Cold War Computing

Posted on 3 Aug 2005 at 12:39

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Gallery

The IBM System/360 was not available in the USSR due to restrictions imposed by the Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls (COCOM) agreement. This prevented the export of high-tech equipment to Eastern Europe from the West. In response, in 1972 Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev told a meeting of officials: "We communists have to string along with the capitalists for a while. We need their credits, their agriculture and their technology."

In the same year, the ES EVM became widely available in Russia. Based on early versions of the System/360, this machine couldn't run as fast as the latest models in the West but it did run a Russian language version of OS/360 called OS ES. Russia produced 15,000 ES EVMs, only ceasing production in 1995. These general-purpose computers found a wide range of uses in science and industry.

In 1975, following on from the ES EVM's success, production started on a clone of the Digital Equipment Corporation PDP-11/40 mini-computer. The PDP-11 range found widespread use in universities and industry. Called the SM-4 EVM, the Russian version came with an optional 128KB or 256KB of RAM, a paper tape unit for input, two removable 2.5MB disk packs and two 5MB fixed disks. It also featured multiple video terminals and twin magnetic tape units. The SM-4 so faithfully reproduced the original hardware that it even ran UNIX.

In the mid-1980s came the first IBM PC copy: the ES PEVM. This ran DOS and early versions of Windows. Supposedly developed in Russia, manufacture took place at the Minsk Production Group for Computing Machinery.

NOT-SO-FOND FAREWELL

US intelligence eventually realised the extent to which Western computer technology had started to appear in the Soviet Union. At a meeting between US president Ronald Reagan and France's president Fran?s Mitterrand in 1981, it emerged that the French had recruited a KGB agent in Moscow. Colonel Vladimir Vetrov, also known as 'Farewell', was responsible for evaluating Western technology. He had access to the KGB's Technology Directorate, which acquired Western technology for the regime to study and copy, and exposed the Directorate's technology wish list. The box on the left describes how the US government used this information to its advantage by allowing sabotaged technology to be stolen.

During 1984 and 1985, the US arrested and expelled large numbers of suspected KGB agents, effectively stemming the flow of technology. Given that domestic computers were seriously underpowered, and stolen Western technology had been doctored, the USSR faced uncertainty. It could no longer tell what the US had done or where, or what was going on in US computer labs.

For many years, Russian technology seemed doomed. However, the collapse of the Soviet Union brought a new spirit of freedom to the former Eastern bloc. The embargo on Western technology enforced by COCOM ran out in March 1994.

IBM now helps to maintain the ES EVM System/360 clones still in operation. Microsoft enjoys a strong, growing presence in the former Soviet Union, Linux is making steady advances and the open-source movement is also gaining ground. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) reported that in April this year the first Open Source Forum took place in Moscow, bringing together members of the open-source community from the US, Europe and Russia. Sponsored by IBM, HP and Novell, this demonstrates how far things have come. It's a long way from the old monastery in post-war Kiev.

Author: Jon Thompson