[ih] Why the Soviet Internet Failed

[Brian E Carpenter]

Mention of the BESM-6 reminded me of the following.

In October 1981, my then boss at CERN, the late Berend Kuiper, and I spent two weeks at IHEP, the Soviet high energy physics lab in Protvino (Протвино́), 100km from Moscow. We gave them a course of lectures on distributed computer control systems. At that time we were rebuilding the control system for the CERN 28 GeV proton synchrotron, based on Norsk Data ND-10 minicomputers and a CERN homebrew network loosely inspired by ARPANET. (In the course of our visit, we were proudly shown their BESM-6, which I immediately concluded was basically a knock-off of the Manchester/Ferranti ATLAS, which I used as a grad student. But that is another discussion.)

I recall that the main difficulty we had was explaining to the IHEP engineers why managing software development on a large distributed system was an important matter (what we'd call software engineering today). They were very much in the mindset of programming as an isolated one-person job. I don't recall them showing much interest in networking, even though it was foundational for distributed control systems. Sadly, I don't have my lecture notes - at that time, they would have been hand-drawn overhead projector sheets.

Regards
    Brian Carpenter

On 11-Sep-23 02:58, Dmitry Burkov via Internet-history wrote:
> It was Elbrus B - newest version of BESM 6 (full compatible)
> 
> Dmitry
> 
> On 9/10/23 3:10 PM, Vint Cerf via Internet-history wrote:
>> I wonder whether one of the big mainframes was the BESM 6? Or maybe one of
>> the Elbrus series?
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elbrus_(computer)
>>
>> v
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Sep 10, 2023 at 7:41 AM Johan Helsingius via Internet-history <
>> internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
>>
>>> I still remember the first (and last) Soviet UNIX conference in 1990
>>> or 1991. Bill Joy from Sun was there, and Sun was donating a big batch
>>> of obsolete Sun 3 machines.
>>>
>>> In one session, a bunch of Soviet/Russian academics were debating how
>>> to port UNIX to some big Russian mainframe computer, and Bill Joy
>>> stepped up to the mic and commented "you do realize that any of those
>>> Sun 3:s will run circles around that mainframe".
>>>
>>> https://www.osti.gov/biblio/458760
>>>
>>>           Julf
>>>
>>> On 10/09/2023 11:26, Frantisek Borsik via Internet-history wrote:
>>>> I have visited Akademgorodok, so called “Soviet Silicon Valley”, a few
>>>> years ago.
>>>>
>>>> It was one of the centers of technology/Internet development in the
>>> Soviet
>>>> Union.
>>>>
>>>>
>>> https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20200625-the-ussrs-secret-siberian-democracy
>>>> https://www.britannica.com/place/Akademgorodok
>>>>
>>>> https://soviethistory.msu.edu/1956-2/akademgorodok/
>>>>
>>>>
>>> https://www.ewdn.com/category/regions-and-cities/akademgorodok-novosibirsk/
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> All the best,
>>>>
>>>> Frank
>>>> Frantisek (Frank) Borsik
>>>>
>>>> https://www.linkedin.com/in/frantisekborsik
>>>> Signal, Telegram, WhatsApp: +421919416714 <+421%20919%20416%20714>
>>>> iMessage, mobile: +420775230885 <+420%20775%20230%20885>
>>>> Skype: casioa5302ca
>>>> frantisek.borsik at gmail.com
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Sun, 10 Sep 2023 at 4:32 AM, Dave Taht via Internet-history <
>>>> internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Today I stumbled across a channel that talks about failed computer
>>> research
>>>>> results worldwide, from the 1950s through the 70s,  and this one shed
>>> light
>>>>> on why the USSR computing environment developed how it did.
>>>>> It intersects with the arpanet in 1969 about 2/3s of the way through:
>>>>>
>>>>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLOD5f-q0as
>>>>>
>>>>> ... but doesn't make it all the way to the Kremvax.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> --
>>>>> Oct 30:
>>>>> https://netdevconf.info/0x17/news/the-maestro-and-the-music-bof.html
>>>>> Dave Täht CSO, LibreQos
>>>>> --
>>>>> Internet-history mailing list
>>>>> Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
>>>>> https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
>>>>>
>>> --
>>> Internet-history mailing list
>>> Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
>>> https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
>>>
>>
>>