Soviet computers from the Cold War tech-race

Steve Silberman sez, "The Cold War computing race from the Russian side, including the development of the MESM -- for 'Small Electronic Counting Machine' -- powered by more than 6000 vacuum tubes."

Building digital computers in Soviet post-war Russia was a dangerous business. To protect himself and his staff from criticism that could end in them being sent to labour camps, Russian computer pioneer Sergei Lebedev of the Kiev Electro-Technical Institute declared that the computers they wanted to build would carry out only ideologically correct calculations.

Described as 'the Soviet Alan Turing', Lebedev had been thinking about how to build a computer since 1948, and by the end of 1949 he had the basic principles down on paper. In a climate of deep suspicion, Lebedev assembled a team of 12 designers and 15 technicians at a disused monastery at Feofania, near Kiev, and gave it the seemingly ironic name 'Secret Laboratory Number One'...

The Russian System/360 clone was called the ES EVM, and it soon became widely available in Russia. In 1972, the year that the ES EVM was released, Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev virtually admitted what was going on when he told a meeting of officials, "We communists have to string along with the capitalists for a while. We need their credits, their agriculture and their technology."

Theft quickly became the principal way that Russian computing kept pace with the West. In 1975, production began of a clone of the influential DEC PDP-11/40 minicomputer. Called the SM-4, it featured multiple video terminals and twin magnetic tape units - just like the real thing. The SM-4 so faithfully reproduced the original hardware that it even ran Unix, enabling it to run a wide range of stolen applications.

The successor to the SM-4 was the SM-1420. A cloned version of the DEC PDP-11/34+, it was produced in large numbers across the Soviet Union. The standard machine had 256kb of RAM, two 2.5MB removable disc packs, two magnetic tape drives and the ability to handle several video terminals. Predictably, the mid-1980s saw the first cloned Russian IBM PC, called the ES PEVM. It ran DOS and early versions of Windows.

Up until his death last year, my great uncle Bora Rachman was curator of the Popov technology museum in St Petersburg. He let me do a ton of photography the last time I visited him (alas, my camera broke that day, necessitating the use of a crummy phonecam). Lots of shots of handsome old Soviet clunker computers.

Secrets of Communist computing (Thanks, Steve!)

[Modusoperandi #1 23:23 on Sun, Jul.26]

There were those of us who fought against it, but in the end we could not keep up with the expense involved in the arms race, the space race, and the peace race. At the same time our people grumbled for more nylons and washing machines. Our vacuum tube scheme cost us just a small fraction of what we had been spending on defense in a single year. The deciding factor was when we learned that your country was working along similar lines, and we were afraid of a vacuum tube gap. ~ Ambassador de Sadesky

[Takuan #2 00:04 on Mon, Jul.27]

and before Dr. Strangelove
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26_xhQBU3gA

[nanuq #3 03:22 on Mon, Jul.27]

"Russian computer pioneer Sergei Lebedev of the Kiev Electro-Technical Institute declared that the computers they wanted to build would carry out only ideologically correct calculations"

As opposed to the other kind of calculations that evil capitalists engaged in.

[Modusoperandi #4 03:38 on Mon, Jul.27]

Takuan: Never heard of this Dr. Strangelove guy. Is he good? I've got this mole on my back that I should probably get looked at.

[vbb #5 05:06 on Mon, Jul.27]

Yes, very funny. Funny how some other facts weren't mentioned. Search wikipedia for BESM:

BESM (БЭСМ) is the name of a series of Soviet mainframe computers built in 1950-1960s....
BESM-1...was completed in 1952. ... At the time of completion, it was the fastest computer in Europe...
During the 1975 Apollo-Soyuz Test Project the processing of Soyuz orbit parameters was accomplished by a BESM-6 based system in 1 minute. The same computation for the Apollo was carried out by the American side in 30 minutes.

[Anonymous #6 05:15 on Mon, Jul.27]

Stole? The people who "mysteriously" acquired the RSA algorithm three years after it was invented in the UK accuse others of stealing? Don't even get me started on Echelon...

[toresbe #7 07:21 on Mon, Jul.27]

The theft of US computer technology occured on a truly impressive scale, especially in the area of minicomputers. In fact, DEC actually wrote on the die of one of their VAX 8000 chips, in very broken Russian, "VAX - when you care enough to steal the very best."

That said, the BESM-6 was an independent design, completed in 1965. I'd say it was so independent that it'd leave most current computer scientists scratching their heads. Not necessarily in the good way.

The architecture was weird, some have said ugly. But the limiting factor of Soviet computing was not the architecture designs, but the semiconductors. The top-down decision to basically shut down independent Soviet computer science and start copying the US systems didn't help, though.

I don't have any problems believing that the BESM-6 - literally the "Large Electronic Calculating Machine", was faster than the IBM systems that NASA was using. Had they used a Control Data Cyber, things would likely have gone much faster. But it isn't impossible that the Soviets used a better or more inexact algorithm.

But you have to hand it to them: the BESM-6 console was absolutely pornographic - rivalling even the stupendous console of the System/360 model 91.

[doug117 #8 08:52 on Mon, Jul.27]

Perspective:

6000 vacuum tubes = 6000 switches.
What's an Intel µP nowadays? 1-2 million? More?

The IBM 360 was pretty much dogmeat -- even by the standards of the 60s.

The CDC Cyber 75 (7500?) "blew its doors off."

[Anonymous #9 17:14 on Mon, Jul.27]

Doug- 291million in a Core 2 Duo I think.