Soviet Mainframes - M188

[@NotMarkKnopfler]

The photo of the computer room at 11:26 appears to be East Germany (GDR) - photo of Erich Honecker on the wall! Fascinating history - thank you for posting this video.

[@diracflux]

Those almost subliminal flashes of flags, buildings and an exploding car make me feel like I am being activated for some deep cover mission and I’ll suddenly be an expert in JCL and the tactical use of the ISPF editor, much to the surprise of my unsuspecting family who didn’t realise I was hiding an IBM 3270 terminal under the floor.

[@moshixmainframechannel]

Hahaha that was exactly my intention !

[@OCEANSINSPACE]

HA, I know what your saying! thats super funny, and when the he pauses for the flashing images its great!

[@ian_b]

@@moshixmainframechannel Help! I've been activated!

[@moshixmainframechannel]

You have been summoned

[@ian_b]

@@moshixmainframechannel At last I understand my strange urge to sit on a bench in the park and say to anyone who sits next to me, "I hear the weather is good in Moscow at this time of year."

[@semuhphor]

When working in Russia in the mid-90's, I had to go to the central telegraph offices in Novosibirsk. I was working on installing long distance telecom hardware. When we went to the switch room, I was told not to look at the computer we would go by ... Of course I had to sneak a peek and it was 360-like. Might have been one of these. Cool.

[@moshixmainframechannel]

Yes I hear lots of stories like this one. Thanks

[@pavelpotehin4024]

The interesting part of soviet computer engineering was that one they get used to some arcitecture they tried to fit it everywhere. In my childhood, I saw few Электроника МС 0511 PCs, designed for education though each of them had 2(!) single chip PDP-11 CPUs, one as main and sacond as periferial.

[@moshixmainframechannel]

Exactly right ! They had to make It work everywhere. Thanks !

[@iexploiter]

It was a typical design of that time. For example, Xerox NoteTaker had 3 x8086. One additional processor in УКНЦ was used to handle IO periphery (network, speaker, HDD) etc. I remember I was programming second CPU to play simple melodies. It was quite successful design which made it a cult computer of its time in USSR

[@etnapierala]

I don't have sources handy, but the majority of soviet computers were very much used for business purposes, not weapons. In general soviet weapons programs were quite a bit behind the West.

[@Stosszahlansatz]

Nice video! I am a fan of computer history and that video was a pure joy to watch.

[@moshixmainframechannel]

Thank you !

[@stephenmartin6995]

Being on a mainframe course in the late 1980's I discovered that ICL mainframes were in use behind the iron curtain!

[@moshixmainframechannel]

Oh yes. They stole what they could

[@tangogamma]

Those flashes made me feel like mother Russia was asking me to do stuff... LOL...

[@moshixmainframechannel]

That was exactly the idea!

[@justethical280]

Hi Moshix, keep up your video's. Very interesting. As a IT engineer myself i like them :)

[@moshixmainframechannel]

Thank you amazing person !

[@wcg66]

I visited a building in Minsk that used to make the Minsk line of computers. Soviet-era computers were, and still are, fascinating. I wonder if you've looked into the popularity of the MIPS architecture in the region? I used to work for an embedded OS company that was very popular in Russia specifically targeting MIPS-based hardware. There were rumours MIPS architecture was cloned for embedded processors. Our software was also very popular although no licensing was paid. However, as companies wanted to sell in the West, they started licensing the software.

[@DavidJashi]

Minsk was the last of original Soviet computers. All the rest were ripoffs. ES line from IBM, SM from VAX, even DVK2M, was a ripoff from PDP11.

[@moshixmainframechannel]

Thanks. That’s well understood

[@ДмитрийМатвеев-ш9ч]

There was a legend in the USSR that if you enter a special command into the soviet mainframe, it will print the IBM logo on the screen.

[@moshixmainframechannel]

Hahaha probably

[@gregorymalchuk272]

No, but there was a case where engineers at Digital Equipment Corporation (creators of the PDP-11 and VAX computers) had the cpu chips of the VAX 780 microscopically etched during production with the phrase "VAX- When you care enough to steal the very best" in Russian. They fully anticipated that during reverse-engineering, Soviet engineers would see it.

[@moshixmainframechannel]

Hahaha yes I read about it years ago. Hahaha great story

[@Sebastian-jf5cp]

I replaced my IBM helmet with Uschanka

[@moshixmainframechannel]

Hahaha

[@adrianstoness3903]

managed to get my a hands on two EVM M4030 panels and some other bits

[@moshixmainframechannel]

Photos ??

