Who created the first personal computer. Made in USSR

From "Apple") creates a personal computer and receives a patent for it!

Did you know that the world's first personal computer was created, by no means, by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak in the Palo Alto garage, but by a simple Soviet designer Arseniy Anatolyevich Gorokhov at the Omsk Research Institute of Aviation Technologies?

Let's rewind time.

1950s. Computers are huge, bulky, expensive. The Soviet "Whirlwind" of 1951, the first machine with data output to the screen, has only 512 bytes occupies a two-storey building. American peer - Univac- has a magnetic metal tape drive, a high-speed printer, but weighs 13 tons and is worth about $1.5 million. Bendix G-15, released in 1956, is called a mini-computer - it actually weighs 450 kg and costs at least $50,000. Not a single car can be called personal.

1960s. Computers are getting faster, more powerful, smaller. The first commercial computer equipped with a keyboard and monitor is released in the USA - "PDP-1". The dimensions of the new apparatus are from three refrigerators, the price is ten times lower than the cost of an ordinary large computer. A big step forward, but not enough for the widespread introduction of technology. Total only 50 copies sold.

The first "home" computer claims to be Honeywell Kitchen Computer introduced to the US in 1969. He weighed about 65 kg, cost 10600$ , was a pedestal with a built-in cutting board, a panel of light bulbs and buttons. Performed only one function - the storage of various recipes. Working with the "kitchen computer" required a two-week course, because the recipes were displayed on the screen in binary code. Those wishing to purchase such an expensive "cookbook" were not found.

1970s. With the creation of the first microprocessor, the era of personal computers begins. Inventors compete to build their own models. American entrepreneur Edward Roberts is the first to understand the potential of the 8-bit microprocessor. Intel 8080, released in 1974, and creates a microcomputer based on it "Altair 8800". Thanks to a deal with Intel for the wholesale purchase of microprocessors ($75 apiece, with a retail price of $360), Roberts sets a record price for his invention - only 397 "bucks"! Advertising on the cover of a respected magazine "Popular Electronics" behind 1975 the year is doing its job. In the first month, developers sell several thousand copies "Altair 8800". However, the received order becomes a surprise for buyers: the kit consists of a set of parts and a box for the case. Users have to solder, test, create programs in machine language themselves. (Which, of course, is also not bad, because it is on "Altair 8800" founders Microsoft Bill Gates and Paul Allen test their famous program - Basic).

Be that as it may, Roberts' computer is a godsend for inventors, and "mere mortals" are still left without technology. To help them in 1976 come Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs who decide to sell their "Apple I" , assembled for personal use in a Palo Alto (California) garage. The cost of a new computer is 666,66$ . The main advantage is that, unlike "Altair 8800" and many other machines of that time, "Apple I" offered already collected. All you need is a case, keyboard and monitor to work. But they will also be included in the kit 2 years later, in the serial production of color, sound "Apple II". Such is the history of the personal computer.

Stop, stop, stop... But what about the Soviet scientist and the Aviation Technology Research Institute?!

Oh yes! Completely forgot. There are in the history of personal computers and dark page.

Here is how it was. far away 1968 year, 8 years before the first "apple", Soviet electrical engineer Arseny Anatolyevich Gorokhov invented the car under the name "Device for setting the program for reproducing the contour of a part." So, in any case, it is indicated in the patent, copyright certificate № 383005 , dated May 18, 1968. The name is not accidental, because the developed apparatus was intended, first of all, to create complex engineering drawings. The inventor himself prefers to call the device a “programmable intellectual device”.

According to the drawings, the "intellector" had a monitor, a separate system unit with a hard drive, a device for solving autonomous problems and personal communication with a computer, a motherboard, memory, a video card, and other things, with the exception of a computer mouse.

Omsk electrical engineer Arseny Gorokhov 45 years ago invented a device that is now called a Personal Computer

According to the Internet site "Omsk Time", it is, alas, impossible to see the world's first personal computer today, the institution where it was created - the "mailbox" of the Omsk Research Institute of Aviation Technologies, has been closed for several years. The author of the invention has patent, with description "Programmable intellectual device" and an entry in the Russian book of records DIVO: 45 years ago, in 1968, the Omsk electrical engineer Arseniy Gorokhov invented a device that is now called the Personal Computer.

Now Gorokhov uses his personal personal computer mainly as a typewriter. According to him, it was new 5 years ago, and to make an “upgrade”, that is, to modernize, is expensive, the pension will not be enough.

The components of a modern computer - a monitor, a system unit, a keyboard - were also in Gorokhov's "intellector", however, under other names. The device was intended, first of all, to create complex engineering drawings. Gorokhov also developed his own "software" - a way of dialogue with the machine without thick packs of punched cards and a team of programmers. But further All-Union patent things didn’t work out - the “green light” for the invention was not turned on, and in 1975 they learned that the term “personal computer” was given to the world by the American company Apple.

