Why the Indian Computer Failed

[@manut1349]

Asian Paints a paint company was the first company in India to buy a supercomputer, In the year 1970, Asian Paint spent ₹8 crores to buy a supercomputer. This was 10 years before ISRO's first procurement. They used it to collect data & analyse what colours, what quantities and what product size company is selling. No wonder Asian Paints is the market leader in paints industry even today and given their shareholders immense wealth creation.

[@roots4x]

It also helped that they were rich enough to buy a supercomputer. But yes, that is very forward thinking.

[@Harshal378]

They were thinking way ahead of the time. They are a monopoly in Indian Paint Market, their analysis for market and estimates really matched with the market requirements.

[@blazingguyop]

Man i didn't know that before Thanks for commenting

[@valiyapurakkalNarayanankutty]

As an Asian Paints shareholder I can attest to it.

[@indiasuperclean6969]

THIS FAKE NEWS WE INDIAN NEVER FAILED!! 😠 😠 THIS WHY IM SO LUCKY LIVE IN SUPER INDIA THE CLEANEST COUNTRY IN THE WORLD 🇮🇳🤗 , WE NEVER SCAM! WE GIVE RESPECT TO ALL WOMEN THEY CAN WALK SAFELY ALONE AT NIGHT AND WE HAVE CLEAN FOOD AND TOILET EVERYWHERE 🇮🇳🤗🚽, I KNOW MANY POOR PEOPLE JEALOUS WITH SUPER RICH INDIA 🤗🇮🇳🤗🇮🇳🤗🇮🇳🤗🇮🇳🤗

[@cv990a4]

India in that era was scared of anything that would reduce labor, because it had so many underemployed people. But also, I think, it was ideological overhang. One big founding myth, legend, story, of Indian independence was how UK textile factories had put Indian handweavers and spinners out of work. There was truth to that, but the wrong conclusion to draw was that Indian handweavers should be protected from their own textile industry. Even in the 1960s, India should have had vast export industries, leveraging low-cost labor. Indian development was set back by decades. The computer story is kind of a perfect instance of the problem - oh, hey, let's force everyone to buy out-of-date, expensive domestic computers - but in fact, not everyone, because we don't want to displace labor if we don't have to. So a lot of industries don't get to have a computer at all. Insane. And so India ended up far far behind the rest of the world, and all those domestically produced software for domestically produced computers gave Indian programmers skills that were not particularly transferrable. Basically, India stayed poor for far longer than it needed to because its ideology (including reliance on massive bureaucracy) kept it that way.

[@ianweniger6620]

Yep, the UK looted India and left it with partition and a bureaucratic raj that persist as obstacles to this day.

[@peterfireflylund]

@@ianweniger6620no, that’s the wrong conclusion to draw.

[@dasbubba841]

@@peterfireflylund Especially since drawing such conclusions (blame others, rightly or not, for failures instead of innovating) stifles Indian potential.

[@Tenisinspector8341]

@@peterfireflylund Neither are wrong but incomplete without each other. For a state that was robbed to the bone by angloids, left fragmented, large illiterate and hungry population, electronics and computers were the least of the concerns. Ofc the “Fabian socialism” or whatever Oxford koolaid Nehru was chugging was a delusion in its own rights. R&D was given the least priority, although it’s still very interesting how CDAC(State owned company) developed the nation’s first supercomputer back in 1988 iirc, that too in three years(probably because Rajiv was a massive promoter of electronics, late to the scene but at least he was the liking to provide the necessary funds for R&D). The red Tapism and massive bureaucratic norms are certainly an anti market and anti competition force, even to the domestic industries which needed to develop and gain a foothold in the Indian markets first, then try for global markets.

[@lakshaysingh2160]

​@@peterfireflylundyeah but only partially

[@shantanubose1929]

TDC-12 Computer made at ECIL Hyderabad was NOT built using vacuum tubes, but used transistors, other semiconductors and passive components and had 4K ferrite core memory stacks as main memory. Though your picture is correct, but narration needs change. The only I/O devices on TDC-12 were perforated paper tapes and teletype. TDC-12 with real-time peripherals was used for data logging and process control at GSFC, GTRE etc. FORTRAN programs on punched paper tape for TDC-12 had to be compiled and loaded using a linking loader. TDC-12 was followed by TDC-316, a 16-bit system which was installed as automatic message switching system. Data processing peripherals of those days such as card readers, line printers, magnetic tapes and 5" floppies etc were added to TDC-316 to make it suitable for EDP applications. To start with, there was nothing like an Operating System on these machines and each application had to be stand-alone. I thought of putting this comment here, as I was hands-on at ECIL with TDC-12 & TDC-316.

[@dlshd001]

India is a perfect example of what happens when talent leaves a high-potential country…. The present or past Deans of MIT Engineering, Berkeley Engineering, UPenn Engineering, etc have all be Indians

[@nosotrosloslobosestamosreg4115]

Diversity enrollment and hiring.

[@moniker2804]

​@@nosotrosloslobosestamosreg4115wouldn't be relevant if Indians weren't immigrating out of India.

[@wumaobot]

Its freedom, Indians have a choice to choose where they go and live

[@parik2878]

@@nosotrosloslobosestamosreg4115Asians don’t benefit from diversity hiring at least in America

[@nosotrosloslobosestamosreg4115]

@@parik2878 H1B... do you know what is it? Besides, when Indians, chinese or whatever, gets a position, the tribal nepotism, the in-group preference is blantant. Unlike whites, non-whites can hire of their tribe only f that's their preference, and nobody will cry racism or yt supremacy.

[@mohd8218]

This channel is so refreshing, while most media is turns to shit with modern trends. This channel goes on on its own, proves that we can have a long attention span and actually be interested in technical topics.

[@SurajSinghTomarArya]

True. I hate those overly enthusiastic, loud, unnecessary background music and quickly changing slides like Vsauce and all other mainstream channels.

[@indiasuperclean6969]

THIS FAKE NEWS WE INDIAN NEVER FAILED!! 😠 😠 THIS WHY IM SO LUCKY LIVE IN SUPER INDIA THE CLEANEST COUNTRY IN THE WORLD 🇮🇳🤗 , WE NEVER SCAM! WE GIVE RESPECT TO ALL WOMEN THEY CAN WALK SAFELY ALONE AT NIGHT AND WE HAVE CLEAN FOOD AND TOILET EVERYWHERE 🇮🇳🤗🚽, I KNOW MANY POOR PEOPLE JEALOUS WITH SUPER RICH INDIA 🤗🇮🇳🤗🇮🇳🤗🇮🇳🤗🇮🇳🤗

[@KuntalGhosh]

my computer sci teacher is one of those 1970s computer guru's , he knows crap ton about the history of indian computers , he developed many at hcl. when he studied computer control , my city (calcutta/kolkata) had only 4 computers back in 1974.

[@aditidump]

Brother tell me ur email I'm damn interested abt this n tell me abt ur teacher

[@kunjupulla]

There was a computer in my home in 1978 😊

[@KuntalGhosh]

@@kunjupulla zx spectrum?