[@adrianstoness3903]

@@moshixmainframechannel www.flickr.com/photos/1ajs/albums/72157713366215048 the guy i got them from also has a site with photos as wel of it

[@moshixmainframechannel]

Wow. This is amazing. Thank you !

[@k4vms]

Cool commercial of antique mainframe system. Ricky from IBM, Ret

[@tpcdude]

Great video. Even the raised floor panels look different. Too bad there are not images of the circuit cards and other innards of the machine.

[@moshixmainframechannel]

Yes I looked for photos of the TLT cards but couldn’t find any.

[@wilsonrabellojr]

Any possibility to see a Soviet Mainframe Image running under Hercules? Were those compatible with IBM Ones, from a Architecture Perspective, to a level that would be able to be emulated successfully? If 'Yes', is there any URL we can find an image to try out against Hercules or any other emulators?

[@moshixmainframechannel]

Yes they were 90% compatible

[@wilsonrabellojr]

@@moshixmainframechannel And there are images able to be downloaded and tested under Hercules? If 'Yes', where we could find it?

[@moshixmainframechannel]

There is one image called CBM which is a clone of VM/SP. You can find it out there

[@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject]

Fascinating video! Great images and historical information. Enjoyed it very much!

[@moshixmainframechannel]

Thank you. It’s an honor !

[@k4vms]

Hmmm..those terminals look like copies of IBM 3278s. Ricky from IBM, Ret

[@moshixmainframechannel]

Hahaha true

[@Larry_S-t8k]

Most excellent and thoroughly enjoyable video.

[@moshixmainframechannel]

Thank you sir !

[@b6700]

Hi Moshix, we are looking for Burroughs B6700 software (a US machine released in the early 1970s), do you know of anyone we could ask in Russia (or Eastern Europe generally) who might could ask around for copies of the MCP software for the B6700? Our aim is to develop an emulator for the B6700 but we need a complete MCP (its operating system) and the compilers.

[@moshixmainframechannel]

Hello Nigel. I will ask Around. Thanks. Pls send me an email So we can be in touch. Thanks

[@b6700]

@@moshixmainframechannel will do, I searched and clicked and couldn't find your email address though?

[@moshixmainframechannel]

Moshix at the gmail thingie

[@VK2FVAX]

Hi Nigel. I'm sure I've mentioned this on #sgi IRC. Have you talked to the WA ACMS? Murdoch Uni used to have a B6700 series system. It's front panel for years was downstairs of the old East Academic-III. I can remember asking about it quite a few times. There was a second burroughs machine that unfortunately an old chap in Roleystone (Clive Doors?) had in his shed and was in the early 90's talking about turning into bird cages. Don't think it happened and it was simply stored. He was a friend of Tony Triffonoff off Urch Rd which is how I ran into him. That Tony (Triffonoff) has passed away, possibly one of the neighbours know details for Clive. Apparently docs and related media from the Murdoch system ended up at ACMS shed. I saw references to it back about 2000 or earlier when I was sorting and working on stuff with Paul Repacholi. No idea what's survived till now. Have you contacted ACMS's Tony? Maybe ...long shot, stuff still exists that could be recovered? There was a lot of dead-tree and I can remember seeing IPL startup dump listings. I know that the stuff they had there was from the Murdoch machine as I was told. I think both systems originally came out of a govt department .. could've been MainRoads or CSIRO ..I forget and am guessing. If Clive is still around or his family, they may know as I think it was his work.

[@b6700]

@@VK2FVAX Thanks Al for the refresher, I do recall you providing these details previously. I think I asked the ACMS WA branch about their Unisys machine, but their replies are intermittent so I don't have a recent status update. I will try again with your provided information and see if I can find contact details for those names. Thanks again for this, every avenue is worth exploring!

[@derhorst1398]

I've been working on an EC1022 for a few years.

[@moshixmainframechannel]

Oh nice

[@zzz13zzz17]

ЕС 1022, ЕС 1033, ЕС1046. PTS/SVM/VMS, Диод, Триод, БОС ЕС, PL/1, assembler. REXX. 30 years before. Btw, my first comment was deleted. I dont know why.

[@moshixmainframechannel]

KZbin deletes comments all the time. I think they get marked as spam. It’s a well known problem. Sorry for the trouble

[@thrillscience]

Спасибо! This was very interesting.

[@VulcanOnWheels]

Please keep the flashing imagery out of your future videos.

[@moshixmainframechannel]

Ok

[@CompuHacker]

@@moshixmainframechannel On that note, the background music is shifting, high frequency notes, with a stereo effect. At 2x speed, it sounds like an alarm. And, with the voiceover mixed super sharp and loud, it's hard to listen to at any volume. I do like montage, flashing imagery but remember to keep big visual field brightness changes slower than 2Hz. (4Hz, because people will watch documentaries at 2x speed.)

[@moshixmainframechannel]

Thanks. Never thought people will run it at 2x speed. I guess it’s not optimized for 2x.

[@moshixmainframechannel]

you seem to know audio well. Anything else you can point out ?

[@CompuHacker]

@@moshixmainframechannel I'm not trained in audio but I think the solution to the voice problem is some kind of (cut-off) filter applied to the voiceover track. Here's an article on how to handle the problem in the context of professional recording; urm.academy/death-to-sibilance/

[@barriewright2857]

So during the soviet era, they made junk machines. But fascinating and very interesting and educational.

[@moshixmainframechannel]

Compared to US machines, yes. But very ingenious and they saved billions in R&D by copying. Smart

[@barriewright2857]

@@moshixmainframechannel Yes true the greatest form of adoration is to copy 👍🏿.

[@AmauryJacquot]

they were not junk to them, if those machines did whatever they expected from them

[@Wheelmagister]

But the Soviet clones of the PDP-11 were never used directly in the Soviet space program, and even design and engineering work and communications were scarce and only since the mid-1980s, when personal computers of the DVK series appeared. And the first spacecraft in which the borrowed architecture was used is only Buran, where a very heavily modified version of the S / 360 was used. Before that, all flying computers were purely domestic / national development. Even in military applications, despite administrative pressure for optimization, clones of Western architectures have been used relatively little and only since the late 70s, and mostly in stationary form.

[@moshixmainframechannel]

I agree. I read the same CIA report you read. I didn’t say they used those computers in space or in the air. I said they were used for space and military programs

[@gregorymalchuk272]

The Energia Buran used a 4 processor redundant comparator computer. It would sequentially shut down cores one at a time if results did not match, and did a coin flip and shut down one core if it was down to 2 cores and detected another error, as a 50% chance of the picking the functioning core is better than 0%. It used five 1806 cpus, the fully CMOS version of the 1801 cpu, which itself was a native Soviet implementation of the PDP-11 instruction set.

[@moshixmainframechannel]

Nice

[@b43xoit]

@@gregorymalchuk272 As you probably know, the US Space Shuttle used five computers for redundancy. Four of them were identical and the other one was independently engineered, both hardware and software.

[@РяхаИгоряхи]

Not truth: PDP-11 clones were at least went to be used in Soviet military space programs. At least СМ-1420, I'm a witness.

[@AmauryJacquot]

maybe they were "behind", but the better question is "did it serve their purpose as it was" ?

[@moshixmainframechannel]

Yes. It served no doubt

[@flyingzeppo]

I like the new intro music.

[@moshixmainframechannel]

Thanks. Relieved to hear that !

[@gonzinigonz]

Do you know anything about what mainframes might of been used at the Duga site near Chernobyl? Some great footage out there of what remains. I have found a video of the day they were leaving one of the sites which there is some internal footage. Not sure if its what's known as the Duga site.

[@moshixmainframechannel]

Good question. But I don’t know the answer. Sorry.

[@gonzinigonz]

@@moshixmainframechannel Worth a look if you haven't seen any footage. Core memory laying about and loads of vintage electronics. All top secret of course...

[@andreimihailov671]

@@gonzinigonz ​ most of the mainframes in duga were izot ИЗОТ and they are not really top secret,at least for the bulgarians xD

[@gonzinigonz]

@@andreimihailov671 Interesting. That comes up as a keyboard switch!

[@moshixmainframechannel]

Thanks !

[@douro20]

The system at 0:54 is a Saratov, a PDP-8 clone.

[@moshixmainframechannel]

Ok good

[@lavaq9593]

An interesting curiosity. Thanks!

[@OCEANSINSPACE]

Yea, this is well done! I never knew any of this. cheers

[@gorillaau]

I'm curious to see what would happen if you loaded the original version of the software as compared to the Soviet equivalent.

[@moshixmainframechannel]

Wouldn’t run. They didn’t implement all instructions

[@gorillaau]

@@moshixmainframechannel Interesting in itself. Possibly with some extended instructions also... Though TTL vs CMOS technologies makes it interesting. Thanks for the video.

[@moshixmainframechannel]

Possibly

[@semuhphor]

Thanks, Moshix. Cool vid.

