> The Globus INK is a remarkable piece of machinery, an analog computer that calculates orbits through an intricate system of gears, cams, and differentials. It provided astronauts with a high-resolution, full-color display of the spacecraft's position, way beyond what an electronic space computer could provide in the 1960s.
If nothing else, at least skim through this article to see the photos. It really was quite a remarkable and beautiful piece of machinery!
You've probably already seen it, but there's a classic US Navy training film which talks about how they were used to solve differential equations in battleships around the WWII era.
So many fascinating facts about this! Did you know this had used gyroscopes to calculate the position and orientation of the spacecraft in orbit. It was designed to operate in the harsh environment of space, where temperatures could range from -100 to +150 degrees Celsius. And the thing only weighed 10kg! And super duper reliable I believe it had a mean time between failures of about 10,000 hours. Old yet still so impressive! Thanks for this!
I am reminded of the Antikythera mechanism here. It's fascinating to think that computing technology has been around so long, its just that transistors allowed for its rapid advancement and higher level logic programming. But we could still do a lot without silicone parts.
One of the museums has one of the early aircraft based mechanical inertial guidance systems on display. Seems it was two or three or four times larger than this. It would be interesting to find a similarly detailed analysis of how those things operated.
That is very cool. I remember seeing a post on this and there was a line of thinking to the tune of "modern engineers are no where near as impressive as the ones 50 years ago". Someone woking in astronautical engineering asking a basic question about how this would handle things like eccentricity, procession of nodes, etc, and the response was simple: "it doesn't!". Honestly these things are really cool I would totally go for a trackball globe being spun around by some Arduino controlled rollers. Even without the gears a modern recreation would be a really cool thing.
Check out the video below from Marc where he works on his Model 19 Teletype. Teletypes used a serial to parallel converter comprised of a solenoid and a multi-lobe camshaft that converted an incoming electrical signal (serial) into 5 individual bits (mechanical). Timing was important, so the motor on the Teletype had to be running at a known speed. You used a tuning fork that had a slot cut in it to look through to check it periodically.
Marc mentions how Teletypes would commonly run with one or 1.5 stop bits. You need this to tell the mechanical parts to "lock up" at the end of a character. Preferred would be to run with 1.5 stop bits so that the machines became self-synchronizing -- if the wire got reconnected in the middle of a character they would start producing readable output again after only a few garbled characters.
The way the camshaft worked was each bit had a window of time where it could be set or cleared (marking vs spacing) by the solenoid. For letter H the bits are 10100 [0]. So the first lobe of the camshaft would come around and the solenoid would be in it's marking position (1) so the 1st bail would be selected. The second lobe would come around a few milliseconds later and the solenoid would be in it's spacing position (0) and the 2nd bail would NOT be selected. A few milliseconds later the third lobe would come around and the solenoid would be in it's marking position (1) so the 3rd bail would be selected. This would continue for the next two bits (spacing) and then the stop bit would arrive and the machine would use the values stored in the bails to print the letter H and/or punch an H (10100) into the paper tape.
Ever wonder why carriage return and line feed are different codes in Baudot, ASCII, and Unicode? It's because Teletypes needed the time to physically move the printing carriage back to column 1. Operators were trained to hit CR CR LF in case the Teletype at the other end was a little slow in returning from column 80 so the next line would start in column 1.
[0] Assuming you were in Letters. Because you only had 5 bits, alphabetic (Letters) and numbers/symbols (Figures) were alternately selected by 11111 and 11011. So 10100 could produce either an H or a # depending on whether you were in Letters or Figures mode.
On the Model 33 ASR that I learned programming with, we were taught to type CR LF RUBOUT at the end of each line when punching a tape. RUBOUT is like a no-op character which is ignored by the receiving end, so it gave a little extra time for both the carriage return and line feed to complete.
RUBOUT is also how you would correct a typo on the tape: you would backspace the tape punch, hit RUBOUT, and then the character you meant. The RUBOUT character had all holes punched, effectively erasing the typo.