[@aditidump]

@@kunjupulla wowzers which one?

[@aditidump]

@@KuntalGhosh what's your cs teachers name bro

[@rishithakur7186]

License Raj was the real culprit behind intellectual drain in India. What License Raj took were companies and firms which were profitable and innovative of smart people and what it retained was farm lands, MSP, Agriculture land, etc. It made India less industrialized country and because of that as people were now discouraged to innovating anything on their own because govt. would take away their company and all assets and profits generated by them. Hence, people were more encouraged to seek govt. jobs in the name of service sector, other low manufacturing jobs and mainly retain in farming industry rather than create a sophisticated innovative startup which requires a lot support from government but license raj just became an enemy for all the creative engineers and other innovators who left for the US, Canada, UK, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland and other developed industrialized majorly english speaking nations. Our failure Government took those assets from intellectuals and highly rich, influential and philanthropic people and with corruption they successfully converted them to liabilities. Such policies made India lagging behind the world and especially China as they prospered while Indian Intellectuals fled the country and the average Indian suffered . India’s underdevelopment is in part due to our previously elected government’s policies.

[@xsupremeyx9923]

It is true that's why chinese got ahead and we still kept behind in production especially that of electronics

[@rishithakur7186]

@@xsupremeyx9923 But I was too harsh in my comments. Because Organizations under government are performing well such as ISRO and R&DO. But similar to NASA government organizations do not receive fundings as government have their priorities. So, today when the topic of space is somewhat back in hype government suddenly starts funding when it will no longer be we will see budget cuts and the planned events might not meet the deadlines. Same happened with NASA but private players like Elon Musk took over that with Space X. I think having rich people is not enough but having rich who have an aptitude for their fields is important. Because they have the financial capacity to create and innovate. Hence, rich to become richer should not be the aim but rich to become more innovative and capable in their fields should be. Again government can do wonders if they have the priorities set but their entire priority is governance and social stability under their respective tenure. I think because of that it becomes necessary to privatize organizations. But the main goal of public, unions, governments and other related groups should be to check if a company is fraud or not. I personally think introducing strict rules and criteria should not be the way to do check for fraud but being in touch and understanding the complete intent and conducting several background checks of leading directors and managers of the the company should be a way to decide to make a company official. Because issuing public bonds of that company in the stock market only to realize later that the company is fraud and all leading directors and managers escaped elsewhere will negatively affect Indian Market PR in the world and any logical person won’t invest in a country where there is a very high risk of fraud. A company going bankrupt is acceptable in my opinion but a company which was declared official in the Indian stock market and it turning out to be a fraud is not. Trust as an element is highly crucial for any foreign investor to invest in India.

[@dogaredeemer2711]

welcome back to license raj in current bhagwa regime

[@xsupremeyx9923]

@@dogaredeemer2711 Yeah but they have a plan behind it, hopefully it works, if it doesn't imma never gonna vote again for them. It sucks since i was looking forward to buying 1.5lakh+ laptop in july next year, now i have to fall back to 1.15lakh laptop and hopefully get it by October. But if this works out, and companies really come here to manufacture or atleast assemble here, it would drop the prices below current prices, so it might as well be worth it in future. But if any chance it fails and they fail to get prices back to original, I'll never gonna vote ever again Doesn't matter what y'all call me, if you fuck me over why tf would i vote for you

[@JT-zl8yp]

how will assembling the computers here reduce the prices ? china has economies of scale...thats why one big corporation is much more efficient than several small unorganized companies@@xsupremeyx9923

[@krishnanunnimadathil8142]

Kerala state set up a body called Keltron with an aim to make electronic devices including computers. MGK Menon was hired by the Kerala state government for that as well. It ended up making calculators at best. As gifted as MGK Menon was, the incentives just did not exist for the kind of innovation which would make such endeavours worthwhile. The basic problem continues to be the failure to recognise that private enterprise with the profit motive and an absence of price controls delivers better results due to the right incentives, especially when it comes to innovations. Keltron still functions, and shows up from time to time as a sort of an undying zombie. Having said that, failure precedes success; and all the failures of the time were part of the background which made India the tech powerhouse it is today. We would not be here if it were not for the strong base provided by the exertions of that time. The Indian engineering community has done wonders over time. Great video with some amazing research and details. Most Indian KZbinrs would not have a clue about the matter you are presenting. I am a subscriber.

[@bernadmanny]

The timing of this is perfect, as Indian news YT channel The Print made reference to your Indian semiconductor video in a editorial piece on the Indian semiconductor industry and I went 'hey I know about this subject Asianometry did a video on it' and then he referenced you. 😀

[@Abhyuday_rai]

yes the smae happened with me i even looked ayt the description to see the link as a reference

[@ramansinghal5181]

i have been following asianometry for quite a while now. I was surprised that a news channel is also quoting him as a source

[@SeaJay_Oceans]

The only consistent results from Washington D.C. are they are consistently wrong. USA should be partnering with India, which has a lot more to offer to the world than Pakistan or China. China is on the verge of destroying North America, Pakistan has their hands full dealing with TTP Taliban working to capture their nuclear weapons and overthrow the government (and of course, the Taliban will win, just like they defeated the Americans). USA should work more closely with India.

[@hitmusicworldwide]

Not enough domestic consumer demand perhaps because of poverty and a more extreme gap in income distribution?

[@indiasuperclean6969]

THIS FAKE NEWS WE INDIAN NEVER FAILED!! 😠 😠 THIS WHY IM SO LUCKY LIVE IN SUPER INDIA THE CLEANEST COUNTRY IN THE WORLD 🇮🇳🤗 , WE NEVER SCAM! WE GIVE RESPECT TO ALL WOMEN THEY CAN WALK SAFELY ALONE AT NIGHT AND WE HAVE CLEAN FOOD AND TOILET EVERYWHERE 🇮🇳🤗🚽, I KNOW MANY POOR PEOPLE JEALOUS WITH SUPER RICH INDIA 🤗🇮🇳🤗🇮🇳🤗🇮🇳🤗🇮🇳🤗

[@akashzz4347]

To sum up...why indian computer failed? answer: committee, monopoly and that big fat govt

[@stormtrooper8420]

Incompetence

[@dijoxx]

Wrong. It was because the computer technology was moving at an unprecedented pace and only a handful (one?) of the countries had the means to keep up.

[@_ata_3]

It's not that easy. How do you liberalize the market and compete in real terms to foreign companies that are decades ahead?

[@akashzz4347]

@@_ata_3 privatise, protect local private industries from foreign compeition..thats how you make them competitive..its done in korea, china and most south east asia. But we...we made PSUs under the name of socialism.

[@_ata_3]

@@akashzz4347Didn't though of that. Any references?

[@pscheie]

There are current efforts by multiple universities in India to develop RISC-V chips that can be produced in India. If they are successful, it could spark a resurgence in India's computer industry. OTOH, lots of other countries are also doing this, so the competition is/will be fierce. But if competitive chips can be developed for a not-too-expensive price, with the largest population of any country on the planet, the domestic market alone would seem big enough to sustain the industry.

