FROM THE HISTORY OF COMPUTER DEVELOPMENT IN RUSSIA

As it is well known, Russian scientists made great contribu­tion into the development of computers. Russian mathemati­cian P. Chebyshev who lived in the 19th century was interested in calculators. Among many other mechanisms invented by him there was an arithmometer designed in 1876. It was one of the most unique calculating machines of the time. At the beginning of the 20th century Academic A.Krylov constructed a mechan­ical integrator for solving differential equations.

The first Soviet computer, a small-size computing machine (MESM) was tested in 1950 under Academician S.Lebedev. Next year it was put into operation. In a year MESM was fol­lowed by BESM, a large-size electronic computing machine, with 8000 opera­tions per second.

Serial production of computers in the USSR has been started since 1953. That year U.Basilevsky headed the design and man­ufacture of computer STRELA. 1958 witnessed the production of Ы-.20, computers of the first gen­eration under the guidance of S.Lebedev. The first gen­eration of electron tube computers was followed by the second generation of foto transistor computers, using magnetic logic ele­ments.

Starting with 1964 semi­conductor computers —

Английский язык. Основы компьютерной грамотности 68

URAL, BESM-4 and M-220 were produced. Under Academi­cian Glushkov small-size computers MIR, MIR-2 and DNEPR were designed and tested at the Institute of Cybernetics.

In the late 60s together with other members of the Council of Mutual Economic Assistance the Soviet Union started on the program of Unified Computer System, the program concerned with the third generation of computers with high-speed perfor­mance and program compatibility