Computing and cybernetics in CEE

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_computer_hardware
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_communication#History_of_telecommunication

questions for particular regions @ CEE

• introduction of personal computer
• introduction of email in universities
• introduction of 16mm, video
  • strong support for artists working with 16mm from the state in Poland => strong experimental film scene; video art postponed

By country

former Soviet Union

Scientists

• Sergei Lebedev, During II World War Lebedev worked in the field of control automation of complex systems; his group designed a weapon-aiming stabilization system for tanks and an automatic guidance system for airborne missiles; to perform these tasks Lebedev developed in 1945 an analog computer system to solve ordinary differential equations. After the end of the war he returned to the work of improving the stability of electrical systems; in 1948, Lebedev had found out from foreign magazines that scientists in Western countries were working on the design of electronic computers; and though the details of these works were secret, the idea fascinated him; in the autumn of the same year he decided to focus the work of his laboratory on computer design. 1946-1951 he headed the Kiev Electrotechnical Institute of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences; Lebedev was the head of the research group in Theophania near Kiev, which created MESM, the fist digital programmable computer in Continental Europe (1950). In 1952 he became a professor at Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology. From 1953 until death he was the director of Institute of Precision Mechanics and Computer Engineering which was later named after him; there the BESM series of computers were created. (IEEE Computer Pioneer Award 1996 for the first computer in the Soviet Union) [1]
• Viktor Glushkov (IEEE Computer Pioneer Award 1996 for digital automation of computer architecture)
• Alexei Lyapunov (IEEE Computer Pioneer Award 1996 for Soviet cybernetics and programming)
• George Lopato (IEEE Computer Pioneer Award 2000 for pioneering development in Belarus of the Minsk series computers' hardware, of the multicomputer complexes and of the RV family of mobile computers for heavy field conditions) [2]
• Gennady Stolyarov (IEEE Computer Pioneer Award 2000 for pioneering development in Minsk series computers' software, of the information systems' software and applications and for data processing and data base management systems concepts dissemination and promotion)
• Arnols Reitsakas (IEEE Computer Pioneer Award 1996 for contributions to Estonia's computer age)
• Brook
• Bashir Rameev [3]
• Matyuhin
• Mikhail Kartsev [4] [5] [6] [7]
• Brusentsov
• Israel Akushsky [8]
• Philip Staros [9]
• Mikhail Sulim [10]

Machines [11]

• MESM, constructed in Academy of Sciences in Minsk. In 1950, when the model of MESM had been tested, the only other similar working machines were Frederick Williams and Tom Kilburn's Baby and Maurice Wilkes' EDSAC in England (however, each British computer employed a sequential operational arithmetic unit, while MESM worked on parallel arithmetic units). Led by Sergei Lebedev and his main assistants, Candidates of Science Lev Naumovich Dashevsky and Ekaterina Alexeevna Shkabara, together with a team of twenty five engineers, technicians and assembly workers, all took an active part in designing, assembling, adjusting and operating the MESM. When the word got out that there was an operating computer in the Ukraine, a steady parade of scientists from Kiev and Moscow headed to Feofania with scientific and defense-related problems that could not be solved without the aid of a computer -- problems from the fields of thermonuclear weapons processes (such as Yakov B. Zeldovich's work), space flights and rocket technology, long-distance electric transmission lines, mechanics, statistical quality control, and others. [12]
• BESM, originally planned as a prototype in Kiev, constructed in Laboratory No. 1 at the Institute for Precision Mechanics Moscow, led by Lebedev. In April 1953 the State commission accepted as operational the new high-speed BESM-1 computer, but it did not go into series production, because of opposition on the part of the Ministry of Machine and Instrument Building, which pushed its own weaker and less reliable machine. In 1958, BESM-2 went into series production; used also in the space-flight (the "Soyuz - Apollo" project) to calculate satellite orbits and the trajectory of the first rocket to reach the surface of the Moon. [13] [14]
• Kiev completed under supervision of Glushkov, who became head of Lebedev's former laboratory in Kiev in 1958. The Computing Center was eventually reorganized as the Cybernetics Institute.
• Strela was produced in seven models, used in Computing Center of the Academy of Sciences Moscow 1955-58, then given to the Mosfilm Studio Complex in Moscow to use on movie sets. [15]
• M-20 developed by Institute for Precision Mechanics and SKB-245. Led by Lebedev, Mikhail Romanovich Shura-Bura, and Golovistikov. 20 stands for 20 thousand operations per second (fastest in the world at that time). Went into series production in 1958. [16]
• M-3 and Minsk-series, first model of M-3 was completed in September 1959. led by George Lopato. [17] [18]
• M-4M series, led by Kartsev [19]
• TsEM-1 in November 1953 (half a year after completion of Lebedev's BESM), the first sequential computer, [in Russian: Tsifrovaya Elektronnaya Mashina-1], went on-line at the Institute of Atomic Energy in Moscow and operated until 1960. [20]
• BESM-6 - the second-generation supercomputer, semiconductor based, dev at Institute for Precision Mechanics. Two of his former students – Vladimir Andreevich Melnikov and Lev Korolev – assisted Lebedev. Was in production for 17 years (absolute world record). [21]
• Ural-1, led by Rameev.
• Setun-70, dev by Setun, Brusentsov and Zhogolev [22]
• UM1-NX and UM2, dev in KB-2, dir by Philip Staros and his closest assistant, Iosef Berg [23]