[@shadow7037932]

RISC V is going to lead to a lot of changes in the computing market especially given the trade wars, ARM v Qualcomm litigation, etc. I already have a small hobby SBC with a RISC V CPU and it's been working pretty well, software support is improving on the Linux side pretty quickly.

[@belstar1128]

Yea india has improved a lot in recent decades so this time they have a chance. in the 1970s they where a mess of poverty and Bureaucracy.

[@olderchin1558]

RISC V is a teaching architecture, most comp sci course would be using it. What India needs is start-ups working on RISC V extensions for specilised appl. Considering India strong SW talent, better yet concentrate on RISC V development tools and environment. Contrary to the gest of this video, the government needs to fund these start-ups with strong oversight. The problem with India is not that it restricted foreign business but it restricted local competition. Too much corruption.

[@effexon]

thats a good point, having big domestic market and let companies first thrive there is big advantage in global competition. danger in that is that need to look closely that duopoly, too centralized structure in market dont form coz that kills innovation and competition.

[@nvelsen1975]

You do realise that most of the "Why X failed" videos involve your exact argument of 'These substandard products will be bought by the domestic market and totally rule', right? Given labour conditions and low wages, do you think an Indian gamer is going to spend months of savings on a regular computer, or on the brand-new domestically produced Shitbox1980 that comes with a nice sticker 'produced in India' but offers inferior performance?

[@room5245]

How you manage to keep these vids comprehensible is beyond me, giganerd 🎉

[@mayurkanth6987]

The whole period from 1947-2000 was disastrous for India as a whole. > India's gdp growth rate was less than 3% during this period with per capita growth less than 1.5% > India was the 6th largest economy in 1950 but due to Nehru's disastrous economic policies, India slid to 13th position by 2000. > India's share in world GDP was 4.1% in 1950 which declined to 1.9% by 1991. > The Number of poor people in India basically DOUBLED b/w 1950-1980. India Basically wasted first 50 years of its independence in pursuit of a failed Import Substitution Closed economy.

[@adityasuri999]

1000% agreed

[@mayurkanth6987]

@@Zarkiola1 so tell us the correct facts then

[@charlesseraph3249]

Well, that what you got when your government are socialist

[@KMon1111IND]

You're absolutely right, all the current good performing PSUs like ISRO, DRDO and IITs, NITsare established after 2000s till 2004 then again stated after 2014. It's the 2000s and 2014s economic liberalisation that helped India boost it's economy.

[@regumkoyu6620]

@@KMon1111INDwtf🤣🤣🤣

[@Meower68]

The British government also had a period of investing in domestic companies, trying to turn their country into a tech powerhouse. When the government changed hands, all those investments were killed off. To be fair, some of those investments were not going anywhere, anytime soon. But some of them, had the investments continued, could've been major game changers. Japan is notorious for investing in domestic companies, turning them into international powerhouses. And when that investment dries up, many of the companies either died off, shrank or got acquired. No one seems to have figured out how to "do it right," such that the companies can be safely weaned off subsidies, government-enforced monopolies, etc. such that they continue to be powerhouses without government support. Since many technologies need multiple years of R&D become significantly profitable, job gains from such things will take a while to arrive; voters may not be that patient.

[@AaronOfMpls]

Asianometry actually covered ICL a while back: kzbin.info/www/bejne/e5y3eXedjrmbbJY

[@kennytheripper2526]

my father is head of laser department in dae india

[@alexlo7708]

American has the most investment in R&D. And many of them are from various hidden govt funds. If ones insist counting on the private fund itself , they will goto the end.

[@dogaredeemer2711]

did you vote for Modi??

[@krunkle5136]

​@@kennytheripper2526irrelevant.

[@analyticphil8621]

I have noticed how hard it is for you to source images for this video, some places you found authentic original relics, others you just used black and white images of modern India with some filters to make it look authentic and few other instances you just straight up said "yeah this pic has no relation to what I'm talking about." like the one with the theater lines😂😂. Never the less, the analysis remains gold,especially the part where as an Indian I used to think the License/Permit Raj was used really a thing of corruption by the central govt. which included really influential people abusing power but never realized was a naive policy to support incompetent govt institutions which eventually led to the monstrocity that the License Raj was. Hope you make some Indian buddies as your channel grows, you might need them. Love from India❤

[@KomradZX1989]

I absolutely love all the subjects you choose to do a video on because 9/10 times I know almost nothing or only the most basic parts of your stories. They are always so interesting and keep my attention every single time. ❤

[@miinyoo]

It's refreshing. Most Americans let alone westerners have no idea what goes on in Asia. Finding literature on it is possible but often long winded and droll. That's where this guy fills a knowledge gap in very curious minds with little time or direct need to go and do the research.

[@bigjared8946]

It's the only KZbin channel I actually give money to. Dude is amazing and his subjects hit my nerdom hard.

[@yeshwantpande2238]

Exactly this I have said, that having bright mind is not sufficient for an industry like semiconductor, electronics and computer. Just developing software is not sufficient and even if that is true then PARAM would have been a great commercial success. But then there is a difference between software to run hardware and software that Indian brain know and understand which application software. Fact remains like it or not India is far from the world of engineering, technology, semiconductor, electronics and computer.

[@KomradZX1989]

@@yeshwantpande2238 me too! I am a Patreon to Asianometry and What About It (space/rocket news). Asianometry is beyond amazing… 1,000/10 lol

[@apricotcomputers3943]

So true🎉❤

[@ravindradaundkar9905]

You missed C-DAC's Param1000 success. Indian computer history can't be complete without it.

[@kdas2000in]

Indian products are substandard anyway.

[@kartz2010]

India might say, we were denied a lot of things by other countries, so we tried several things by ourselves. Some of the attempts failed but others like space exploration and atomic energy were successful. We may have failed, but at least we tried. How many countries in a similar situation as India can say that they tried?

[@anthonygreenfield123]

You stole uranium enrichment technology from the Netherlands, probably your media and history will not teach you this

[@jaideepc786]

Yes, atleast we in India tried.. The drawback in the whole system was the 3rd rate political system and socialist economic philosophy, harbored by then Congress party, which did not harbour meritocracy. A ridiculous system in which Income tax was levied at 99% on one's income. Ideally a research effort like this would have resulted in cultivating a huge body of indigenous knowledge & top in class research scientists, but the socialist & non-meritocratic system forced these research scientists to migrate to the Western & American universities, the origin of the brain drain, which still continues to the present day, with the top IIT, IISc, medical school graduates flocking to the US either in corporate jobs or as high ranking Professors in the magnificent US & European educational system.

[@abhishekn7200]

I don't think that was a moral of the story. We succeeded at nuclear testing coz it's science and we just have to make it experimental from theoretical. Same goes to shave exploration. Making and selling computers however is a business and the people involved were just focused on the scientific part of it. I'm sure the content's creator didn't mean to humiliate ECIL in any way but rather just factually pointed out the obvious mistakes made by them. No need to come to the country's defence when we ourselves know something infact sent wrong. Just admit things and move on.