[@moshixmainframechannel]

Thanks

[@grappydingus]

That's some cool music, comrade! :D

[@andreimihailov671]

​ @moshix actually the first mainframes produced in Bulgaria aka ЗИТ-151 were license build Facom-230-30 back in 1967 most of the facts you state here surrounding Bulgarian mainframes are fabricated we made tvs/combo monitors way back actually from 1958 its normal to see mainframes with monitors back in 70-80s izot made a lot of terminals same goes for the material base in the serial production of the ЗИТ-151 there were implemented 100% domestic build components so again you're wrong as much as Ukrainians brag about there computers and mainframes they were the very bad copys on the other hand the army and government used Bulgarian mainframes and electronics by the way after the early 70s the Bulgarian mainframes used Unix aaaaaand es1035 was IBM System/370, analog they are not. Wide spread izot made 2138 es 1035b... Only...

[@moshixmainframechannel]

I am based on A CIA research paper. So k stick to my version

[@andreimihailov671]

@@moshixmainframechannel CIA I see not actually fact checking they wrote a lot of bizarre stuff cause the wall was too thick in some palaces and counter espionage was greater at least in Bulgaria

[@wilsonrabellojr]

Is there any hercules-like emulators for such Soviet Mainframes still available? Original OS Tapes? Tried to google around and have found nothing able to be downloaded so far....

[@moshixmainframechannel]

Very cool

[@wilsonrabellojr]

@@sashacoachman6248 Do you have any links? Just tried to find anything at Google, but, no luck so far....

[@wilsonrabellojr]

@@sashacoachman6248 Just wondering....Maybe you can add to your google drive and share the link here.

[@AaronMartinColby]

I suspect KZbin recommended this to me because I watch Asianometry. At what point in history do you think the Soviet Union was closest to the West?

[@moshixmainframechannel]

Now., and I guess

[@flomojo2u]

Why is there this constant flashing of the few same images in the middle of various discussions? It doesn't add anything, and it's very distracting.

[@moshixmainframechannel]

Cosmic radiation ? It’s only in the beginning. I suggest you skip this video it if it bothers you

[@besttoasterna4889]

I like the pictures ty for the video

[@moshixmainframechannel]

Thank you Jarrett !

[@mrLumen2]

А еще у нас была "Сетунь-70". На троичной логике.

[@moshixmainframechannel]

Хорошо

[@jarvisfamily3837]

Ternary? Well, that's different...

[@semuhphor]

Your Pahrooski sounds good.

[@moshixmainframechannel]

Nu....da, cpasibo

[@DavidJashi]

How much IBM paid you for ad at 1:30?

[@moshixmainframechannel]

Several million dollars

[@jarvisfamily3837]

Training or marketing video from the mid-70's.

[@manfredpecha1736]

Left at 8:30 as flashing images got too annoying. Sorry, you simply dont cut a video on a serious topic the same way you would do a k-pop video.

[@moshixmainframechannel]

Ok thanks for letting us know. retractable batons can help in similar cases

[@manfredpecha1736]

@@moshixmainframechannel sorry, no offense! I really appreciate your effort in making this video.

[@moshixmainframechannel]

Thank you sir !

[@daddust]

Soviet military used computers…

[@moshixmainframechannel]

You saw them ?

[@ludwigvanel9192]

In the USSR, children learned they were living in the best possible country ever, anywhere. In the west, children learned programming VCR clocks and timers. Which is why the west left the east in the digital dust.

[@moshixmainframechannel]

Very true

[@iexploiter]

The whole thing looks like a Russian cosmonaut in Armageddon movie - drunk and in a hat with ear flaps. It is kinda funny see a guy who tries to look smart and important by telling others things of which he knows very little. Puzzling is the energy that he put into making this - it is somehow important for him to prove how inferior soviets were - whatever they did was a worsen copy of western design.

[@moshixmainframechannel]

Puzzling how much negative energy you invest in talking down someone else’s work when you have nothing to show for yourself of value

[@iexploiter]

@@moshixmainframechannel well, I worked with people who design Elbrus - a series of Soviet super computers with advanced original design, and I know how many new things they invented - in hardware and software. How many were adopted by Intel in their Pentium processor after the collapse of USSR and opening the borders

[@moshixmainframechannel]

Model A-21 of the retractable baton could help you in this case

[@gregorymalchuk272]

@@iexploiter Many people here in America know about the Elbrus 1 and 2 achieving superscalar RISC processing and multiprocessor operation, as well as Vladimir Pentkovskiy's role in developing the Pentium. Somewhat less well known is Boris Babayan's role. The Soviet Union's semiconductor manufacturing process was likely 9 to 12 years behind the west, but they did manage to do some incredible things with their limited transistor budget. It's a shame that such computing power was never fully integrated to more scientifically plan the national economy.

[@moshixmainframechannel]

Agreed on all points