Soviet PCs

[gesman]

In 1985-87 I worked on plant that manufactured personal computers with russian-translated DOS in Minsk, Belarus.

The cost of this computer was close to the cost of car so blue collar workers established multiple schemes to steal either parts of computers or the whole computers.

The best plan by far was to throw computers out of the windows of factory so it would land on the soft grass right outside of the secure perimeter fence. Then whatever was thrown - would be picked up by co-conspirators and drove away immediately. Usually during the night shifts.

Clever, simple and working scheme that took a while to discover and crack for local security and law enforcement.

[prodmerc]

Lol, classic Soviet Union story. It worked well in soviet-influenced countries, too. Widespread corruption was inevitable with everyone doing this stuff (I still blame the shit government) :-)

[Igglyboo]

That is a fascinating story, If you don't mind would you expand on it?

We're you stealing computers yourself as well? How dangerous was it?

Where would you normally go to sell a computer like that in the soviet union?

[fpp]

For comparison:

About 1988/89 we got our first PS/2 workstations [1]. With some upgrades (RAM, 60MB HD, network card) these were about the price of an entry level Mercedes S-Class - in today's money about US$100k each.

[1] IBM PS/ 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Personal_System/2

[grhmc]

So this post was original posted this morning, but after HN requested I repost it got to #1:

http://s.gsc.io/hn-repost-request.png

[jakejake]

Wow that's quite interesting. I've never gotten one if those so I don't know if it's new or I just never post anything interesting?!

[efoto]

There was another IBM PC soviet-made clone, somewhat similar to Iskra 1030 mentioned in the post. It was designed and manufactured in Kiev, Ukraine in mid to late 80s and was called Нейрон (neuron).

I was a part of that software team, porting IBM PC/XT BIOS code, so if you have any questions do not hesitate to ask.

There is a Russian language wikipedia article dedicated to it: https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9D%D0%B5%D0%B9%D1%80%D0%BE...

[selestify]

Do tell more! How behind was the Soviet Union in computing (if indeed it was behind) compared to other countries at the time?

[versteegen]

Thanks! How compatible were these computers with IBM PCs? Aside from the different codepage, would any DOS software run properly on them? I wonder whether, for example, the CPUs were 100% copies of Intel/etc chips or had minor differences in behaviour.

[jaxb]

Please post a copy of source code (maybe a masm listing) if you still have it, along with any technical docs. Even though it's 'just another' clone, it's still worth preserving for history.

[bholdr]

I wrote a blog post about a soviet start-up from 1989 that used SM-4, mainframe type computer.

http://yansh.github.io/articles/rhythm/

A lot of the architecture was cloned from Western or nearby countries.

In any case, it was a fascinating period that in my mind produced some of the best programmers in the world. They did amazing things with little resources they had.

[nine_k]

SM-4 was very much like PDP-11, running a lot of compatible software "appropriated" fromthe West.

[more_original]

This is the first I hear about the Robotron 1715 being developed in Russia. All other sources I can find say that it was developed and built in Eastern Germany (Robotron was an Eastern German company that developed a number of computers in the 80s). Even the russian wikipedia say so. Wikipedia says that even the U880 processor, a Z80 clone, was produced in East Germany.

https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robotron_1715

http://www.old-computers.com/MUSEUM/computer.asp?c=864&s...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U880

[mindsuck]

The article doesn't say it was developed in Russia, it says "The computer itself was developed at a research institute outside Moscow, and production was transferred to the German Democratic Republic"

[detaro]

Yep, the U880 was made at the VEB Mikroelektronik „Karl Marx“ in Erfurt. After the reunification parts of the VEB were converted to a company that still runs a semiconductor fab there (X-Fab).

[exhaze]

For anyone interested in more info about this topic, my father and his friend run a fan site for the BESM-6 (including an emulator!), a Soviet-era mainframe computer:

http://www.mailcom.com/besm6/

[TazeTSchnitzel]

Relatedly, the German Democratic Republic had an arcade machine:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poly_Play

[togusa]

They also had full VAX 11/780 clones! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robotron_K_1840

Oh and wonderful art ( http://imgur.com/GPPI56E ) but that's another topic.