Centres

• Computing Center at the Academy of Sciences Kiev, led by Lebedev 1948-52, since 1958 by Glushkov, eventually reorganized as the Cybernetics Institute.
• Laboratory No. 1 at the Institute for Precision Mechanics and Computer Technology Moscow, Institute dir by Lavrentiev since 1951, Lab est. March 1951 and led by Lebedev since 1952
• Computing Center of the Academy of Sciences Moscow, est. Feb 1955, dir. academician Dorodnitsyn [24]
• Moscow Scientific Research Institute of Computer Complexes [in Russian: Nauchno-Isledovatel'skii Institut Vuichislitel'nikh Kompleksov, or NIIVK], founded by Kartsev

Bibliography

• Pioneers of Soviet Computing by Boris Malinovsky (edited by Anne Fitzpatrick) (full text)
  • historical and technical overview of Soviet computing developments from the 1940s through the 1970s, with social, institutional, political and economic context for these events
  • focuses mainly on certain developments in hardware and the people responsible for them. A separate manuscript that analyzes programming, algorithmic, and software innovation in the former Soviet Union awaits another scholar.
  • when Soviet government decided to copy the IBM 360 system in the 1960s instead of relying on their own enormous community of scientific and engineering talent, Lebedev, Glushkov, and several of the Soviet Union’s established computer scientists fought this directive vigilantly while trying to retain faith in their political leaders.** Slava Gerovitch, From Newspeak to Cyberspeak: A History of Soviet Cybernetics (MIT Press, 2002; pb 2004) [25]
• Guide to the History of Russian Science, [26]
• bibliography on Soviet and Post-Soviet Technology / Computing and Cybernetics [27]

former Czechoslovakia

Scientists

• Norbert Frištacký (IEEE Computer Pioneer Award 1996 for pioneering digital devices), Slovak
• Ivan Plander (IEEE Computer Pioneer Award 1996 for the introduction of computer hardware technology into Slovakia and the development of the first control computer)
• Antonin Svoboda (IEEE Computer Pioneer Award 1996 for the pioneering work leading to the development of computer research in Czechoslovakia and the design and construction of the SAPO and EPOS computers)
• Jozef Gruska (IEEE Computer Pioneer Award 1996 for the development of computer science in former Czechoslovakia with fundamental contributions to the theory of computing and extraordinary organizational activities)
• Jiri Horejs (IEEE Computer Pioneer Award 1996 for informatics and computer science)

Hungary

Scientists

• Laszlo Kalmar (IEEE Computer Pioneer Award 1996 for recognition as the developer of a 1956 logical machine and the design of the MIR computer in Hungary)
• Laszlo Kozma (IEEE Computer Pioneer Award 1996 for development of the 1930 relay machines, and going on to build early computers in post-war Hungary)

Poland

Scientists

• Romuald W. Marczynski (IEEE Computer Pioneer Award 1996 for pioneering work in the construction of the first Polish digital computers and contributions to fundamental research in computer architecture.
• Antoni Kilinski (IEEE Computer Pioneer Award 1996 for pioneering work in the construction of the first commercial computers in Poland, and for the development of university curriculum in computer science)

Bulgaria

Scientists

• Lubomir Georgiev Iliev (IEEE Computer Pioneer Award 1996, a founder and influential leader of computing in Bulgaria; leader of the team that developed the first Bulgarian computer; made fundamental and continuing contributions to abstract mathematics and software)
• Angel Angelov (IEEE Computer Pioneer Award 1996 for computer science technologies in Bulgaria)

Romania

Scientists

• Grigore C. Moisil (IEEE Computer Pioneer Award 1996 for polyvalent logic switching circuits)

Austria

Scientists

• Heinz Zemanek, (IEEE Computer Pioneer Award 1985 for computer and computer languages – MAILUEFTERL) [28]