page_title: History of computing in the Soviet Union
section_title: 1970s
hierarchical_section_title: History of computing in the Soviet Union / History / 1970s
caption_attribution_description: Moscow Polytechnical Museum, Elbrus, soviet supercomputer
context_page_description: The history of computing in the Soviet Union began during the late 1940s, when the country began to develop MESM at the Kiev Institute of Electrotechnology in Feofaniya. Initial ideological opposition to cybernetics in the Soviet Union in general was overcome during the Khrushchev era, and computer production was officially encouraged.
  By the early 1970s, uncoordinated work by competing government ministries left the Soviet computer industry lacking common standards in peripherals and digital capacity which led to a significant technological lag behind Western producers. The Soviet government decided to abandon the development of original computer designs and encouraged the pirating of Western systems.
  Soviet industry lacked the technology to mass-produce computers with acceptable quality standards, and locally manufactured copies of Western hardware were unreliable. As personal computers spread to industries and offices in the West, the Soviet Union's technological lag increased.
  Nearly all Soviet computer manufacturers ceased operations after the breakup of the Soviet Union.
context_section_description: By the early 1970s, the lack of common standards in peripherals and digital capacity led to a significant technological lag behind Western producers. Hardware limitations forced Soviet programmers to write programs in machine code until the early 1970s. Users were expected to maintain and repair their own hardware; local modifications made it difficult (or impossible) to share software, even between similar machines.
  According to the Ninth five-year plan (1971–1975), Soviet computer production would increase by 2.6 times to a total installed base of 25,000 by 1975, implying about 7,000 computers in use as of 1971. The plan discussed producing in larger quantities the integrated circuit-based Ryad, but BESM remained the most common model, with ASVT still rare. Rejecting Stalin's opinion, the plan foresaw using computers for national purposes such as widespread industrial automation, econometrics, and a statewide central planning network. Some experts such as Barry Boehm of RAND and Victor Zorza thought that Soviet technology could catch up to the West with intensive effort like the Soviet space program, but others such as Marshall Goldman believed that such was unlikely without capitalist competition and user feedback, and failures of achieving previous plans' goals.
  The government decided to end original development in the industry, encouraging the pirating of Western systems. An alternative option, a partnership with the Britain-based International Computers Limited, was considered but ultimately rejected. The ES EVM mainframe, launched in 1971, was based on the IBM/360 system. The copying was possible because although the IBM/360 system implementation was protected by a number of patents, IBM published a description of the system's architecture (enabling the creation of competing implementations).
  The Soviet Academy of Sciences, which had been a major player in Soviet computer development, could not compete with the political influence of the powerful ministries and was relegated to a monitoring role. Hardware research and development became the responsibility of research institutes attached to the ministries. By the early 1970s, with chip technology becoming increasingly relevant to defense applications, Zelenograd emerged as the center of the Soviet microprocessing industry; foreign technology designs were imported, legally or otherwise.
  The Ninth five-year plan approved a scaled-back version of the earlier OGAS project, and the EGSVT network, which was to link the higher echelons of planning departments and administrations. The poor quality of Soviet telephone systems impeded remote data transmission and access. The telephone system was barely adequate for voice communication, and a Western researcher deemed it unlikely that it could be significantly improved before the end of the 20th century.
  In 1973, Lebedev stepped down from his role as director of the Institute of Precision Mechanics and Computer Engineering. He was replaced by Vsevolod Burtsev, who promoted development of the Elbrus computer series.
  In the spirit of detente, in 1974 the Nixon administration decided to relax export restrictions on computer hardware and raised the allowed computing power to 32 million bits per second. In 1975, the Soviet Union placed an order with IBM to supply process-control and management computers for its new Kamaz truck plant. IBM systems were also purchased for Intourist to establish a computer reservation system before the 1980 Summer Olympics.
caption: Elbrus computer in Moscow's Polytechnic Museum
exif: {"Image ImageWidth": "2112", "Image ImageLength": "2816", "Image BitsPerSample": "[8, 8, 8]", "Image PhotometricInterpretation": "2", "Image Make": "CASIO COMPUTER CO.,LTD.", "Image Model": "EX-F1", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image SamplesPerPixel": "3", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop Elements 14.0 (Windows)", "Image DateTime": "2018:03:19 21:26:13", "Image HostComputer": "Mac OS X 10.6.4", "Image ExifOffset": "328", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "890", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "8442", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/13", "EXIF FNumber": "14/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Shutter Priority", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "200", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2010:08:20 14:11:01", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2010:08:20 14:11:01", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "580/121", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "92511/25000", "EXIF ApertureValue": "1485427/500000", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "14/5", "EXIF MeteringMode": "CenterWeightedAverage", "EXIF LightSource": "Day white fluorescent (N 4600 - 5400K)", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "23/2", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2104", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1925", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Manual", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "0", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "57", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal"}