When operating the remote computer interactively, we just had to type CR, as the remote system would provide the LF and a slight pause. Working directly on the remote timesharing was strongly discouraged, as dial-up time cost $30/hour back then, or about $250/hour in today's dollars.
So we would punch our code on a tape, dial in just long enough to run the tape and get our printout, and hang up right away.
Stagnation killed them. Those mad scientists, and Soviet society in general, never stopped being able to make those things. It's the fact they weren't able to be more efficient, to increase their output, to give better and more food to its population that was the poison pill.
The US took advantage by forcing them to increase military spending. Gorbachev tried to find a way out of stagnation and killed the whole thing instead.
soviet union was actually very good at providing basic needs (food, housing, education, medical care) to its population. in fact much better than even the US does right now. that is not the reason ussr collapsed
Source? As the person who spent good part of my life there, I would like to know more details. I do remember my parents waiting for an government provided apartment for 15 years though.
The cost part Quora gets really well, I have no problem with that. Since Soviet Roubles were worthless money anyway, it did not matter how much you paid for that.
What it does not say though, is that housing supply was extremely poor. There was extreme lack of decent housing, and people could be easily on a 10+ year wait list (as my parents were). There was practically only government provided houses (e.g. apartments), you could not buy land to build your house yourself (all land was nationalized and belonged to "people", i.e. government). So your option was to wait until you were given one. There was also virtually no secondary housing market, you could not buy an apartment since the supply was so low.
So while you waited for the gift from government, you either lived with your parents (if they had place), lived in "kommunalka" (shared apartment where each family got one room but shared kitchen, bathroom etc with other families), or rented a room from whomever you could find (which was not legal actually because it was deemed private entrepreneurship which was not allowed). Was not fun, believe me.
at no point did i say it was fun, or something to be emulated. my point was that post war ussr was good at providing bare basics. i still think my assessment is correct and i think population growth in eastern europe during those times vs now suggest im right. also the fact remains that the soviets built A LOT especially considering that imperial russia was very much an agrarian country. pretty much all the concrete jungles accross eastern europe is the work of socialist housing policies
High population growth is associated with poverty, not prosperity. Economic growth of Eastern Europe pre-1991 and post-1991 tells everything you need to know. Countries that stagnated for 50 years went through a 10x growth in 30 years after the Soviet grip disappeared.
> High population growth is associated with poverty, not prosperity
nope. the us for example had a much higher population growth than eastern europe. every western country continues to experience population growth. the population growth pre 1990 in eastern europe was at a healthy 1%. stagnation and negative rates started in the 90s, which was hardly a period of prosperity in eastern europe
> Countries that stagnated for 50 years went through a 10x growth in 30 years after the Soviet grip disappeared
tell that to everyone that dreams about leaving and working in western europe
> my point was that post war ussr was good at providing bare basics
My point is that USSR was providing bare basics for some and not for all. If you were member of CPSU or an informer, or of privileged nationality then your chances were much higher.
if by some you mean 90+% of population then yeah. otherwise you must have some statistics showing post-ww2 ussr as a leader in malnutrition, illiteracy, lack of medical care, and homelessness
in the mean time, here are some of my own
NUTRITION
Approved For Release 2007/05117: CIA-RDP84B00274R000300150009-5 RFUTEPS 8 JANUARY 1983 5 PENGTH-DIET American and Soviet citizens eat about the same amount of food each day but the Soviet diet may be more nutritious. According to a CIA report released today both nationalities may be eating too much for good health.
The education system that emerged after the establishment of the Soviet Union in 1922 became internationally renowned for its successes in eradicating illiteracy and cultivating a highly educated population.
Despite its drawbacks, the soviet healthcare system (Semashko model) is considered by the majority of Russian experts to have been one of the best in the world, because overall it met the requirements of quality, availability and provision of healthcare services, drugs and materials. After the collapse of the USSR, the health-care system was stagnant: funding was greatly limited, highly-skilled medical professionals emigrated, medical research came to a halt and manufacture of drugs and medical equipment declined dramatically.
