Soviet computers: brands, characteristics. Home computer

The Soviet Union has gone through a very difficult path from the creation of the first cumbersome and slow tube computers to supercomputers - high-speed ones based on integrated microcircuits. Soviet computers still took place, and specialists from different fields of industry, science, and not just programmers could work on them. The need for convenient, inexpensive and compact computers arose by the middle of the seventies of the last century. They needed the military industry and many other spheres of the country's economy.

Micro-computer "Electronics"

Soviet computers had their predecessors. These computers, created in the sixties, are simple to use and quite compact machines from the "Mir" series. They were used mainly for engineering calculations. By the middle of the seventies, microprocessors appeared, and this allowed the launch of the "Electronics of NC" and "Electronics S5" - universal microcomputers. They were already close to personal computers in many ways, but the first Soviet computers were used only in production - they controlled technological processes, equipment, and so on.

In the late seventies on an industrial scale began the production of desktop 16-bit computers - quite powerful and compact. These are models such as "Electronics T3-29" and "Iskra 1256", intended for the military, as well as models simpler - "Spark 226", "Electronics DZ-28" and others. In the early eighties on the basis of single-board sixteen-bit micro-computers and standard terminals, analogues of interactive computing complexes - DVK were produced.

Mid-eighties

In the USSR, mass production of such general-purpose computers as the EU-1840, Electronics-85, DVK-3, BK-0010, Agat, and Mikrosh begins. The computer is undergoing rapid development in our country, and this process continues until the collapse of the Soviet Union. By the beginning of the nineties, many dozens of models were produced.

Soviet computers were of various classes and architectures, including IBM-compatible ones, and without analogues among any Soviet and foreign personal computers. For example, "Corvette" - a completely unique computer, as well as "Lvov PK-01", "Vector-06C" and some others. Since then, for a short time in the history of domestic computer industry, there have been many important events, which it is better to talk about in order.

Kiev

Let us look into the past. The year 1948, the town of Feofaniya, not far from the capital of the Ukrainian SSR, is a secret laboratory where Sergei Alexandrovich Lebedev is the director of the Institute of Electrical Engineering and the head of this laboratory at the Institute of Computing Machinery and Precision Mechanics of the Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. It is there that at the moment a small electronic counting machine (MESM) is being created. It was Lebedev who put forward, substantiated and implemented, regardless of Neumann, the basic principles of the operation of a computer with a program stored in memory.

The first machine he created had memory, arithmetic devices, as well as input, output, and control devices. She knew how to code and store programs in memory, like numbers. It used a binary number system to encode commands and numbers, and automatically performed calculations. In it there were both arithmetic and logical programs. She had a memory construction hierarchy. It was easy to use numerical methods on it to implement the calculations. The project, installation and debugging were done in two years by a team of seventeen people - five technicians and twelve research staff. Samples took place in November 1950, and in 1951 regular operation began. This is how Soviet computers began.

More Kiev

1965 - the year of creation of the machine for engineering calculations of the computer "MIR", the developers of which were scientists from the Kiev Institute of Cybernetics - Glushkov, Blagoveshchensky, Losev, Leticin, Pogrebinsky, Molchanov, Rabinovich, Stogniy. At the same time for this machine was implemented at the micro-command level programming language - ALMIR-65. The computer was able to produce about a thousand operations per second, enter and display data using an electric typewriter, store RAM on ferrite cores, and external - on punched tapes.

In 1969 the personal computer "MIR-2", created in Kiev, was launched. It turned out an improved model, it operated more than ten times faster than the previous ones. Both permanent and operational memory were increased. Now, besides a punched tape and a typewriter, a vector graphic display with a light pen and magnetic cards were connected to the computer. The programming language was the analyst - you can say, the "grandson" ALMIRY-65.

Microprocessors

In 1974, the first Soviet microprocessors were released - sectional models with microprogram control and four- or eight-bit section capacity. For the K532 series, for example, it was characterized by low power consumption, a wide range of supply voltages and speeds of up to two hundred and fifty thousand operations per second.

And the K536 series was notable for its low-cost technology, as it was not too high in power consumption, but not so fast. Sixteen-bit micro-computers ("Electronics NC") were immediately produced on the basis of the K532 set, and K536 became the basis for serial releases of the first Soviet universal microcomputer "Electronics S5", also 16-bit.

Sectional

It was the first Soviet computer! Sectional microprocessors were considered promising, because they allowed them to create a computer of any digit capacity from eight to thirty-two. At the same time, any command system was implemented through microprogram control.

But later, by the end of the eighties, microelectronics was rapidly developing its capabilities, and the Soviet computer industry was reoriented to analogues of foreign computers. Universal sectional processors were replaced by single-chip models. However, for a long time sectioners were used, especially in the military industry.

The Soviet computers

In 1977, the eight-bit single-chip microprocessor K580VM80A was manufactured, which was a complete analog of the well-known Intel 8080. This processor was not intended for use in a general-purpose computer; it was used in control microcomputers, microcontrollers, peripherals and measuring equipment-many applications. However, it was cheap and simple, and therefore not a single Soviet reader of the magazine "Radio" designed on its basis a home computer.

The performance was high, the command system was universal, and this microprocessor became one of the most widely used in the USSR. In addition to a personal computer, many other microprocessor devices were suitable for him, so in the second half of the eighties of the last century this processor was used almost in hundreds of models of Soviet machines - this is a home computer, and educational, and not one professional model.