[@faktiman381]

he's right tho how many countries did that ?@@abhishekn7200

[@adarsh4764]

China tried their own things too! Look at what position they are now in economy than us! You say space! Their space agency is younger than ours and yet they have achieved more than us!

[@MK-yj7pn]

The sheer number of computer and electronics engineers India produces makes it ready to plunge into making top notch computers. But the initiative is missing from the national government, state governments and private companies. We missed the train back in 70s, 80s and 90s when it was relatively easier to establish this industry and now it has become too complicated for startups and smaller companies to take up.

[@badrinair]

Thank you. HCL has now become a behemoth in the software services space.

[@otomackena7610]

Tata Elxsi too. Elxsi was started by Thampy Thomas in Sillicon valley that use to make mini computers. Elsxi got acquired by Tata. Also Thampy later founded Nexgen that was acquired by AMD. AMD's K6 microprocessor was based on Nexgen's design

[@TheSapta15]

Can you please cover C-DAC’s Rudra and PARAM Siddhi-AI or in general C-DAC and its accomplicements!!

[@aaronbasham6554]

I've been curious about India's computer and game scene for a long time, and this is actually neat for me

[@kdas2000in]

Indian products are substandard anyway.

[@evinoshima9923]

Please do a video on import substitution. It was a dominant economic theory in the 50s and 60s and the consequences were far reaching.

[@DataWaveTaGo]

At this time, August 27, 2023, you have 533K subscribers and I am one of them. I enjoy every second of your excellent presentations. I Thank you for putting a light, with technological insight, human interest and humor on every topic you produce here.

[@HartajTrehan]

As a developing country at a time where more than half of the country was below poverty line and wars were thrust upon us one after the other, even daring to have a dream of building a computer in those condition was admirable. Technology transfers were always rejected by foreign countries. There were several projects going on with similar motivations as mentioned in your video, many failed but many succeeded - i.e Nuclear & Space programs. At the end of the day nationalistic motivation was not the downfall. In 1989 the silicon chip research centre caught fire and burnt down the entire centre leading to the collapse of the Indian Hardware projects which then moved into softwares.

[@nvelsen1975]

"were thrust upon us" You meant to say "India invaded neighbour after neighbour in senseless wars of agression", of course. Indian invaders are 40 kilometers from Karachi, not the other way around.

[@HartajTrehan]

@@nvelsen1975 what planet are you on and have you discovered inter universe travel?

[@YoY664]

really ? technology transfers were rejected ? by whom ? "nationalistic motivation was not the downfall." damn right it wasnt, it was the deficit of it and an excessive aversion to private enterprises and valorization of left wing delusions. Indian Planning Commission was useless and Indira Gandhi despite her "socialist" fantasies actually contributed by setting up SCL but succumbed to age old Indian fckery and assigned it to a land locked punjab instead of Mumbai or Chennai. Indian Nationalists are incompetent, unintelligent and rarely nationalistic enough(the list of such losers is long). India's greatest failure was in its inability to centralize governance in order to effectively implement industrial policies, which is why planning commission failed, it was toothless, IG came the closest despite her corruption.

[@YoY664]

India never prioritized technology transfers(heard of hmt ? do you know where they are now ?) and when there where TT's India never invested in actually learning those technologies and improving upon them, which is a prereq for technological absorption(Taiwan, S.Korea and japan are examples of successful TT wielders)

[@YoY664]

Indians were never patriotic, competent or pragmatic enough, If we were competent our patriotism would have been guided by reality and directed by competence. Indians were never patriotic enough because if we were we would have been aware of our pitfalls instead of engaging in obnoxiously stupid policies that were implemented in the worse way possible. If we were competent and pragmatic we would've been able to at least match Malaysia.

[@user045-key77]

ECIL used to also make decent B&W TVs, dad managed to get it in time for 1985 Asian games.

[@TransgirlsEnjoyer]

Damn that is what I was thinking where I have heard of this name.

[@TransgirlsEnjoyer]

We had Et& T Black and white tv, another govt owned company. Was a solid well made product that just continued running like forever.

[@megalonoobiacinc4863]

our Win 95 IBM is a good childhood memory... all the amazing programs you could use, and it had Bug!

[@michaelmoorrees3585]

Ironically Indians (the ones actually from India) have contributed greatly to electronics and computers. Unfortunately, for India, mostly in other countries, such as the US. As a young man, in the 1980s, I've witnessed Sikhs patronizing the local electronics store, near Cal Tech (Dow Radio, Pasadena, California). They value education and technology, not found in other groups.

[@sr-zk4up]

20:35 The sign is indicative of it being at an exhibition centre or museum. The non English part is just translation to an Indian language called Malayalam (spoken in state of Kerala)

[@neerajwa]

Today there is a locality in hyderabad known as AS-Rao nagar. It is near what is known as ECIL cross roads, which is also near the campus of NFCIL and hyderabad campus of TIFR. NFCIL is a public money guzzling white elephant which pretends to "manufacture" nuclear fuel while fattening its managers on generous government bailouts every couple of years. The TIFR campus which was originally supposed to collaborate with ECIL is today repurposed for upper atmospheric reasearch. TIFR is not a money waster, it does good genuine research but on fundamental sciences and mathematics, not computer technology. AS-Rao nagar is a bustling locality with shiny malls and fancy restaurants and is a really good place to live. It also has a small sub-locality called Anupuram (which translates to land of the atom), supposed to be for the employees of NFCIL, but today houses everyone who can buy property there, which is not very cheap but not super expensive either.

[@gogadev]

How is NFIL a money waster?

[@unixfg]

7:05 I spent an embarrassingly long time adding just now.

[@doug9000]

You should make a video about Brazil's failed attempt in building computers as well, good story.

[@kdas2000in]

Brazil is way ahead of india in science & technology.

[@doug9000]

@@kdas2000in i dont think so, Brazil is maybe ahead in agricultural and oil extraction tech, but the rest of industries, India is probably ahead.

[@zeltron-qk2iu]

@@kdas2000in is that a joke? Brazil despite investing heavily in education is far behind, their govt literally owns highest no of public co.s second only to India & all are corrupt & nowhere on world map

[@divyanshugoyal9818]

​@@kdas2000innah brother, brazil is not ahead of India in tech. Sepcially today. Brazil is good at making planes.

[@kdas2000in]

@@doug9000 Brazil is way ahead of india in every speher of science & technology as there are lots of reasearch in Brazil.

[@tehpr0lol]

It was stuck in an infinite loop only doing the needful.

[@belstar1128]

The time period where this happened was a pretty bad time for India and most other non western countries apart from japan. i think even in the year 2000 less than 1% of the Indian population owned a pc. i didn't see any Indians online until around 2010. there where already a lot of people from eastern Europe and Latin America with internet access in the early 2000s .nowadays India has come a long way so they can have more success making good software.

[@himanshusingh5214]

Where are you from?

