

~~~
dom0
> Elbrus, VLIW, Transmeta, Intel

It's interesting how much people Intel soaked up in the early 2000s after the
RISCollapse and VLIW-gone.

Sometimes I wonder where exactly Intel got all the money from for doing that
and pushing through quite some years with inferior products.

------
unimpressive
Read this years ago and loved it. Among the most memorable portions of the
book for me is still the forward:

"Bringing this manuscript to publication was an epic adventure in itself, so
we decided to share our experience here, along with some commentary on
academic publishing today and its inevitable demise."

I've also quoted it before on Hacker News:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4059080](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4059080)

------
dottedmag
Original Russian text:
[http://lib.ru/MEMUARY/MALINOWSKIJ/0.htm](http://lib.ru/MEMUARY/MALINOWSKIJ/0.htm)

------
erikj
I don't see Valentin Turchin mentioned in the book which is a shame, he was
arguably the Soviet counterpart to John McCarthy.

~~~
nickpsecurity
A claim like that is better with links that show it. Especially if compared to
John McCarthy. Show us what you have.

~~~
dottedmag
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentin_Turchin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentin_Turchin)

~~~
nickpsecurity
Neat. Thanks. Main thing I wanted to look at is in Springer. Ill have to dig
up non-paywall stuff on him later. Especially the meta and supercompilation.

------
scentoni
See the Agat, a Soviet Apple II clone
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agat_(computer)#Reception](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agat_\(computer\)#Reception)
[https://archive.org/stream/byte-
magazine-1984-11/1984_11_BYT...](https://archive.org/stream/byte-
magazine-1984-11/1984_11_BYTE_09-12_New_Chips#page/n135/mode/2up)