"Electronics-60"

In 1978, a sixteen-digit micro-computer was born, a high-speed "Electronics-60". According to the command system, "Electronics-60" was compatible with DEC PDP-11 / LSI-11 - an American computer. Performance - up to a million operations per second. Such machines were used in production, controlled technological processes, installed in CNC machines and, most importantly, worked long and honestly in science and the military industry.

In 1983, the magazine with a million copies of "Radio" published a diagram of the amateur computer "Micro-80" with the K580IK80A processor, which served as the first step towards the mass enthusiasm of radio amateurs with microprocessor and computer equipment. At that time, Soviet personal computers were able to work with any tape recorder to store data and programs and with any TV that served as a monitor.

Interesting fact

It was with the help of "Electronics-60" in 1984, Alexei Pajitnov was written by everyone's favorite game "Tetris." Engaged in the computing center of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR by speech recognition and other problems of artificial intelligence, he often used puzzles to break into one's ideas.

Later this game was rewritten for the IBM PC in the programming language Turbo Pascal, and it was made by a sixteen-year-old Soviet schoolboy - Vadim Gerasimov, now living in Australia and working for Google.

The first cabinet of informatics

In the eighties, a batch of simple, that is, affordable, universal personal computers for home and educational use was developed and released. It was, of course, sixteen-bit "Electronics BK-0010", where the abbreviation of the BK was a household computer. At that time there was no personal computer in the world on 16-bit processors.

What is special about it? Specialized ICs with a large degree of integration are valve matrices that served as controllers for the display, keyboard, memory, and much more. The interpreter of the language "Focal" was used. Monochrome graphics with high resolution or four-color were supported. It was these machines that equipped the first cabinet of computer science, and their descendants until 1993 served as the main household and educational computers in the Soviet Union.

Akademgorodok

Novosibirsk schoolchildren were involved in the work of the computer center of the Siberian branch of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, and with their direct participation a software system for schools appeared, and was called "Schoolgirl" for the personal computer "Agat". She worked with programming languages "Rapier" and "Robik", it included a graphic system "Sword" and a lot of various packages of training programs.

"Agate" - the brainchild of 1984, is considered the first serial personal computer compatible with Apple II + and was a serious PC with a memory of one hundred and twenty-eight kilobytes, with floppy drives and a color monitor displaying sixteen colors. It was in 1984 the plenum of the CPSU Central Committee adopted a resolution, after which the computerization of school education began.

The Turning Year

In 1985, the whole country felt that it was not a break-up, or perestroika, and this could not but touch the computer sphere. Many iconic models of Soviet computers were developed just then. Developed quite successfully progressive sixteen-bit "Electronics", new models of DCK, appeared compatible with IBM Soviet computers. Especially typical for this time is the three-processor Istra-4816 - up to four megabytes of RAM, as well as a pocket sixteen-digit micro calculator "Electronics MK-85."

But the work on the PC, for which the simplest 8-bit processors served as the basis, did not stop. So there were models "Specialist", "Ocean-240", "Irisha". Computers were eight-bit. Does this mean that they are bad? No. Among the eight-bit models were just wonderful, despite the fact that the processor is slightly outdated. For example, "Corvette" - the computer is simply superb.

"Microsha" and others

A computer of the most colorful and vociferous among Soviet home personal computers is an eight-bit "Vector-06C". Again, the magazine "Radio" for 1986 published several microcomputer schemes "Radio-86RK", and this model was so simple that it instantly gained immense popularity. There were analogues and variants, among which there were several such that were awarded the industrial release. For example, "Microsha" is a computer with a gentle name. "Radio 86RK" was well combined with "Micro-80", from here it appeared.

One of the main PCs for learning is Corvette. The computer was very complex and multifunctional, despite its eight-bitness. RAM is small - only 257 KB, but for those times it was a smart figure. In addition, color graphics with a resolution quite high - 512x256 pixels, hardware acceleration, text video controller, sound generator - analog IBM PC, LAN, mouse, joysticks, printer, disk drives - all this and much more was originally envisaged. Equally good was the amateur "Orion-128", also eight-digit, created by a suburban amateur radio Vyacheslav Safronov and his friends. In 1990, their development published the journal "Radio".

The last splash

The mid-eighties was marked by an extraordinary rise in the domestic computer industry, there was a huge number of beautiful original ideas. It seemed like a breakthrough! But it was not there. Gorbachev's rapprochement between the USSR and the world economy did not lead the country to its heyday. Paradox - the opposite happened. The domestic computer and electronic industry has lost all its progressive achievements.

There was a massive transition to the release of long-obsolete and simplest models - Spectrum-compatible. However, the simplest models, compatible with IBM, were also produced. But purely Soviet developments stopped altogether by 1992. All manufacturers have moved to a single world standard - the release of exclusively compatible with IBM personal computers.

conclusions

On the domestic computer technology in recent decades, it is customary to speak out negatively. Only about the vices of socialism and its planned economy, under which we "lagged behind forever", and about the fact that in the West technology has always been better, and Russian - krivorukie and computers can not do.

But all, literally all of the above brands of Soviet computers were not at all the best developments. They were just common. In fact, electronics in the USSR developed quite at the world level and in many respects outstripped the same industry in the West, which our military and space programs can testify.