Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!imspw6!bob
From: bob@imspw6.UUCP (Bob Burch)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: What to send and what not to send to the CCCP
Message-ID: <215@imspw6.UUCP>
Date: 22 Jan 89 15:18:52 GMT
Organization: IMS Inc., Rockville, MD
Lines: 49


From: William A. Bralick, Air Force Institute of Technology
 
>Let us say that the government makes it illegal for an American to
>supply high technology products (e.g. M68020 processors, Ada compilers,
>whatever) to the Soviet Union.  It is now incumbent on American
>citizens to avoid transferring high technology to the USSR.  If one
>chooses to supply such technology to the Soviets, then one can be
>prosecuted for violating the export control restrictions.
 
It strikes me funny that the one thing which IS legal to send to our brethren
back in the CCCP is the common little 12 mh AT clone, demonstrably the
best computer which has ever existed for at least 90% of all uses.  If I
really wanted to f___ the Soviet Union over and set them back 30 years in
computer science, AT clones are the LAST thing I'd send them.  I WOULD
send them UNIVAC and IBM mainframes, especially the UNIVAC 1180 models,
VAXs, Wang minis......   multi-user computers are like communism in a way
in as much as they promote large-scale neglect of human nature;  in 20
years of working with computers, I have never yet seen anybody smile on
account of using a multi-user computer.  Has anybody ever seen the boss
hire five more people and then go out and purchase five more quantums of
compute power for his VAX or 1100???  Hell no, he goes out and buys five
more terminals, it's the American way..... or is it the Russian way??
 
There is nothing I can think of which would cause me to hate Russians
sufficiently to want to export Ada technology to them.  On the other hand,
if Mr. Khrudaffi is looking for a new programming language for his nerve
gas factory computers.......
 
>How about comp.gulag, or comp.totalitarian?
 
How about simply comp.CCCP
 
There are only a handful of reasons which have ever made sense for hating
other nations or wishing to fight wars with them, and several of those
have fallen by the wayside in this century.  Religion (communism vs
capitalism) and real-estate (e.g. the West bank of the Jordan) may still
make sense, but the Russians are fast giving up on communism and they have
more land than they'll ever know what to do with.  The Russians are simply
the wrong enemy for our times.
 
Ted Holden
HTE
 
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"Johnson!!, you're the idiot who bought those PS/2s and that system
36 over there?!?!?!?!?..... YOU'RE FIRED!!!!!!!"

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