40 certificates of authorship and patents of Arseny Gorokhov for three decades - only moral satisfaction from work. Traces of the material remained in the patent statements - 20 rubles for each not included in the series. If the novelty was still allowed to break into the "series", the author received 1000 times more. That's just to recognize the mysterious "law of luck" the inventor did not always succeed. And Gorokhov now considers probable profits on the contrary, not "how much they got, but how much they could not."

“Not oil is the future of Russia, but inventors”- the leitmotif of the next article by Gorokhov "The system of accelerated development of inventions", published in the last, 12th, issue of 2003 of the journal " Intellectual property". It is a pity that in Russia there is no practice, as in the USA, where the President meets twice a year with the head of the Patent Office. Increasingly, instead of a sense of pride, one has to use irony, the author says. Prospects are slipping away.

Now on the desktop of the inventor - the new kind periodic table, and a blank for spatial television. But those who are interested in the idea, except for the rare guests-journalists, have not been, and are not.

About the invention cell phone article "Mystery of the cell" ...

It is already impossible to imagine today's life without a computer, so tightly it has entered the fields of activity. The computer is used by both students in the first grade and developers of new technologies, it helps to optimize the workflow and stores a huge amount of information, although it looks like a compact device. Computer technology has helped facilitate the processing of data and protect personal information from public access.

True, with such significant advantages of computers, there is something that worries people extremely, mainly for parents. The emergence of computer games, especially those with improved graphics, is addictive in children, most often of school age. In this case, parents are forced to literally "wage war" with the computer or even completely abandon it, returning the child to the real world.

But computers did not always differ in the speed of information processing, high-quality graphics and compact dimensions. So let's remember what the first computer looked like when the PC was invented, and what the first computer game was like.

The first computer in the world

The very first programmable computer was introduced to the world on February 14, 1946 in the United States of America - ENIAC. It weighed 30 tons and contained 18,000 vacuum tubes. True, the speed of the machine was only 5,000 operations per second. In total, this computer model worked for 9 years.

Of course, before 1946, work was underway to create computers, and even suitable options were presented, but they were not brought to practical use.

For example, in 1912, the Russian scientist A. Krylov developed a machine for solving differential equations.

Then, in 1927, the first analog computer was invented in the USA, and in 1938, the German engineer Konrad Zuse created a programmable mechanical digital model of the Z1 computer, but it was a trial one and underwent a number of upgrades. Already in 1941, a 3rd version of the machine appeared - Z3, which more than others resembled a modern computer, but still required improvements.

In 1942, the United States also continued to create an electronic digital computer ABC, but the model was not completed, because the developer John Atanasoff was drafted into the army. The unfinished model was studied by John Mauchly and set about creating his own computer - ENIAC, and in 1946 the scientist completed many years of work. Mauchly's ENIAC was a computer that performed tasks assigned to a computer and had a binary system of calculation, on which modern computers are also built.

The first computer was developed for solving problems in war conditions and was used by the United States Army. The main goal was to automate calculations during bombing by artillery and aircraft. And if earlier numerous departments were created for calculations using slide rulers, then with the creation of computers, the need for calculations in such a slow and complicated way disappeared.

The history of the creation of a personal computer (PC)

Of course, the creation of computers was the first impetus for the creation of personal computers, but still each of them had an individual direction in development.

As already noted, computers were created primarily for the needs of the army, besides, their prices were too high ($ 4000-5000), and the dimensions of the computers were too large. Therefore, the idea of creating a personal computer appeared pretty soon. Already in 1968, the Soviet engineer A. A. Gorokhov thought about creating a “Programmable Intellector Device”, which contained a motherboard, video card, input device and memory. However, Gorokhov did not receive funding, and the project remained only on the drawings.

It turned out to be difficult to determine the exact date of the appearance of the PC in practice, since not only scientists, but also amateurs sought to create it after microcircuits and microprocessors appeared in the public domain in the 70s of the XX century. But it is reliably known that in 1975 the first serial PC, the Altair 8800, was introduced to the world. True, outwardly it was a designer of separate blocks and circuits, but nevertheless, according to its characteristics, experts attribute it to a personal computer.

In 1976, a PC was released, aimed at mass sale and use - Apple I. Only the monitor was not included with the new personal computer, otherwise all the components of the modern model were already present in the Apple computer. Already in 1977, this shortcoming was eliminated, and the company began to produce models with its own monitors.

In 1981, another computer company, IBM, introduced a new PC model, the IBM 5150, and the first personal computer in the Soviet Union, the NTs-8010, also appeared that year. But none of these models included a computer mouse. It appeared only as part of a new PC, which was developed by Apple in 1983 - Apple Lisa.

True, this model was so expensive that it was not widely used. Given the previous failure, in 1984 Apple released an improved Macintosh model, which became so successful that its device was taken as the basis of the modern personal computer.

The world's first computer game

The first computer game appeared in 1962, the developers were programmers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the idea belonged to Steve Russell and Martin Gretz, who, upon meeting, agreed on the basis of science fiction. The game was created in their free time, at first the program itself was written by programmers, and then it was implemented within a month.

