The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group Computing in Russia Major Keary |
Computing in Russia seems to have gone unnoticed, possibly because there are no sensational grabs
for journalists to exploit. It is not the easiest 'read' because the English version is the result of
translation from Russian to German and then to English, which probably explains unfamiliar terms such
as
mechanisticism. The typographic design leaves a lot to be desired, and I found the lack of an
index most surprising.
Nevertheless, this is a very important contribution to the history of computing. There is plenty of
literature about the development of computers in the western world, but little mention of Russian
achievements.
The received cold war version was that any computer technology acquired by Russia was stolen
from western countries. There was certainly some covert technology transfer, but electronic computers
were proposed and
developed independently - and at much the same time - by scientists in Britain, America, Germany, and
Russia.
It is not surprising that Russia was able to conceive, design, and build computers; after all, it had
produced an impressive body of mathematicians and scientists, such as Markov, Kolmogorov, and
Lyapunov.
Three computer pioneers, John Atanasoff, Sergey Lebedev, and Konrad Zuse, appear to have been unaware of each other's work. Atanasoff was given (belatedly) credit for inventing (1937-1938) the "automatic electronic
digital computer", but his work ceased in 1942.
In Germany Konrad Zuse had also made significant advances in computer design in the 1930s. His first
machine, the Z1, was begun in 1936 and completed in 1938; he then built another -the Z2 - in 1939, and
in 1941 completed the Z3; between 1942 and 1945 he built the Z4, which "stands with the
Havard Mark I and the Bell Labs relay computers as a mature and sophisticated digital computer"
[Encyclopedia of
Computer Science]. When one considers that Zuse was working in isolation, and without much - if any
- official support (the German military establishment weren't interested), his achievements were quite
remarkable. Zuse resumed his work after WWII, designing and building machines that ran up to the Z64.
Sergey Lebedev, (1902-1974) was a Soviet Computer Pioneer and received the IEEE Computer Society
Award in 1996 for "the first computer in the Soviet Union". Fifteen types of computer were created
under his guidance. Like Zuse, Lebedev worked in isolation with little offical encouragement during the
war years.
Computing in Russia brings us a fascinating insight into the development of computers and information
science in the Soviet Union. The book is a series of "texts (already published in Russia) mainly by
Russian and Ukrainian scientists, together with primary sources" and supplemented by short articles
about the scientists and technical inventions.
It begins with an historical account of mechanical calculating devices in Russia, from the 'Schoty', an
abacus used in the seventeenth century, to the logic machines of Khrushov and Shchukarev in the late
nineteenth century. The second part is a group of papers on the development of electronic computers,
Lebedev's work through to the end of the 1970s. The information is detailed and there are many
illustrations.
The third part of the book is about cybernetics in Russia; I found it especially interesting because
it discusses the development of cybernetics in the context of "official" Soviet political thought.
The West had its own "official" line: that Russia had been left in a scientific backwater as a result
of rejecting cybernetics because it (cybernetics) clashed with Marxist philosophy. There was certainly
a problem, but cybernetics remained alive and well - as the book shows - in spite of the official line
that cybernetics was a "reactionary pseudo-science which appeared in the USA in the post-war period
and was spread in the capitalist countries; it is a form of modern mechanisticism" [quoted from the
Brief Philosophical Dictionary 4th edition (1954)]. There was public debate in Russia and by
1958 the
Big Soviet Encyclopaedia contained an entry that described cybernetics in much the same terms
as in Western texts.
One of the few English language accounts of Russian scientific development, this book is an important
contribution to the history of the computer. It should also be of interest to teachers and students
of computer science for its descriptions of the problems faced by Russian scientists and how solutions
were developed.
The book can be purchased from the Australian distributor, Harcourt Australia, either by phone
(1800 263 951) or from http://www.harcourt.com.au. It is not
a cheap text, but certainly worth acquisition by libraries.
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Trogemann et al. (Eds.): Computing in Russia ISBN 3-528-05757-2 Published by Vieweg, 350 pp., hardcover RRP $174.90 inc. GST |
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Reprinted from the November 2002 issue of PC Update, the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia
