things worked when there was the state behind it.. Regardless of efficiency.
cm601 CPU was exact copy of motorola-6800 (with ~10% yield - doesn't matter).
Pravetz-82 was Apple-][, with M6502 imported.
There was even some DEC micro-VAX being copied, EC-1055 AFAIR.
Then came the PC... and things went more software-ish.
There was "mikro monitor 1.0" which was.. MS windows 2.0 but all in cyrillics and encodings (none in original). Xerox Ventura 2 was also copied and rev.engineered.
"docs 1.0/2.x" was (pre-MS and MS) Word. Lots of other stuff. Rev.engineered and fixed/enhanced to support cyrillics or else.
Then one day it wasn't anymore.
Actually all that, let's call it borrowing, laid a perfect ground for all future versions of those products/companies - with plenty of educated and demanding users thereof.
(btw rev.engineering was good fun.. but that's a forgotten land now)
Reverse engineering was and is a lot of fun! If anything its grown in demand, you just have to make sure you’re doing reverse engineering for where the demand is. Same skills, different targets :)
Before the 90s, Bulgaria was manufacturing almost everything, it had its problems, but it functioned from what we've been told. Afterwards every single factory was shuttered, sold to individuals for the equivalent of a dollar. After the borders were opened up, we experienced a huge outflow and all the smart people left.
We are now a fast shrinking country, poor and even today the political scene is a joke.
If everything was great why people brought down the system? Is it maybe because everything worked thanks to having customer(the USSR) for ideological reasons and not because it was actually competitive or good? Maybe this was the reason why the factories and everything shut down when USSR was gone?
IMHO the ideological markets are very dangerous, gives you the wrong feedback on your output and makes you completely reliant.
USSR pumps oil, digs minerals and uses the income from that to purchase stuff from Bulgaria not because Bulgaria is the best(it might have been the best or very good at one point) but because politics. Then Bulgaria doesn't have proper feedback and instead of investing to advance its computer business keeps doing the same when the west with their real markets leaps ahead. Then one day the only customer who bought Bulgarian stuff for ideological reasons is gone and Bulgaria finds out that they don't have any customers anymore because they didn't invest in advancing their tech because they didn't need to.
Unfortunately, the west today has a similar problem of ideology based markets but its nowhere nearly as bad as the situation in Communist Bulgaria.
One argument might be, if the system worked why wouldn't keep doing it? Because its again very dangerous. If the USSR survived and Bulgaria was kept being the tech powerhouse of USSR with a few nodes behind the state of the art, Bulgaria might have been compelled to send the troops for the invasions USSR might have started because that's how empires work(Bulgarian economy collapsing the moment Russia decides not buying from Bulgaria since it disobeys). Notice that the Russian soldiers in Ukraine come from far eastern regions of the Russian federation, that would have been the fate of Bulgaria today.
In case anyone doesn't know - Bulgaria is the most beautiful country in Europe and is rich with cultural history. Ruins and artefacts everywhere. Please come and check it out - Sofia is amazing this time of year.
I didn't know anything about Bulgaria until a week ago when GPT-4 suggested it as a potential home for my family. Beautiful, affordable, nice weather, access to Europe...
I have loved everything I've learned about it since, even thinking of learning Bulgarian!
What a cool place, your country.
This post for me is an instance of that weird effect when once you start looking into something you see it everywhere..
Really cool to see other attempts at historically understanding Warsaw Pact and fUSSR tech industries.
Every other treatment I've ever seen for describing the Soviet computing and internet development has always just been a lazy "well it wasn't innovative like silicon valley" which, while not necessarily wrong, sounds more like awkward and insecure attempt at justifying our own processes, and also isn't all that descriptive or useful.
This isn't surprising because we still have a very heavy Cold War stink on history to do with the USSR and just continue to discover we were wrong about certain aspects of that experiment or didnt quite fully understand it without heavy ideological bias.
I think the wrongness of popular perception tends to go in the other direction. People often misunderstand just how badly the Soviet bloc lagged in high technology, precision manufacturing at scale, etc. This makes sense because they remember and have read about the military parity, the brief period of (very roughly) comparable middle class standard of living, etc. But Moore's law (among other things) dramatically exacerbated the technology gap - you can have, say, a steel or oil industry that's a couple of decades behind the state of the art. An IC industry that far behind is barely a meaningful IC industry at all.
> Every other treatment I've ever seen for describing the Soviet computing and internet development has always just been a lazy "well it wasn't innovative like silicon valley"
It depends on the decade and if we're are talking about the Soviet Union, keeping in mind that Warsaw Pact countries also had their own trajectories and specifics, like the article mentions. By the 1970s the Soviets themselves realized they were lagging behind, and decided to mostly "borrow" Western designs. So it isn't just us judging them from an orange forum years later, it was a judgement they came to on their own at that time. In the end they were cloning the computer systems of the West, not vice-versa. And, if we know anything about the Soviets, is they did not like to lose face. Everything from space to sports was always them showing off their superiority, so the decision to concede and start copying computer systems designed by the "evil capitalists" likely wasn't done lightly.
One of the first Sovirt Union's general purpose computers, the MESM[1], was built in some pre-revolutionary mansion outside Kiev.
Romania also had significant semiconductor industry and DDR too, such as Kombinat Mikroelektronik "Karl Marx" Erfurt.
I'm disappointed the article is so eager to tag late communist Bulgaria "repressive". The same myopic vision where Bulgaria can be of no significance, but also where socialist regime can manifest with nothing but repression.
The Soviet electronics manufacturing and the politics around it were very interesting. Somebody else in the thread recommended the Asianometry video, go watch it.
As for repressions, intellectuals getting censored, assasinated even [1].
Turkic and Roma populations getting forcibly assimilated [2].
Numerous personal accounts of asset seizure and blatant corruption among party members.
Is that repression to call it out or just enough to fall below the threshold?
> On the ruins of Bulgaria’s communist utopian cyber-economy, the most prolific and feared virus writer of all, named the Dark Avenger, emerged to wreak havoc on the world’s computers at the moment Francis Fukuyama had proclaimed the end of history. Was it really?
Oh, yes, kind of:
> “The [US] capitalists behaved like socialists while the [Soviet] socialists behaved like capitalists.” In other words, the United States’ internet precursor ARPANET was achieved through strong government support and subsidies, whereas the Soviet attempts were torpedoed by the “self-interest” of its bureaucrats and experts. The Bulgarian case is different because it did succeed—partly due to the fact that Petrov’s protagonists were able to outplay the capitalists at their own game. They copied the code and then rewrote it.
It is the end of history predicted by Karl Marx, but it had played in a different way that he thought. It played in a way Fukuyama described in retrospect. Capitalism is no longer "pure" capitalism, and communism is no longer "pure" communism. The thesis and the antithesis mated and gave rise to something in between. Or rather they morphed both, but the transformation of capitalism was more successful. Though China probably wouldn't agree with this last statement.
But looking at USA it use a lot of government funds spent on different projects with a goal to spur up progress. ARPANET is just one example, the other one is Apollo project or commercialization of space which is going on right now. And we can see in China a free market or at least market that is much more free than in USSR.
It seems it is not the end of history, it is more like an end of history. But I agree with Erik Hoel[1] it is no good in trying to apply Hegel to history, but his models are good to talk about politics.
[+] [-] svilen_dobrev|1 year ago|reply
Then one day it wasn't anymore.
Actually all that, let's call it borrowing, laid a perfect ground for all future versions of those products/companies - with plenty of educated and demanding users thereof.
(btw rev.engineering was good fun.. but that's a forgotten land now)
[+] [-] nekitamo|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] mobilio|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] farmdve|1 year ago|reply
We are now a fast shrinking country, poor and even today the political scene is a joke.
[+] [-] mrtksn|1 year ago|reply
IMHO the ideological markets are very dangerous, gives you the wrong feedback on your output and makes you completely reliant.
USSR pumps oil, digs minerals and uses the income from that to purchase stuff from Bulgaria not because Bulgaria is the best(it might have been the best or very good at one point) but because politics. Then Bulgaria doesn't have proper feedback and instead of investing to advance its computer business keeps doing the same when the west with their real markets leaps ahead. Then one day the only customer who bought Bulgarian stuff for ideological reasons is gone and Bulgaria finds out that they don't have any customers anymore because they didn't invest in advancing their tech because they didn't need to.
Unfortunately, the west today has a similar problem of ideology based markets but its nowhere nearly as bad as the situation in Communist Bulgaria.
One argument might be, if the system worked why wouldn't keep doing it? Because its again very dangerous. If the USSR survived and Bulgaria was kept being the tech powerhouse of USSR with a few nodes behind the state of the art, Bulgaria might have been compelled to send the troops for the invasions USSR might have started because that's how empires work(Bulgarian economy collapsing the moment Russia decides not buying from Bulgaria since it disobeys). Notice that the Russian soldiers in Ukraine come from far eastern regions of the Russian federation, that would have been the fate of Bulgaria today.
[+] [-] neals|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] pkphilip|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] mrtksn|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] boulos|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] pvg|1 year ago|reply
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26107924
And a small historical bit of snark that's probably in the book (which I haven't had a chance to read yet):
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26108958
[+] [-] stanislavb|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] alexandargyurov|1 year ago|reply
https://axle.events/events/prezentaciya-na-balkan-cyberia-c7...
[+] [-] loopdoend|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] arcticfox|1 year ago|reply
I have loved everything I've learned about it since, even thinking of learning Bulgarian!
What a cool place, your country.
This post for me is an instance of that weird effect when once you start looking into something you see it everywhere..
[+] [-] unknown|1 year ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] npace12|1 year ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] mrkramer|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|1 year ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] unknown|1 year ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] pavel_pt|1 year ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] gremlinunderway|1 year ago|reply
Every other treatment I've ever seen for describing the Soviet computing and internet development has always just been a lazy "well it wasn't innovative like silicon valley" which, while not necessarily wrong, sounds more like awkward and insecure attempt at justifying our own processes, and also isn't all that descriptive or useful.
This isn't surprising because we still have a very heavy Cold War stink on history to do with the USSR and just continue to discover we were wrong about certain aspects of that experiment or didnt quite fully understand it without heavy ideological bias.
[+] [-] pvg|1 year ago|reply
I think the wrongness of popular perception tends to go in the other direction. People often misunderstand just how badly the Soviet bloc lagged in high technology, precision manufacturing at scale, etc. This makes sense because they remember and have read about the military parity, the brief period of (very roughly) comparable middle class standard of living, etc. But Moore's law (among other things) dramatically exacerbated the technology gap - you can have, say, a steel or oil industry that's a couple of decades behind the state of the art. An IC industry that far behind is barely a meaningful IC industry at all.
[+] [-] rdtsc|1 year ago|reply
It depends on the decade and if we're are talking about the Soviet Union, keeping in mind that Warsaw Pact countries also had their own trajectories and specifics, like the article mentions. By the 1970s the Soviets themselves realized they were lagging behind, and decided to mostly "borrow" Western designs. So it isn't just us judging them from an orange forum years later, it was a judgement they came to on their own at that time. In the end they were cloning the computer systems of the West, not vice-versa. And, if we know anything about the Soviets, is they did not like to lose face. Everything from space to sports was always them showing off their superiority, so the decision to concede and start copying computer systems designed by the "evil capitalists" likely wasn't done lightly.
[+] [-] malkia|1 year ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Avenger
[+] [-] unsigner|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] paul_h|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] thriftwy|1 year ago|reply
Romania also had significant semiconductor industry and DDR too, such as Kombinat Mikroelektronik "Karl Marx" Erfurt.
I'm disappointed the article is so eager to tag late communist Bulgaria "repressive". The same myopic vision where Bulgaria can be of no significance, but also where socialist regime can manifest with nothing but repression.
1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MESM
[+] [-] pvg|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|1 year ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] gessha|1 year ago|reply
As for repressions, intellectuals getting censored, assasinated even [1].
Turkic and Roma populations getting forcibly assimilated [2].
Numerous personal accounts of asset seizure and blatant corruption among party members.
Is that repression to call it out or just enough to fall below the threshold?
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgi_Markov
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Todor_Zhivkov
[+] [-] ordu|1 year ago|reply
Oh, yes, kind of:
> “The [US] capitalists behaved like socialists while the [Soviet] socialists behaved like capitalists.” In other words, the United States’ internet precursor ARPANET was achieved through strong government support and subsidies, whereas the Soviet attempts were torpedoed by the “self-interest” of its bureaucrats and experts. The Bulgarian case is different because it did succeed—partly due to the fact that Petrov’s protagonists were able to outplay the capitalists at their own game. They copied the code and then rewrote it.
It is the end of history predicted by Karl Marx, but it had played in a different way that he thought. It played in a way Fukuyama described in retrospect. Capitalism is no longer "pure" capitalism, and communism is no longer "pure" communism. The thesis and the antithesis mated and gave rise to something in between. Or rather they morphed both, but the transformation of capitalism was more successful. Though China probably wouldn't agree with this last statement.
But looking at USA it use a lot of government funds spent on different projects with a goal to spur up progress. ARPANET is just one example, the other one is Apollo project or commercialization of space which is going on right now. And we can see in China a free market or at least market that is much more free than in USSR.
It seems it is not the end of history, it is more like an end of history. But I agree with Erik Hoel[1] it is no good in trying to apply Hegel to history, but his models are good to talk about politics.
[1] https://www.theintrinsicperspective.com/p/the-end-of-online-...
[+] [-] unknown|1 year ago|reply
[deleted]