[@gurindersingh8109]

India in 2023 is much worse than it was till 1984 genocide of Sikhs by hindu govt.

[@belstar1128]

@@himanshusingh5214 Belgium

[@otomackena7610]

i got my my first computer in 2005 an assembled PC with Asrock motherboard n a AMD sempron proccesor before that i have only used a computer at school computer lab n at my cousins's

[@c.augustedupin8860]

bruv...I am indian and i had internet acess since 06'😂...but yeah jio revolutionise digital presence of indians.

[@ikartikthakur]

I appreciate that you opened a channel special for Asia and also discussed the Indian growing period. Thanks 🙏 a lot . Jai Hind

[@keithammleter3824]

Asianometry said the Indian TDC-12 vacuum tube computer, the size of 5 large fridges, was said to be similar to the DEC PDP-8, a transistor "flip-card" desktop computer. Well, they were both 12-bit as seen by the programmer. That's a bit like saying a tuk-tuk is the same as a Mercedes Benz car - after all they both have wheels.

[@kdas2000in]

Indian products are substandard anyway.

[@jaypatelz]

@keithammletter3824 TDC-12 wasn't vaccume tube computer, it was indeed transistors based

[@keithammleter3824]

@@jaypatelz At 7:45 Asianometry said it was a vacuum tube computer. The photograph he used, shows a multi-rack system that is typical of a relay or vacuum tube computer. in 1969 I used a DEC PDP-8 myself. It was a desktop computer about the size of a single-drawer filing cabinet. This was an 8K machine - it could be had as an extended memory machine, taking a maximum 3 file cabinet draws in volume. Why was the TDC-12 so large, if it was transistorised and even vaguely comparable to the PDP-8? The PDP-8 was hardly a marvel of compact construction. Each of its' flip-cards, each about 120 x 60 mm, had enough transistors and diodes etc to make 2 or 3 gates.

[@jaypatelz]

From @shantanubose19292 "TDC-12 Computer made at ECIL Hyderabad was NOT built using vacuum tubes, but used transistors, other semiconductors and passive components and had 4K ferrite core memory stacks as main memory. Though your picture is correct, but narration needs change. The only I/O devices on TDC-12 were perforated paper tapes and teletype. TDC-12 with real-time peripherals was used for data logging and process control at GSFC, GTRE etc. FORTRAN programs on punched paper tape for TDC-12 had to be compiled and loaded using a linking loader. TDC-12 was followed by TDC-316, a 16-bit system which was installed as automatic message switching system. Data processing peripherals of those days such as card readers, line printers, magnetic tapes and 5" floppies etc were added to TDC-316 to make it suitable for EDP applications. To start with, there was nothing like an Operating System on these machines and each application had to be stand-alone. I thought of putting this comment here, as I was hands-on at ECIL with TDC-12 & TDC-316."

[@niks660097]

Corruption and then more corruption..

[@olderchin1558]

Self reliance isn't the problem but corruption. China is still experiencing it's effect on its chip development.

[@jupe2001]

Corruption is mostly irrelevant, socialism is the main culprit.

[@niks660097]

@@jupe2001 lol, india is not a socialist country!, are you confused about something?

[@jupe2001]

@@niks660097 Government having a monopoly on major industries sounds like social ownership. Also, the Licence Raj, to prevent industries.

[@niks660097]

@@jupe2001 Licence Raj was before 1990 pre-globalization, dude you are 33 years late..

[@Jeremyho439]

Japanese computer companies also collapsed in the 80’s .

[@shy6892]

There was something about toshiba sanctions as well

[@daa7241]

Yes coz pf usa but

[@spui]

The first TV our family bought was a black and white EC TV from ECIL in the early 80s.

[@otomackena7610]

Can you do one on CDAC ? this probably where India had some success in HPC but that also lagged since 2008 but have been revived under National Supercomputing Mission(NSM) they are designing exascale supercomputer based on ARM neoverse N1, So far they made few stuff indigenously as a roadmap to exascale that include updated highspeed inteconnect, accelerators, Dual core and quad core processors based on RISC V, a RISC V based development kit, Server board, microprocessors, high performance FPGA network switch etc..

[@divyanshugoyal9818]

I recently read about india's 96 core AUM processor. It is for exascale supercomputers.

[@5anjuro]

Ironic how IBM dragged their feet with India, when thirty years later they willingly sold the whole PC division to China.

[@greenpedal370]

That makes perfect sense. India wanted too much and the Indian market was tiny by IBM standards. Why would IBM give away more than 50% of their local profits. When IBM bailed out of PCs the PC was a consumer product requiring economy of scale to keep up. IBM have never been a consumer company. Secondly India wanted 51% for the dubious privilege of being allowed to operate in country whereas the Chinese (Loveno) paid for the PC operation - big difference!

[@Subuzgreatest]

@@greenpedal370 And then replaced it with their own (stolen IPs of course) product & shut IBM down.

[@noahlee4764]

​@@SubuzgreatestSuckdeeps are clowns ,if stealing was that easy engdians are the biggest scammers

[@gogadev]

​@@noahlee4764 Chinnng dongs steal more than they can scam.

[@winjaywin]

@@Subuzgreatest What do you mean stolen? The thinkpad still continues. It was sold to lenovo.

[@JonahTsai]

The penchant of throwing more and more and more monkey wrenches in the pot from the start reminds me of what I see at work…

[@shikharraje]

20:26 The fall of the Indian Computer has nothing to do with patriotism. It has to do with building competencies and nurturing talent. You almost touched on it while you were discussing the (ludicrous) notion that India would not just have their own computers, but their own software systems (like databases, text editors) produced indigenously. As an Indian Software Engineer still working in India... This is something we've struggled at since independence, and IMHO this doesn't look like it will improve soon. In the U.S. you have such a storied history of institutions like Bell Labs (since you mentioned Unix. Please have a look at the book The Idea Factory) Disney Imagineering, Pixar... It's part of the reason Brain Drain was, is (and will continue to be) such a problem in India. We have talented folks, and we have NO IDEA how to nurture this talent...

[@ApproachingPerfection]

it really is unfortunate

[@atulit]

I often find it extremely infuriating that people still complain the current government for its little achievements and lots of issues, they forget past was even worse or you could say if we had kept that pace we would have been even more pitiful.

[@MrHashisz]

License raj killer Indian Computer

[@markissboi3583]

You do alot research quite enjoy these ...

[@jyotipch]

Till today, ECIL was just an area in the Hyderabad city 😃

[@Aerrow62]

I gotta say that's really deep research. Well done.

[@spectre3954]

At the end India's Socialist economic system and misplaced priorities destroyed everything...