At the time of Soviet Union's collapse, 70-80%+ of all housing stock belonged to the government. New independent countries privatized it all as fast as they could for peanuts (could get an apartment for the price of a Sony VCR), because their condition was horrible and there was no money for repairs in state budget.
> soviet union was actually very good at providing basic needs (food, housing, education, medical care) to its population. in fact much better than even the US does right now. that is not the reason ussr collapsed
You just have to look the refuges after the wall fell which were buying all the basic necessities in bulk, you know it's BS.
i probably should have made it clear that i was talking about post ww2 ussr. you know, the one that took away crimea from russia and gave it to ukraine. also the same ussr that gave national autonomy rights to almost every ethnic group within its borders (something unheard of in the west); actually this is the "atomic bomb" that putin said lenin placed under russia :)
Constitution of the USSR had freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of the press and many other rights unknown to its population, and severely punished when attempted to exercise those rights. North Korea is a pretty chill place too if you judge it only by its constitution.
except that those autonomous regions and republics very much existed. in some cases they formed the legal basis for independent states existing today: lithuania, estonia, ukraine, belarus, moldova, kazakhstan, etc. moreover their existence was dictated by communist ideology
The socialist revolution may begin in the very near future. In that event the proletariat will be faced with the immediate task of capturing power, of expropriating the banks and of introducing other dictatorial measures. In such a situation, the bourgeoisie, and particularly intellectuals like the Fabians and the Kautskyists, will strive to disrupt and to hinder the revolution, to restrict it to limited democratic aims. While all purely democratic demands may—at a time when the proletarians have already begun to storm the bulwarks of bourgeois power—serve, in a certain sense, as a hindrance to the revolution, nevertheless, the necessity of proclaiming and granting freedom to all oppressed nations (i.e., their right to self-determination) will be as urgent in the socialist revolution as it was urgent for the victory of the bourgeois-democratic revolution, for example, in Germany in 1848, or in Russia in 1905
Sick that you as a russian troll claims russia gave ukrainians indepence. They are fighting for their lives to be free of the evil russians raping and killing them. Do you deny that?
lol i actually have no connection to russia. but whatever helps you deal. i rather enjoy broadening peoples perspectives. dont worry though, if you were a putin fanboy i would have quite a bit to say too
and yes ... nato is bad. every imperialist organisation is bad. be it russian, american, chinese, or whatever
> sometimes you do wonder how USSR, with all these mad scientists and engineers, could ever go down
Russia 1985–1999: TraumaZone docuseries by Adam Curtis gives a great answert to that.[1] While it may be factually inaccurate at times, it conveys the feeling those times better than anything else I've ever seen.
> sometimes you do wonder how USSR, with all these mad scientists and engineers, could ever go down
An oversimplification, as any explanation that’s not way too long for this forum would be, but: a decade long war in Afghanistan without an effective democratic outlet for frustration against the regime for the failure.
To be fair they were facing pretty much the entire rest of the worlds fight against "evil communism". It's more remarkable how far they got with essentially a new way of trying things.
It's not nonsense that during the cold war the US & allies put sanctions and trade embargos in place for the USSR & Warsaw pact countries, similar how we have with Russia today, meaning their goods had a limited export market, plus they had restrictions on high tech imports as well leading to the Toshiba-Kongsberg scandal. Also, with the USD being the global reserve currency, the USSR & Co. were dependent on the USD for trade.
It's nonsense because it wasn't 'the rest of the world' and it is nonsense because plenty of the fight came from within the USSR. Ignoring that makes it an utterly meaningless statement. And that's before we get into parties resisting the USSR because it started wars with them.
Hey I just want to let you know that in my original comment I never mentioned the USSR, nor any other state or empire. The promotion of widespread fear of a potential rise of communism did happen, hence the the "evil" in quotes. I never expressed my opinion about any political ideologies nor did I want to have a discussion about that.
If nothing else, at least skim through this article to see the photos. It really was quite a remarkable and beautiful piece of machinery!