As a result, the first computer game was created, called Spacewar. It was a battle of 2 spaceships that fired missiles at each other. The game was created on the basis of the PDP-1 processor, which performed 100,000 operations per second and had 9 KB of RAM.

The first computer game "Spaceawars"

The game was played as follows: a map was displayed on the display, representing the starry sky, on which warships were located. Opponents controlled them using the keyboard and joysticks. The number of missiles for firing was clearly limited, and it was possible to maneuver away from the enemy in only 2 ways - spinning around the stars, moving away from the shot or making a hyperjump - during it, the ship disappeared from the battlefield for a second and suddenly appeared at another point on the map.

Steve Russell and Martin Graetz play "Spaceawars"

Although Spaceawars was also the first commercial game, it did not bring income to the creators, though it gave fame and honor in narrow circles of programmers. But subsequent similar computer games have already become popular and bring great profits to the creators. By the way, one of the versions of Spacewar is still housed in the collection of the Computer Museum History Center in California.

Today, research shows that computer games, when properly selected and used correctly, even have a positive effect on the development of children. Developers pay attention to games aimed at development logical thinking and coordination, and winning in such games develops self-confidence in the child in the future.

But as already noted, not all computer games lead to the development of strong qualities in a child, and excessive enthusiasm definitely negatively affects both health and the psyche. Of course, it’s wrong to completely abandon games, but it’s worth stocking up alternative ways attracting the attention of children in order to interest them in the outside world.

The first computer, the first personal computer and even the first computer game were photographed and survived to this day, they are easy to find on the Internet in the public domain. A large number of interesting and informative films have also been made on this topic, for example, the film from Discovery, which is posted on the YouTube channel.

The computer era has come into our lives relatively recently. Literally 100 years ago, people did not know what a computer was, although its most distant predecessor, an abacus, appeared in ancient Babylon 3000 BC.

The first person to invent the first digital computing machine was Blaise Pascal in 1642. This discovery started it all...

IN geometric progression, mankind aspired to the computer era, created more and more computers that performed more and more complex functions. And in 1938, the first test mechanical programmable machine Z1 was created, on the basis of which in 1941 the same person creates the first Z3 computer, which has all the properties of a modern computer. The person who created this first mechanical computer was the German engineer Konrad Zuse.

Who invented the first electronic computer?

In 1942, American physicist John Atanasoff and his graduate student Clifford Berry designed and began to assemble the first electronic computer. The work was not completed, but had a great influence on the creator of the first electronic computer ENIAC. The person who invented the ENIAC computer, the first digital electronic computer, was John Mauchly, an American physicist and engineer. John Mauchly summarized the basic principles of building a computer based on the experience of developing machines and in 1946 the real electronic computer ENIAC appeared to the world. The head of the development was John von Neumann, and the principles and structure of computers he outlined later became known as von Neumann.

So the questions about what year the computer was created, where the first computer was created and who created the first computer can be answered in different ways. If we are talking about a mechanical computer, then Konrad Zuse can be considered the creator of the first computer, and Germany can be considered the country in which the first computer was invented. If we consider the first computer to be ENIAC, then, accordingly, John Mauchly created the first computer in the United States.

The first computers were still far from those that we now use - personal computers. The first computers were huge, often occupied large areas, the size of a three-room apartment and weighed up to 28 tons! Personal computers (PCs) appeared much later.

The creation of the first personal computers became possible only in the 1970s. Some people began to assemble computers at home for the sake of research interest, since there were practically no useful applications for computers at home. And in 1975, the first personal computer Altair 8800 appeared, which became the first commercially successful PC. The creator of the first personal computer was the American engineer Henry Edward Roberts, who was also the founder and president of Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems, which launched the first PC. Altair 8800 was the "chief" of the population's computerization boom.

And those scientists, engineers and physicists, all those who invented the computer, who created the first personal computer and who made at least some contribution to information technology, transferred all of us to a new, modern and incredibly promising life stage. Thanks to these talented people.

The first Soviet electronic computer was designed and put into operation near the city of Kyiv. The name of Sergei Lebedev (1902-1974) is associated with the advent of the first computer in the Union and on the territory of continental Europe. In 1997, the scientific world community recognized him as a pioneer of computing, and in the same year, the International Computer Society issued a medal with the inscription: “S.A. Lebedev - developer and designer of the first computer in the Soviet Union. The founder of the Soviet computer industry. In total, with the direct participation of the academician, 18 electronic computers were created, 15 of which grew into mass production.

Sergei Alekseevich Lebedev - the founder of computer technology in the USSR

In 1944, after being appointed director of the Energy Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR, the academician and his family moved to Kyiv. Before the creation of a revolutionary development, there are still four long years left. This institute specialized in two areas: electrical and thermal engineering. By a strong-willed decision, the director separates two not quite compatible scientific directions and heads the Institute of Electronics. The laboratory of the Institute moves to the outskirts of Kyiv (Feofaniya, a former monastery). It is there that Professor Lebedev's long-standing dream comes true - to create an electronic digital calculating machine.

