Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!dciem!nrcaer!cognos!roberts
From: roberts@cognos.uucp (Robert Stanley)
Newsgroups: comp.society.futures
Subject: Re: UUCP - USSR
Message-ID: <1622@cognos.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 20-Oct-87 12:03:41 EST
Article-I.D.: cognos.1622
Posted: Tue Oct 20 12:03:41 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 25-Oct-87 10:48:49 EST
References: <11217@orchid.waterloo.edu>
Reply-To: roberts@cognos.UUCP (Robert Stanley)
Distribution: world
Organization: Cognos Inc., Ottawa, Canada
Lines: 42
Summary: Russian mainframes are familiar

In article <11217@orchid.waterloo.edu> imprint@orchid.UUCP
	   (U of Waterloo Student Newspaper) writes:

>This much has been discovered however. There are comptuers
>in the USSR. The Soviets make an Apple 128 clone.

There are, indeed, computers in the USSR, and have been from the
early 60's, but the huge emphasis has been on computers for military
use.  You just can't develop and operate today's weaponry without
enormous computing resources.

>As FidoNet is continuing to show us, you don't *need* a mini
>to operate news and mail. A dedicated IBM PC can handle very
>substantial volumes. If it can be had on the streets of
>Taiwan for $500, I think the Soviets could get such hardware
>easily if they wanted.

Of course they can, but glasnost notwithstanding, the concept of a
cheap, powerful computing device in the hands of essentially anyone
who wants one is anathema to Soviet internal policies of the post-war
decades.

>I suspect whatever minis or mainframes they have are of very
>different architecture to what we are used to.

Not true, where do you think their architectures came from, and why
is there a need for advanced computers, indeed computers of nearly
every description, to be on a restricted export list from the US?

The first, and to the best of my knowledge still, the mainstay of
Soviet mainframe computing is a clone of the IBM/360 architecture.
Indeed, it is a sufficiently well reverse-engineered beast that at
one point it was running a standard IBM operating system.  Examples
of these systems are visible outside the Soviet Union, notably in
India.  The nuclear research institute near Hyderabad has an interesting
collection.

-- 
Robert Stanley           Cognos Incorporated     S-mail: P.O. Box 9707
Voice: (613) 738-1440 (Research: there are 2!)           3755 Riverside Drive 
  FAX: (613) 738-0002    Compuserve: 76174,3024          Ottawa, Ontario 
 uucp: decvax!utzoo!dciem!nrcaer!cognos!roberts          CANADA  K1G 3Z4