[@mayanksinghfartiyal5290]

​ @cv990a4 It was only in 1960 that India was free from British. Till them the Brown Sahibs were still directly taking order from British as everything from beaurocacy, police and politicians were the same post/pre british. So they were collaborator. The constitution was also the same as the one british made to colonize with few changes. And the one who wanted full independence were killed, marginalized or demonized. SC bose declared criminal, patel died, Savarkar alone and demonized, L B Shastri, homi bhabha assasinated. And it made it impossible for pro Indian person to enter politics. Congress held absolute power created by British. Information beaurue taking orders from uk. Only bjp came to power temperorily then govt dissolved with no confidence motion without reason. It was only 2014 the pro India side came to power. But it is not the same anyone. In 200 years India gdp decreased from above 30% to 3% post indepence(dominion initially which people didnt know). The average age of people was less 30. With poor people and rich people left mostly those who made money through collaboration with british. With these conditions India has come long way.

[@dijoxx]

No, it was the extremely rapid advancement of technology.

[@wi8shad0w]

loved the content.. went to the last detail with accurate citings.. pls do more of this .

[@amarjeetsehmi8995]

Lasck of security sense and loose talk to unauthorised people are the major cause of India computers failures.

[@kinershah464]

Thank you for making an amazing video on the history of computers developed/used in our country. Very informational video.

[@SeaJay_Oceans]

India should try this again. It's not the 1970s, and India has come a Long Way in programming, hardware and software design. A Tax Free Economic Zone could boost foreign investment into building foundry operations in India. India was correct to push and develop as much of their own technology as possible, and to be liberated from European / American Imperialism. They were correct to push for Indian tech, designed and built by Indian educated Indians. The whole program was to grow India's development, the end result technology was secondary.

[@ellielikesmath]

i feel like, without watching what is surely another iteration of why poor/small country X's computer industry failed, we kinda get it lol. it's not like the US makes fewer missteps, they just have more people and resources.

[@aravindpallippara1577]

More resources but definitely not more people than India

[@sorryi6685]

US attracts the best people from around the world. It's creatas a culture of innovation. Meanwhile, India is very succefull ij exporting talent and boasting about their acheivements

[@nneeerrrd]

That's a one knowledgeable deer 🦌

[@sunixjester]

Thank you for these videos.

[@lord_of_love_and_thunder]

The critical oversight was targeting domestic self reliance rather than exports. The goal of selling to others who demand value and quality automatically pushes companies in the right direction, public or private. It also helps one understand their comparative strengths, and build on them.

[@drdca8263]

This raises a question in my mind: if a country is not able to actually *compete* at, e.g. making chips and such, how much resources would it cost to gradually increase capability to manufacture such things at like, non-mass-produced scale? Like, in order to develop a small group of experts who know what they’re doing when it comes to that topic, even if not actually producing any significant amount of that kind of hardware?

[@ontisalaga1789]

one of the advantages we have is the Indian diaspora which the Indian Govt is trying to incentivize to invest or work in India.

[@effexon]

iirc that is almost trivial, you just need decent R&D budget and very small team of educated people... Id guess biggest indian companies already have these. Often tricky part is high volume manufacturing cost effectively and against competition to enter big market.

[@fugslayernominee1397]

Problem is R&D and economy of scale. Big companies are able to invest so much in R&D because they can pass that cost to the product they sell. For small companies to do this at smaller scale is near impossible without huge investments and subsides from governments.

[@jonathancohen2351]

India has to take advantage of its relative strengths to find niches where it can compete now and then grow into other areas. It's hard for US companies to compete in making chips and other manufacturing, but thanks to CCP's stupidity, India is getting a chance to become a world player in that field.

[@SianaGearz]

It's a horrible waste of money. We have seen that in Russia. Massive amounts of money and no output. Plus the expetise of the institutes maintained this way is... debatable, since their hands-on experience is with long obsolete technology and doesn't include overcoming scale and quality obstacles. The premise that you can have a handful of experts is flawed, since production of semiconductors requires combined expertise of thousands of people, whether these people actually do something or only sit on their hands because they don't have equipment funds, a customer, etc. Every person is capable of developing and internalising experise in only a very small part of the process. Then you have brain drain, you teach up people as best you can, but after a while sitting on their hands, people get frustrated and up and go somewhere where they can develop their skill more and they never come back. Hibernated insular industries are extremely wasteful. You either need to leverage someone else's hard earned expertise and economy of scale, or you develop your capability to competitiveness, either way you need to slot into the international ecosystem.

[@giansideros]

6:34 for context, India today is one of the few countries in the world that STILL has a SIX day work week, even China moved onto a 5 day week in the 90s. Unemployment couldn't have seriously been that much of a concern, whilst they still to do this day maintain retrograde work time regulations that only exacerbate unemployment ie by inflating the already overly abundant labour pool.

[@peterfireflylund]

Lump sum of labour fallacy.

[@johnl.7754]

Many private businesses in China is still 6 days

[@longzeng]

@@johnl.7754 in certain industries and even that is technically illegal, while in india its actually legal lol

[@lakshaysingh2160]

Bruh and here I was thinking that you have to work 6 days a week 🤡

[@Shinzon23]

*Red China

[@samj1012]

Indian engineers in general prefer repetitive tasks without invention..this is their problem anywhere in the world.

[@ricardokowalski1579]

government mandated monopoly fails to develop competitive products? WoW, who knew?

[@nosotrosloslobosestamosreg4115]

Amazing, isn't it?

[@r.r.r.918]

While it is true in general that leaving the market to its devices usually produces the best results, it is also true that a countries that have an industrial policy are not necessarily going to produce uncompetitive products or failure. Case and point: chaebols, which have turned South Korea into an economic powerhouse. Industrial policy is not inherently bad; it can be a good thing if handled prudently. Chaebols emerged in South Korea in the 1960s, when the government of President Park Chung Hee spurred rapid industrialization by promoting large businesses, following his seizure of power in 1961. The First Five Year Economic Plan by the government set industrial policy towards new investment, and chaebols were to be guaranteed loans from the banking sector. The chaebol played a key role in developing new industries, markets, and export production, helping make South Korea one of the Four Asian Tigers

[@nosotrosloslobosestamosreg4115]

@@r.r.r.918 Yeah, the exception breaks the rule.

[@steveunderwood3683]

​@@r.r.r.918The key thing here is the s in chaebols. There was competition.

[@eirikarnesen9691]

if you compete at a global level, it does not matter if there is no internal competition

[@Excellent.25]

Thanks!

[@varniitprofessional]

Talent in India is undiscovered diamond. Everybody cried of black soil but nobody's going to see underneath.

[@connclissmann6514]

From a distance, it was always a puzzle that both parts of the Indian sub-continent spent so much on their military, while so many in the population remain under-educated (by which I mean not being educated comprehensively up to the age of 12, with all leaving with literacy and reasonable understanding of maths.) The whole story highlights that governments are generally not good at directing innovation. They should foster research and create a positive business environment for a ground-up devolvement of that innovation.

[@dijoxx]

Goverments are great at directing innovation. All the underlying science and technologies of the modern world were developed with government grants, subsidised education, and massive public spending. No private company has the patience to invest in anything that will take decades to pay off.

[@JT-zl8yp]

the license raj is back in india...now to import laptops, tablets and servers you need to take a license from the government....i think the indian IT industry is screwed now

[@8-bitarghya718]

It's a smart move btw!