The first computer of the USSR

In 1948, the model of the first domestic computer was assembled. The device occupied almost the entire space of the room with an area of 60 m 2 . There were so many elements in the structure (especially heating elements) that when the machine was first started, so much heat was released that even part of the roof had to be dismantled. The first model of the Soviet computer was simply called the Small Electronic Computing Machine (MESM). She could perform up to three thousand computational operations per minute, which was sky-high by the standards of that time. In MESM, the principle of an electronic tube system was applied, which has already been tested by Western colleagues (Colossus Mark 1, 1943, ENIAC, 1946).

In total, about 6 thousand different vacuum tubes were used in the MESM, the device required a power of 25 kW. Programming took place by entering data from punched tapes or as a result of typing codes on a plug-in switch. Data output was carried out by means of an electromechanical printer or by photographing.

MESM parameters:

binary with a fixed point before the most significant digit counting system;
17 digits (16 plus one per sign);
RAM capacity: 31 for numbers and 63 for commands;
functional unit capacity: similar to RAM;
three-address command system;
calculations performed: four simple operations (addition, subtraction, division, multiplication), comparison with sign, shift, comparison by absolute value, addition of commands, transfer of control, transfer of numbers from a magnetic drum, etc.;
type of ROM: trigger cells with the option of using a magnetic drum;
data entry system: serial with control through the programming system;
monoblock universal arithmetic device of parallel action on trigger cells.

Despite the maximum possible offline work MESM, the definition and elimination of problems still occurred manually or through semi-automatic regulation. During the tests, the computer was asked to solve several problems, after which the developers concluded that the machine is capable of performing calculations beyond the control of the human mind. A public demonstration of the capabilities of a small electronic calculating machine took place in 1951. From that moment on, the device is considered to be the first Soviet electronic computer put into operation. Only 12 engineers, 15 technicians and assemblers worked on the creation of MESM under the leadership of Lebedev.

Despite a number of significant limitations, the first computer made in the USSR worked in accordance with the requirements of its time. For this reason, Academician Lebedev's machine was entrusted with carrying out calculations to solve scientific, technical and national economic problems. The experience gained during the development of the machine was used to create the BESM, and the MESM itself was considered as an operating model on which the principles of building a mainframe computer were worked out. Academician Lebedev's first "pancake" on the way to the development of programming and the development of a wide range of issues in computational mathematics did not turn out to be lumpy. The machine was used both for current tasks and was considered a prototype of more advanced devices.

Lebedev's success was highly appreciated in the highest echelons of power, and in 1952 the academician was appointed to the leading position of the institute in Moscow. A small electronic calculating machine, produced in a single copy, was used until 1957, after which the device was dismantled, disassembled into components and placed in the laboratories of the Polytechnic Institute in Kyiv, where parts of the MESM served students in laboratory research.

Computer series "M"

While Academician Lebedev was working on an electronic computing device in Kyiv, a separate group of electrical engineers was being formed in Moscow. Employees of the Krzhizhanovsky Energy Institute Isaac Brook (electrical engineer) and Bashir Rameev (inventor) in 1948 file an application for registration of their own computer project with the patent office. In the early 50s, Rameev became the head of a separate laboratory, where this device was intended to appear. Literally in one year, the developers assemble the first prototype of the M-1 machine. In all technical parameters, it was a device much inferior to MESM: only 20 operations per second, while Lebedev's machine showed a result of 50 operations. An integral advantage of the M-1 was its size and power consumption. Only 730 electric lamps were used in the design, they required 8 kW, and the entire apparatus occupied only 5 m 2.

In 1952, the M-2 appeared, the productivity of which increased a hundred times, and the number of lamps only doubled. This was achieved through the use of control semiconductor diodes. But innovations required more energy (M-2 consumed 29 kW), and the construction took up four times more space than its predecessor (22 m 2). The counting capabilities of this device were quite enough to implement a number of computational operations, but mass production did not begin.

"Baby" computer M-2

Model M-3 again became a "baby": 774 electron tubes, consuming energy in the amount of 10 kW, area - 3 m 2. Accordingly, the computational capabilities have also decreased: 30 operations per second. But this was quite enough to solve many applied problems, so the M-3 was produced in a small batch, 16 pieces.

In 1960, the developers brought the machine's performance up to 1000 operations per second. This technology was borrowed further for electronic computers "Aragats", "Razdan", "Minsk" (produced in Yerevan and Minsk). These projects, implemented in parallel with the leading Moscow and Kiev programs, showed serious results later, during the transition of computers to transistors.

"Arrow"

Under the leadership of Yuri Bazilevsky, the Strela computer is being created in Moscow. The first sample of the device was completed in 1953. "Arrow" (like M-1) contained a memory on cathode ray tubes (MESM used trigger cells). The project of this computer model was so successful that mass production of this type of product began at the Moscow plant of calculating and analytical machines. In just three years, seven copies of the device were assembled: for use in the laboratories of Moscow State University, as well as in the computer centers of the USSR Academy of Sciences and a number of ministries.

