[ih] How the Soviet Union Sent Its First Man to the Internet in 1982

[Vint Cerf]

Dmitry, this is very helpful - I knew about some of this work but not all
of it by any means. I recall there was a huge flap about 1983 when it was
learned that the Russians had access to ARPANET via IIASA and the X.25
system - it was about that time that I was promoting TCP/IP over X.25 for
commercial access to the nascent Internet :-)

thanks so much for preparing and sharing.

vint


On Wed, Dec 30, 2015 at 2:40 AM, Dmitry Burkov <dburk at burkov.aha.ru> wrote:

> We did a small contribution to Asia Internet History book
>
>
> https://sites.google.com/site/annexinternethistory/home/1append-Russia.docx?attredirects=0&d=1
>
> which covered this period too..
>
>
> Dmitry Burkov
>
> On Dec 30, 2015, at 3:56 AM, Vint Cerf <vint at google.com> wrote:
>
> who ever wrote this must not have done any homework. Internet was not
> turned on until Jan 1983. This sounds like simply a direct modem link to a
> server in Stockholm.
>
> v
>
>
> On Tue, Dec 29, 2015 at 5:24 PM, Joly MacFie <joly at punkcast.com> wrote:
>
>>
>> https://globalvoices.org/2015/12/29/how-the-soviet-union-sent-its-first-man-to-the-internet-in-1982/
>>
>> (excerpt)
>>
>> The terminal used by Klyosov to join the conference was a Soviet ES-EVM
>> computer <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ES_EVM>(designed from blueprints
>> stolen from IBM). It was connected to the only modem supposed to officially
>> exist in all of the USSR: an antediluvian 360 baud/s device. In comparison,
>> this device had a capacity 22 times less than the old 56k modems that were
>> widely used in the early 2000s: the text display rate on the 360 baud/s
>> modem was of one letter per second.
>> This precious modem was protected by a security presence so impressive
>> that Klyosov later wrote he had not seen such since his childhood, when he
>> lived with his parents on the Kapustin Yar missile test polygon
>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kapustin_Yar> under Stalin.
>> [image: An EVM ES-1033 computer with control panel. These were developed
>> in the USSR in the 1970s-1980s. Image courtesy of computer-museum.ru.]
>> An EVM ES-1033 computer with control panel. These were developed in the
>> USSR in the 1970s-1980s. Image courtesy of computer-museum.ru.
>>
>> Surrounded by many soldiers, the computer room itself was empty. So when
>> Klyosov logged in for the first time, he was alone when these words
>> appeared on the screen: “You are connected to the University of Stockholm
>> server. Welcome.”
>>
>> Once logged in, Klyosov was free to talk and exchange any information he
>> wanted, without any state control. Neither the fact that the computer room
>> was surrounded by military guards, nor the fact that Klyosov was forbidden
>> from going abroad had any influence. We can imagine how the situation
>> created by this single connected Soviet computer and its only user might
>> seem paradoxical. Just remember that the Soviet Union in the early 1980s
>> remained a heavily cloistered state, with the authorities attempting at all
>> costs to stop the transfer to the West of any kind of “dissident” cultural
>> products (samizdat publications among them). In such a context, Klyosov’s
>> case was truly exceptional.
>>
>> --
>> ---------------------------------------------------------------
>> Joly MacFie  218 565 9365 Skype:punkcast
>> --------------------------------------------------------------
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