[@JT-zl8yp]

its a stupid move...will just make it harder for consumers to buy latest laptops and servers@@8-bitarghya718

[@JT-zl8yp]

​@8-bitarghya718 it's a stupid move...didn't you learn anything from the video ? import restrictions make the domestic companies complacent

[@gxhjxrgggitdrhk]

India was disco as in disco-nnected 😂❤🕺

[@Shaktobengalee]

That's still correct unfortunately

[@shantanu83]

This is a really well researched video highlighting the right set of factors I.e. policy, technology and obviously failures. This is still a key lesson for India to learn as even today a massive investment from Foxconn and Vedanta was mismanaged by the Indian government.

[@krishnanunnimadathil8142]

Probably not the government. Vedanta.

[@shantanu83]

@@krishnanunnimadathil8142 Vedanta obviously has no experience in semiconductor manufacturing, but it should be appreciated that they dared to risk this venture in India when even big names like reliance or adani have not dared to venture into semiconductors. The leverage that Vedanta brought to the table in terms of being a mining company and obviously using that mining expertise for semiconductors, as semiconductors do need metallic and non metallic sources, has not been adequately assessed by the government. Because in terms of capitalising on that mining source needed for semiconductors, India is still far behind. Inspite of having adequate silica or sand , with one of world's best coastline, Indian government has not pushed for adequate reforms in this sector. There is a giant sand mafia that operates instead. But it is not just sand that is the base material. There is also need for items like germanium and gallium that are used for doping the silicon and the top sources of these metals are not in India but China. India has also not capitalised on these mining sources as China mines most of these metals needed in Xinjiang and Tibet, close to Ladakh where even India should be able to prospect for the same. Having that synergy between a mining company which gets these metals and semiconductor manufacturer which uses them would have obviously reduced costs for making these components in India, and unfortunately the Indian government has failed to look at the benefit of this offer.

[@youcantata]

No wonder India failed in computer industry. Even major industrial, economic and technical power countries like Japan, UK, France, USSR/Russia, China failed to win big in IT. It was too ambitious goal for India. So South Korean govn't invested their R&D power and money on telecommunication sector. Korean R&D institute and companies developed indigenous full-electronic telephone exchange in 1980's. This is monumental milestone of Korean electronic industry. Success of developing indigenous telecom exchange prompted Korean companies like Samsung /LG to enter high-tech electronic/telecommunication business. The rest is history. That is why Samsung become world class telecommunication giant.

[@olderchin1558]

Coming from the Telco industry, I can tell you that Samsung never succeeded in the international telecoms market. They had for a while strong development capabilities when Korea had a closed system. But Samsung wasn't able to compete internationally. It remains a local player, mostly supporting local Telco. In my 30 years in the industry, Samsung never was a serious competition except in Korea.

[@aravindpallippara1577]

It's China, especially huawei that's big on telco

[@Facts..Checker]

Bcoz India is good and proud in buying and not building! Many talents left bcoz they felt being elites and better overseas.

[@8-bitarghya718]

WTF? since 2 decades we are building our own stuffs! We were exploited and colonized by the brits, they made us pay for invading our land.

[@anshulv6]

Morarji desai, these politicians ruined India development, Indra Gandhi was best in make in India initiative now modi. Really shame

[@soumyajitsahu3972]

Interesting story, very much insightful . Thanks

[@MK-yj7pn]

Looking at the most government companies today in the country and how incompetent they can be, the fate of the Indian computer was sealed shut when ECIL was brought in as the leader and decision making influencer.

[@otomackena7610]

We had better chance if GOI supported indian pvt PC manufacturers at the time like HCL, Tata etc. Fun fact Tata Elxsi started of as a PC manufacturers with their own processor design, the founder sold the company to Tata since Tata was an investor in the company. He later founded Nexgen Microsystems which also had likes of Vinod Dham. Nexgen was later acquired by AMD. AMD K6 processors were based on Nexgen's design.

[@MK-yj7pn]

@@otomackena7610 Finally something like what you are saying will bring electronics manufacturing in India. There is no other way. Some private partnerships with foreign companies will happen and government will facilitate and help out.

[@OptimumConsulting]

The video is really dumb...it is not why Indian Computer Failed BUT why American computers WON dominating the market....i used to work for one of the best British company producing computers - ICL...they went belly up due to US and Japan market dominance...why focus on India ?

[@hacc220able]

Good as always - thanks for sharing

[@bunnyfreakz]

Building a computer tech is global effort. You can't just depends with talent and money from one country.

[@MrTheGuitarNerd]

Did they try turning it off and back on again?

[@salguodrolyat2594]

No on/off button, just self-destruct button.🤣

[@Cyba_IT]

Some amazing research. Bravo good sir 😊

[@luckydud8]

Got to give props to the timing of these videos; they're always released for when people are getting off work. Smart upload strategy.

[@flygonbreloom]

Or waking up in Australia. Which works too, slow mornings.

[@NikolausUndRupprecht]

Or in the middle of the night... depending on the time zone.

[@alexanderrose1556]

Litteraly always at the time of when i am going to bed here in central europe tho...

[@davidmeti1354]

It's the middle of the day for me

[@belstar1128]

Europeans always get left out. this video came out around 02:00 here i have noticed European youtubers always upload in the night even those that don't speak english and have no viewers in different time zones. while Americans often upload in the early morning right after they wake up. live streaming is dead between 5:00 and 20:00 in this time zone. only asians are streaming in that period and even they only start when its around 12:00 here and most of them don't speak English anyway.

[@AmitKumarAlphaX]

Beautifully presented 🔥🔥🔥

[@lukeecle117]

Because the best indian engineers are in the US, work for the american companies, and they'll stay there never come back.

[@kr02201985]

Some of the people who worked in ECIL’s CMD are the ones who lead many Indian private firms to world dominance. What was planted as a seed in hardware morphed itself into software Development. We tried, failed and built on top of it. Same can be said about many sectors in India. Had we been solely dependent on foreign help, we would have been like our Neighbors.

[@namanupadhyay4794]

The policy was a failure even before the inception . Instead of allowing the private sector to get into the business, the government itself got involved .

[@jupe2001]

The story of Licence Raj

[@weltvonalex]

Outstandig Video, if you told me i would watch a video with that topic, i would say "never thats boring" but no, its not. It was super interesting.

[@sharathkr]

Died in a plane crash, yeahhh right

[@Snoopy-TheShihTzu]

Indian engineers are designing computers in companies like AMD, Intel, Qualcomm and GPUs in Nvidia and others as well. We have great talent in hardware design engineering. What’s lacking severely is manufacturing capabilities be it infrastructure as well as human capital. The Govt. can’t do anything here, they don’t pay good enough. Only private sectors can make an impact here. The only ones who can do that here is either Tata or Ambani (Reliance).

[@nirupam631]

The first computer came to my alma mater Indian Statistical institute (mentioned by the narrator). I did my PhD from there in AI 30 years ago. The subject become popular only recently. The narrator failed to mention that India had a solid education system even 5000 years ago. Which were systematically destroyed by first Muslims and then West.