Computer "Strela"

"Arrow" performed 2 thousand operations per second. But the device was very massive and consumed 150 kW of energy. The design used 6.2 thousand lamps and more than 60 thousand diodes. "Makhina" occupied an area of 300 m 2.

BESM

After being transferred to Moscow (in 1952), to the Institute of Precision Mechanics and Computer Engineering, Academician Lebedev set to work on the production of a new electronic computing device - the Large Electronic Computing Machine, BESM. Note that the principle of building a new computer was largely borrowed from the early development of Lebedev. The implementation of this project was the beginning of the most successful series of Soviet computers.

BESM has already carried out up to 10,000 calculations per second. In this case, only 5000 lamps were used, and the power consumption was 35 kW. BESM was the first Soviet "wide profile" computer - it was originally supposed to be provided to scientists and engineers for carrying out calculations of varying complexity.

The BESM-2 model was developed for serial production. The number of operations per second was increased to 20 thousand. After testing CRT and mercury tubes, in this model, RAM was already on ferrite cores (the main type of RAM for the next 20 years). Serial production, which began at the Volodarsky plant in 1958, showed results in 67 units of equipment. BESM-2 marked the beginning of the development of military computers that controlled air defense systems: M-40 and M-50. As part of these modifications, the first Soviet computer of the second generation, 5E92b, was assembled, and the further fate of the BESM series was already connected with transistors.

The transition to transistors in Soviet cybernetics went smoothly. There are no particularly unique developments in this period of domestic computer building. Basically, old computer systems were re-equipped for new technologies.

Large electronic calculating machine (BESM)

The all-semiconductor computer 5E92b, designed by Lebedev and Burtsev, was created for the specific tasks of missile defense. It consisted of two processors (computer and peripheral device controller), had a self-diagnostic system and allowed "hot" replacement of computing transistor units. Performance was 500 thousand operations per second for the main processor and 37 thousand for the controller. Such a high performance of an additional processor was necessary, since not only traditional input-output systems, but also locators worked in conjunction with a computer unit. The computer occupied more than 100 m 2 .

Already after 5E92b, the developers returned to BESM again. The main task here is the production of universal computers on transistors. So there were BESM-3 (remained as a layout) and BESM-4. The last model was released in the amount of 30 copies. The computing power of BESM-4 is 40 operations per second. The device was mainly used as a "laboratory model" for creating new programming languages, as well as a prototype for constructing more advanced models, such as BESM-6.

In the entire history of Soviet cybernetics and computer technology, BESM-6 is considered the most progressive. In 1965, this computer device was the most advanced in terms of manageability: an advanced self-diagnostic system, several operating modes, extensive capabilities for managing remote devices, the ability to pipeline 14 processor instructions, virtual memory support, instruction cache, reading and writing data. Computational performance - up to 1 million operations per second. The release of this model continued until 1987, and use - until 1995.

"Kyiv"

After Academician Lebedev left for the "Golden-domed", his laboratory, together with the staff, came under the leadership of Academician B.G. Gnedenko (Director of the Institute of Mathematics of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR). During this period, a course was taken for new developments. Thus, the idea of creating a computer on vacuum tubes and with memory on magnetic cores was born. He received the name "Kyiv". During its development, the principle of simplified programming was first applied - the address language.

In 1956, the former Lebedev laboratory, renamed the Computing Center, was headed by V.M. Glushkov (today this department operates as the Institute of Cybernetics named after Academician Glushkov of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine). It was under the leadership of Glushkov that "Kyiv" was completed and put into operation. The machine remains in service at the Center, the second sample of the Kyiv computer was purchased and assembled at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (Dubna, Moscow region).

Viktor Mikhailovich Glushkov

For the first time in the history of the use of computer technology, with the help of "Kyiv" it was possible to establish remote control of the technological processes of a metallurgical plant in Dneprodzerzhinsk. Note that the test object was removed from the car by almost 500 kilometers. "Kyiv" was involved in a number of experiments on artificial intelligence, machine recognition of simple geometric shapes, modeling of automata for recognition of printed and written letters, automatic synthesis of functional circuits. Under the leadership of Glushkov, one of the first relational database management systems (“Autodirector”) was tested on the machine.

Although the device was based on the same vacuum tubes, the Kyiv already had a ferrite transformer memory with a capacity of 512 words. The device also used an external memory block on magnetic drums with a total volume of nine thousand words. The computing power of this computer model was three hundred times higher than the capabilities of the MESM. The command structure is similar (three-address for 32 operations).

"Kyiv" had its own architectural features: the asynchronous principle of transferring control between functional blocks was implemented in the machine; several memory blocks (ferrite random access memory, external memory on magnetic drums); input and output of numbers in the decimal number system; passive storage device with a set of constants and subroutines of elementary functions; advanced system of operations. The device performed group operations with address modification to improve the efficiency of processing complex data structures.