[ommunist]

БК family is missing, the bestselling Soviet computers. CISC architecture. https://ru.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/БК_(семейство_компьютеров). I wrote my first programmes on that Bulgarian made ISKRA 1030, that was nice but very poor performing comparing to ЕС mainframe with PRIMUS OS. Also ЕС desktops family is missing in this article. The latter sibling of that had a cast iron mouse, I kid you not.

[varjag]

BK0010-01 is there. ES series was a line of IBM clones (from System/360 to XTs) and were really meant for enterprise use.

Some original developments, like Vector-06c are missing though: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vector-06C

[jaxb]

ZX Spectrum clones (the big hit at the time) aren't on the list as well.

[nikolay]

... and some Bulgarian ones: http://www.pravetz.info/

A broader overview: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_computer_hardware_i...

[x4m]

UNIX-UNAS realy reads as a very funny joke for russian speakers

[kemitchell]

ROFL. Thanks for pointing that out.

[xfour]

Feel like these in no small part explain why Russians seem to have a disproportionate amount of programmers compared to all other countries outside the US.

[gtrubetskoy]

I don't think so because nobody could afford these. It was the education system. Standard curriculum for everybody. By the time you finished 10th (last) grade you had studied pretty advanced math, physics, chemistry, etc. Even if it's not your thing, even if you could only get the lowest passing grade, you still had to do it or fail school. It was kind of rough, but I'm still reaping rewards from what it gave me.

[rdtsc]

Yap, agree 100%. That is why I am a programmer.

Story time:

Growing up in the late 80's, early 90's I liked to take apart electronics. Biggest treat for me was finding an old TV or radio to disassemble.

Then I found out about computers. We got them at school for an "Informatics" course -- which is what they called "Computer Science". I thought those were great. The teacher let us play logic games on it for grades even -- Sokoban, Lemmings and others.

My mom saw that I liked computers and started saving money, even though we were pretty poor. She saved for a year, but didn't tell me then, on March 8, 1993 she bought me a Soviet ZX Spectrum clone. That was the best gift I ever received in terms on impact on my life since. The clone was pretty crappy with rubber buttons and it loaded everything from tape recorder. We connected it to our old black and white TV that still had vacuum tubes in it.

That computer helped me learn programming (had a C compiler, Pascal, assembly, lots of games) and English (since documentation, games and programs were all in English).

Fast forward many years later and programming is my day job and I still like it.

[oblio]

There's another former Communist country with a "disproportionate amount of programmers": Romania.

It even had its own PC clone: https://ro.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felix_PC (in Romanian, sorry, but you can probably figure things out just from the dates and numbers :) ).

Edit: How cute! At the bottom there are links to all the Romanian-made computers. There are at least 20 models I didn't even know of.

[digi_owl]

From elsewhere i got the impression that there was less pre-compiled software to be had, so unless you wanted an expensive paper weight you basically had to learn to code.

[degenerate]

It's also very cold outside. Forever.

[yankoff]

Yup, I wrote my first Basic programs on the Korvet. And it was 1994.

[gtrubetskoy]

Curiously the only PC in my school in Moscow in 1988 was an IBM PC (the 5150?). Actually, that may have been 1987 or 86 even... Then we moved to the US. I've never seen or knew of existence of any of the machines in this article.

[msie]

It's too bad that no one is taking a risk on developing an entirely new desktop computer anymore.

[stuxnet79]

Funny comment.

Precisely what is the incentive? With smartphones coming to the fore as the main platform of computing in recent times?

[navbaker]

The professor that taught my compilers course used to tell us crazy stories about working in the Soviet Union before he immigrated as a reverse engineer, essentially copying western operating systems. He gave us by far the best explanations of real-world applications for the hardcore theory we learned in automata class.

[poelzi]

I just sitting @ the c3d2 hackerspace in dresden germany which is located in the old robotron building ^^ - but never saw one of those machines in person. No idea if here are still some in the building, guess not.

[cmiller1]

I believe I heard that the soviets experimented in the early days with ternary computers, and took it further than anyone else did. Does anyone have more information on that?

[RomanPushkin]

One popular is missing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UKNC

[Overtonwindow]

These are actually pretty cool. Need to add this to my list for when I visit Europe next. Maybe find some in a junk/antique/thrift shop?

[venomsnake]

Ahhh the memories. Pravetz 8d (with a cassete tape storage), Pravetz 16. The black green monitors.

I still keep some around here for sentimental value.

[fit2rule]

Fellow Oric/Atmos user checking in.. those Pravetz machines are cool!