[@kdas2000in]

Indias education system was actually developed by the West.

[@dijoxx]

Does that solid education include things like basic hygiene?

[@beingchilling6018]

If it was now in the present government this would have done in no time

[@qianxu8368]

Looks like what happened to Xiaomi recently is a routine of Indian policy, very interesting!

[@Shaktobengalee]

Plz explain what actually happened to Xiaomi?

[@major2707]

​@@Shaktobengaleefine 😁

[@krishnamoorthysankaranaray4057]

Xiaomi broke Indian law and is guilty of tax evasion. If a company does not obey the law of the land it pays the price.

[@qianxu8368]

@@krishnamoorthysankaranaray4057 Right, manipulation of law is an Indian national policy. The facts are, i). no foreign companies have not been robbed in India, asking Daiichi Sankyo, Carrefour, Henkel, Harley Davidson , Ford Metro, Vodafone, GM motors, Pohang Iron and Steel, Walmart, Wistron and Disney, and the records are as hell: ii) Xiaomi has operations in many countries and is law-abiding except in "Incredible India". Ultimately, India is a country with the highest illiteracy rate, and malnutrition rate in the world, and nothing can work, even the Japanese-sourced high-speed rail dies. The take-home message is this, can any foreign companies really make money and take home by investing in India, as do so many foreign companies in China just name a few, Apple, Tesla (it was on the brink of bankruptcy but quickly turned the tide after it entered China), and the Germany automakers? Of course, the actual list is very long.

[@qianxu8368]

@@Shaktobengalee Xiaomi is just one of a long list of foreign companies (Daiichi Sankyo, Carrefour, Henkel, Harley Davidson , Ford Metro, Vodafone, GM motors, Pohang Iron and Steel, Walmart, Wistron and Disney, and of course the "marvelous" Japanese high-speed train) being lured in and robbed by India. Basically, India has a large trade deficit every year and nothing valuable to offer in the international market, so trapping and robbing foreign investment is a national policy, just like what happened to IBM decades ago.

[@HarharMahadev-bb1hi]

How do you do your research so fast and in detail?😮

[@yeshwantpande2238]

Indian system failed in most areas of engineering and technology because of a big mental block that We can do anything and everything and hence we don't need anything from outside. This black existed in every field and where ever it didn't the country progressed fairly well and else failed and still laging. Semiconductor, electronics and automobile are areas where India still does not have own successful product, project and industry.

[@incremental_failure]

This sort of thinking is just ignorant. Even the electronics superpowers like US and Japan greatly rely on components from outside. India has some bright minds but the leadership is typically clueless.

[@somnathroy102]

"we don't need anything from outside", is something not of arrogance but a realization that no one will provide any technology. Read on how USA/Europe/China had time again blocked India's access to critical technology. It also had to do with non alignment too certain extent. Some major things that I can think of are cryogenic engines, nuclear reactor, GPS etc. I feel Indian automobile of all the sectors after IT is doing great with export as reported by there international sales. Please think before commenting as a viewer of this channel don't just conjure up stories.

[@yeshwantpande2238]

All automobile technology we are boasting about are imported technology whether today or decades back, even Ambassador and Fiat. There should be some thing indigenous but can count on fingers for example Iron Plough by Kirloskar etc. That was the End

[@incremental_failure]

@@somnathroy102 That's how it works. Technology is rarely shared and when India gave the middle finger to US in the 1960s, how did you expect the US to react? This is why most countries play the tit for tat game. Some 3rd world countries have this attitude that other countries owe them something for just existing but that's not how it works in real life.

[@-rate6326]

​​@@yeshwantpande2238 imported bro. Automobile industry is growing. Batteries are included in this(not actual batteries). You have to import these. Engines, Tyre, brakes, seats and lot more are not imported + monopoly of foreign giants causes the problem too. Who need some Indian company when we have Asus and it takes time to make company like Asus from scratch. Failure+ negative pr = company died.

[@paadipanta2607]

Why I am feeling sad while listening this article? It is really sad, that ECIL that once competed with IBM, is no where by 1990.

[@mattweger437]

Sounds like a great example of State interference prohibiting growth

[@dijoxx]

No Matt, it was the rapid advancement of technology.

[@YogAroodha]

There was another problem with ECIL in the late 80s and early 90s. Labor unions became too powerful and started using the ECIL as a playground for their politics. Labor unions demands to increase salaries and benefits of their employees incessantly added cost. Management was appointed by politicians and did not care about running the corporation more efficiently. As an example of excesses, when lunch was costing Rupees 5 outside, employees were getting it in Hyderabad ECIL for Rupee 0.50. In one strike that lasted couple of weeks (mostly a personal dispute between management and union leaders, not much to do with actual benefits or working conditions of employees) cost several million Rupees per day. The strike was finally resolved by a management leader apologizing to a union leader (most important condition for reconciliation) along with several added benefits to the employees. This reminded general public how horribly the public sector units were being run and plagued by politicians, unions, and nepotism.

[@krishnamoorthysankaranaray4057]

Great informative video. It's ironic that the same IBM today has a CEO of Indian descent. There's a lesson to be learnt there about but underestimating a class of people, just as the video is a lesson on the dangers of overestimating one's capabilities to go on one's own (if that were at all desirable).

[@userre85]

Just an MBA

[@krishnamoorthysankaranaray4057]

@@userre85 explain yourself please

[@mikehibbett3301]

I would love to know how you find all the background info!

[@gogadev]

Strange eh?😂 I haven't found any Indian scientist from the 70's, nor any Indian media house talking about this.

[@kolkataguy3917]

You didn't mention anything about C-DAC Param 1000 Supercomputer,which was launched during 1980s , that was among the best Supercomputers existed that time. Better than the contemporary IBM supercomputers. Later other Param series Supercomputer developed were developed by C-DAC. Recently C-DAC developed AUM Microprocessor. Upcoming C-DAC supercomputers are going to use AUM microprocessors. AUM is based on ARM architecture.

[@eliotanderson6554]

Homi j Baba the man who bought three stage nuclear programme to ise thorium 🔥

[@guaposneeze]

Still selling vacuum tube systems the same year that the 6502 got released is a pretty great summary of how government backed tech development often lags behind private startups. That's just a wild disconnect from where the state of the art in private industry was at the time. If they had decided to stay isolated and disallow imports to force people to buy local, they would have been selling Commodire 64 clones by the time everybody else was playing glQuake. Hopefully, there won't be a video in a few years about the domestic TSMC fabs being set up in the US with government incentives that you can write with the same story beats in the script. :/

[@tookitogo]

It has nothing to do with being government backed. It’s because they didn’t have the technological know-how and infrastructure to make semiconductors.

[@Jkauppa]

well, make a water hose transistor, yep water computer, smaller than vacuum tube computer, lol

[@mvadu]

Love the content overall. But to nitpick, you mentioned "India went to war", but in reality in both times India had to get involved to protect itself. Same as Ukraine had to, you don't say in few years "when Ukraine went to war with" for example.