In 1955, Rameev's laboratory moved to Penza to develop another computer called "Ural-1" - a less expensive, hence mass-produced machine. Only 1000 lamps with an energy consumption of 10 kW - this has significantly reduced production costs. "Ural-1" was produced until 1961, a total of 183 computers were assembled. They were installed in computer centers and design offices around the world. For example, in the mission control center of the Baikonur Cosmodrome.

"Ural 2-4" was also on vacuum tubes, but already used RAM on ferrite cores, performed several thousand operations per second.

Moscow State University at this time he designs his own computer - "Setun". It also went into mass production. Thus, 46 such computers were produced at the Kazan plant of computers.

"Setun" - an electronic computing device based on ternary logic. In 1959, this computer with its two dozen vacuum tubes performed 4.5 thousand operations per second and consumed 2.5 kW of energy. For this, ferrite-diode cells were used, which the Soviet electrical engineer Lev Gutenmakher tested back in 1954 when developing his lampless electronic computer LEM-1.

"Setuni" functioned safely in various institutions of the USSR. At the same time, the creation of local and global computer networks required maximum compatibility of devices (ie, binary logic). The future of computers lay in transistors, while lamps remained a relic of the past (like mechanical relays once did).

"Setun"

"Dnieper"

At one time, Glushkov was called an innovator; he repeatedly put forward bold theories in the field of mathematics, cybernetics and computer technology. Many of his innovations were supported and implemented during the lifetime of the academician. But time helped to fully appreciate the significant contribution that the scientist made to the development of these areas. With the name of V.M. Glushkov, domestic science connects the historical milestones of the transition from cybernetics to informatics, and then to information technology. The Institute of Cybernetics of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR (until 1962 - the Computing Center of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR), headed by an outstanding scientist, specialized in improving computer technology, developing applied and system software, industrial production control systems, as well as information processing services for other areas of human activity. The Institute launched large-scale research on the creation of information networks, peripherals and components for them. It can be concluded with certainty that in those years the efforts of scientists were aimed at "conquering" all the main directions in the development of information technologies. At the same time, any scientifically based theory was immediately put into practice and found its confirmation in practice.

The next step in the domestic computer industry is associated with the appearance of the Dnepr electronic computing device. This apparatus became the first general-purpose semiconductor control computer for the entire Union. It was on the basis of "Dnepr" that attempts were made to mass-produce computer technology in the USSR.

This machine was designed and built in just three years, which was considered a very short time for such a design. In 1961, there was a re-equipment of many Soviet industrial enterprises, and production management fell on the shoulders of the computer. Glushkov later tried to explain why they managed to assemble the devices so quickly. It turns out that even at the stage of development and design, the CC closely cooperated with enterprises where computers were supposed to be installed. The features of production, stages were analyzed, and the algorithms of the entire technological process were built. This made it possible to more accurately program the machines, based on the individual industrial characteristics of the enterprise.

Several experiments were carried out with the participation of Dnepr on the remote control of industries of various specializations: steel, shipbuilding, chemical. Note that in the same period, Western designers designed a semiconductor computer for universal control RW300 similar to the domestic one. Thanks to the design and commissioning of the Dnepr computer, it was possible not only to shorten the distance in the development of computer technology between us and the West, but also to practically step foot in step.

Another achievement belongs to the Dnepr computer: the device was produced and used as the main production and computing equipment for ten years. This (by the standards of computer technology) is quite a significant period, since for most of these developments the stage of modernization and improvement was estimated at five to six years. This computer model was so reliable that it was entrusted with tracking the experimental space flight of the Soyuz-19 and Apollo shuttles, which took place in 1972.

For the first time, domestic computer engineering was exported. Also, a master plan was developed for the construction of a specialized plant for the production of computer hardware - a plant for computers and control machines (VCM), located in Kyiv.

And in 1968, a small series of semiconductor computers "Dnepr 2" was released. These computers had a more mass purpose and were used to perform various computing, production and economic planning tasks. But serial production of "Dnepr 2" was soon suspended.

Dnepr met the following technical specifications:

two-address command system (88 commands);
binary number system;
26 fixed-point binary digits;
random access memory for 512 words (from one to eight blocks);
computing power: 20 thousand addition (subtraction) operations per second, 4 thousand multiplication (division) operations at the same time frequencies;
machine size: 35-40 m 2 ;
power consumption: 4 kW.

"Promin" and computers of the "MIR" series

1963 becomes a turning point for the domestic computer industry. This year, at the factory for the production of computers in Severodonetsk, the machine "Promin" (from Ukrainian - ray) is being produced. For the first time, memory blocks on metallized cards, stepped microprogram control and a number of other innovations were used in this device. The main purpose of this computer model was considered to be the product of engineering calculations of varying complexity.

Ukrainian computer "Promin" ("Luch")

Behind the "Ray" computers "Promin-M" and "Promin-2" entered mass production:

RAM: 140 words;
data input: from metallized punched cards or plug-in input;
the number of simultaneously memorized commands: 100 (80 - basic and intermediate, 20 - constants);
unicast command system with 32 operations;
computing power - 1000 simple tasks per minute, 100 multiplication calculations per minute.

Immediately after the models of the "Promin" series, an electronic computing device appeared with microprogram execution of the simplest computing functions - MIR (1965). Note that in 1967, at the world technical exhibition in London, the MIR-1 machine received a fairly high expert assessment. The American company IBM (the world's leading exporter of computer equipment at that time) even purchased several copies.

MIR, MIR-1, and after them the second and third modifications were a truly unsurpassed word of technology of domestic and world production. MIR-2, for example, successfully competed with general-purpose computers of a conventional structure, which surpassed it many times over in terms of nominal speed and memory capacity. On this machine, for the first time in the practice of domestic computer engineering, an interactive mode of operation was implemented using a display with a light pen. Each of these machines was a step forward on the road to building an intelligent machine.

With the advent of this series of devices, a new “machine” programming language, Analyst, was introduced into operation. The alphabet for input consisted of capital Russian and Latin letters, algebraic signs, symbols for highlighting the integer and fractional parts of a number, numbers, exponents of the number, punctuation marks, and so on. When entering information into the machine, it was possible to use the standard notation for elementary functions. Russian words, for example, "replace", "bit depth", "calculate", "if", "then", "table" and others were used to describe the computational algorithm and designate the form of output information. Any decimal values could be entered in any form. All necessary output parameters were programmed during the task setting period. "Analyst" made it possible to work with integers and arrays, edit entered or already running programs, change the bit depth of calculations by replacing operations.

The symbolic abbreviation MIR was nothing more than an abbreviation for the main purpose of the device: "machine for engineering calculations." These devices are considered to be among the first personal computers.

Technical parameters MIR:

binary-decimal number system;
fixed and floating point;
arbitrary bit depth and length of calculations (the only limitation was the amount of memory - 4096 characters);
computing power: 1000-2000 operations per second.

Data entry was carried out at the expense of a printing keyboard device (Zoemtron electric typewriter) included in the kit. The components were connected using the microprogram principle. Subsequently, thanks to this principle, it was possible to improve both the programming language itself and other device parameters.

Supercars of the Elbrus series

An outstanding Soviet developer V.S. Burtsev (1927-2005) in the history of domestic cybernetics is considered the chief designer of the first supercomputers and computer systems in the USSR for real-time control systems. He developed the principle of selection and digitization of the radar signal. This made it possible to produce the world's first automatic survey of data from a surveillance radar station for directing fighters to air targets. Successfully conducted experiments on the simultaneous tracking of several targets formed the basis for the creation of automatic targeting systems. Such schemes were built on the basis of the Diana-1 and Diana-2 computing devices, developed under the leadership of Burtsev.

Further, a group of scientists developed the principles for constructing computational missile defense (ABM) facilities, which led to the emergence of precision guidance radar stations. It was a separate high-performance computing complex, allowing with maximum accuracy to produce automatic control for complex, spaced objects online.

In 1972, for the needs of imported air defense systems, the first three-processor computers 5E261 and 5E265 were created, built on a modular basis. Each module (processor, memory, external communications controller) was completely covered by hardware control. This made it possible to automatically back up data in the event of failures or failures in the operation of individual components. The computational process was not interrupted in this case. The performance of this device was a record for those times - 1 million operations per second with very small dimensions (less than 2 m 3). These complexes in the S-300 system are still used on combat duty.

In 1969, the task was set to develop a computing system with a performance of 100 million operations per second. This is how the project of the multiprocessor computing complex "Elbrus" appears.

The development of machines of "beyond" capabilities had characteristic differences along with the development of universal electronic computing systems. Here, the maximum requirements were imposed both on the architecture and element base, and on the design of the computing system.

In the work on Elbrus and a number of previous developments, the issues of effective implementation of fault tolerance and continuous operation of the system were raised. Therefore, they have such features as multiprocessing and related means of parallelizing task branches.

In 1970, the planned construction of the complex began.

In general, Elbrus is considered a completely original Soviet development. It included such architectural and design solutions, thanks to which the performance of the MVC increased almost linearly with an increase in the number of processors. In 1980, Elbrus-1, with a total capacity of 15 million operations per second, successfully passed state tests.

The Elbrus-1 MVK became the first computer in the Soviet Union built on the basis of TTL microcircuits. Programmatically, its main difference is its focus on high-level languages. For this type of complexes, their own operating system, file system and El-76 programming system were also created.

Elbrus-1 provided speed from 1.5 to 10 million operations per second, and Elbrus-2 - more than 100 million operations per second. The second revision of the machine (1985) was a symmetrical multiprocessor computing complex of ten superscalar processors on matrix LSI, which were produced in Zelenograd.

Serial production of machines of such complexity required the urgent deployment of computer design automation systems, and this task was successfully solved under the leadership of G.G. Ryabov.

"Elbrus" generally carried a number of revolutionary innovations: superscalar processor processing, symmetric multiprocessor architecture with shared memory, implementation of secure programming with hardware data types - all these features appeared in domestic machines earlier than in the West. The creation of a unified operating system for multiprocessor systems was led by B.A. Babayan, who at one time was responsible for the development of the BESM-6 system software.

Work on the last machine of the family, Elbrus-3 with a speed of up to 1 billion operations per second and 16 processors, was completed in 1991. But the system turned out to be too cumbersome (due to the element base). Moreover, at that time more cost-effective solutions for the construction of working computer stations appeared.

Instead of a conclusion

The Soviet industry was fully computerized, but a large number of poorly compatible projects and series led to some problems. The main “but” concerned hardware incompatibility, which prevented the creation of universal programming systems: all series had different processor bit sizes, instruction sets, and even byte sizes. Yes, and mass production of Soviet computers can hardly be called (supplies occurred exclusively to computer centers and production). At the same time, the gap between American engineers increased. So, in the 60s, Silicon Valley was already confidently standing out in California, where progressive integrated circuits were being created with might and main.

In 1968, the state directive "Ryad" was adopted, according to which the further development of USSR cybernetics was directed along the path of cloning IBM S / 360 computers. Sergei Lebedev, who at that time remained the country's leading electrical engineer, was skeptical about Ryad. In his opinion, the path of copying was, by definition, the path of the laggards. But no one saw another way to quickly “pull up” the industry. The Research Center for Electronic Computing Technology was established in Moscow, the main task of which was the implementation of the Ryad program - the development of a unified series of computers similar to S / 360.

The result of the work of the center is the appearance in 1971 of computers of the EC series. Despite the similarity of the idea with the IBM S / 360, Soviet developers did not have direct access to these computers, so the design of domestic machines began with software disassembly and logical architecture based on its operation algorithms.

Computers, without which our life is not possible, in fact, appeared not so long ago. Representatives of the older generation not only did not use computers during their studies at schools and institutes, but, as a rule, they had no idea what it was. The era of computers and even electronic computers - computers - as we called the first computers came into our lives relatively recently. Although their most distant predecessor - the abacus (abacus), appeared in ancient Babylon 3000 BC.

Reconstruction of a Roman abacus

The first person to invent the first digital computer was Blaise Pascal. In 1642, he presents the Pascalina, the first mechanical digital computing device that was actually implemented and gained fame. The prototype device added and subtracted five-digit decimal numbers. Pascal made more than ten such calculators, with the latest models operating on numbers with eight decimal places. This discovery started it all...

Pascal summing machine

Since that time, many mechanical devices have been invented that allow for not very complex calculations. The main progress was observed from the end of the 19th century, and the peak occurred in the first half of the 20th century. And so, in 1938, the more complex first mechanical programmable machine Z1 was created by the German engineer Konrad Zuse. On its basis, in 1941, he also created the first Z3 computer, which has all the properties of a modern computer.

Recreated Z3 at the Deutsches Museum in Munich

Who invented the first electronic computer and when? After all, it is he who is the real prototype of modern computers. And it happened quite soon after the invention of Konrad Zuse. In 1942, American physicist John Atanasoff and his graduate student Clifford Berry designed and began to assemble the first electronic computer. The work was not completed, but had a great influence on the creator of the first electronic computer ENIAC. The person who invented the ENIAC computer, the first digital electronic computer, was John Mauchly, an American physicist and engineer. John Mauchly summarized the basic principles of building a computer based on the experience of developing machines and in 1946 the real electronic computer ENIAC appeared to the world. The head of the development was John von Neumann, and the principles and structure of computers he outlined later became known as von Neumann.

ENIAC computer

So the questions about what year the computer was created, where the first computer was created and who created the first computer can be answered in different ways. If we are talking about the first computer in general (in this case, a mechanical one), then Konrad Zuse can be considered the creator of it, and Germany can be considered the country in which the first computer was invented. If we consider the electronic computer to be the first computer, then it will be ENIAC, the inventor, respectively, John Mauchly, and the country - the United States.

The first computers were still far from those that we now use - personal computers. They were huge, occupied significant areas, commensurate with the area of a multi-room apartment, and weighed several tens of tons! Personal computers (PCs) appeared much later.

And who then created the first personal computer? The creation of the first personal computers became possible only in the 1970s. Some people began to assemble computers at home for the sake of research interest, since there were practically no useful applications for computers at home. And in 1975, the first personal computer Altair 8800 appeared, which became the first commercially successful PC. The creator of the first personal computer was the American engineer Henry Edward Roberts, who was also the founder and president of Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems, which launched the first PC. Altair 8800 was the "chief" of the population's computerization boom.

Personal computer Altair 8800

The first personal computers, and even computers of the early 90s, were many orders of magnitude weaker than modern ones. Suffice it to say that the amount of memory of a modern, not the coolest "flash drive" is comparable to the entire disk memory of several thousand (!!!) personal computers of the early 90s. And so it is similar for all other indicators. A fantastic breakthrough in the performance of modern personal computers in the 2000s is associated primarily with the development of new technologies in the field of electronics and nanotechnology.