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                                    ESSAY
      The Comparative Analisis Of The History Of The  Computer  Science  And
The Computer Engineering In The USA And Ukraine.



                                      .
                                    USA.

                      HOWARD H. AIKEN AND THE COMPUTER


      [pic]OWARD AIKEN’S CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  COMPUTER
-NOTABLY THE HARVARD MARK I  (IBM  ASSC)  MACHINE,  AND  ITS  SUCCESSOR  THE
MARK II - ARE OFTEN EXCLUDED FROM THE MAINSTREAM  HISTORY  OF  COMPUTERS  ON
TWO TECHNICALITIES. THE FIRST IS  THAT  MARK I  AND  MARK II  WERE  ELECTRO-
MECHANICAL RATHER THAN ELECTRONIC; THE SECOND ONE IS THAT  AIKEN  WAS  NEVER
CONVINCED THAT COMPUTER PROGRAMS SHOULD BE TREATED AS DATA IN WHAT HAS  COME
TO BE KNOWN AS THE VON NEUMANN CONCEPT, OR THE STORED PROGRAM.
      It is not proposed to discuss here the origins and significance of the
stored program. Nor I wish to deal with the related problem of  whether  the
machines before the stored  program  were  or  were  not  “computers”.  This
subject is complicated by the confusion in actual names given  to  machines.
For example, the ENIAC, which did not  incorporate  a  stored  program,  was
officially named a computer: Electronic  Numeral  Integrator  And  Computer.
But the first stored-program machine to be put into  regular  operation  was
Maurice Wiles’ EDSAC: Electronic  Delay  Storage  Automatic  Calculator.  It
seems to be rather senseless to deny many truly significant innovations  (by
H.H.Aiken and by Eckert and Mauchly), which played an important role in  the
history of computers, on the arbitrary ground that they did not  incorporate
the stored-program concept. Additionally,  in  the  case  of  Aiken,  it  is
significant that there is  a  current  computer  technology  that  does  not
incorporate the stored programs and that  is  designated  as  (at  least  by
TEXAS INSTRUMENTS()  as  “Harvard  architecture”,  though,  it  should  more
properly be called “Aiken architecture”. In this technology the  program  is
fix and not subject to any alteration save by intent - as in some  computers
used for telephone switching and in ROM.


                           OPERATION OF THE ENIAC.
      Aiken was a visionary, a man ahead of  his  times.  Grace  Hopper  and
others remember his prediction in the late 1940s,  even  before  the  vacuum
tube had been wholly replaced by the transistor, that the  time  would  come
when a machine even more powerful than the  giant  machines  of  those  days
could be fitted into a space as small as a shoe box.
      Some weeks before his death Aiken  had  made  another  prediction.  He
pointed out that hardware considerations alone did not give a  true  picture
of computer costs. As hardware has become cheaper, software has been apt  to
get more expensive. And then he gave us  his  final  prediction:  “The  time
will come”, he said, “when manufacturers will gave away  hardware  in  order
to sell software”. Time alone will tell whether or not this  was  his  final
look ahead into the future.
                                      9
                   THE DEVELOPMENT OF COMPUTERS IN THE USA


      [pic]N THE EARLY 1960S, WHEN COMPUTERS WERE  HULKING  MAINFRAMES  THAT
TOOK UP ENTIRE  ROOMS,  ENGINEERS  WERE  ALREADY  TOYING  WITH  THE  THEN  -
EXTRAVAGANT NOTION OF BUILDING A COMPUTER INTENDED FOR THE SOLE USE  OF  ONE
PERSON. BY THE EARLY 1970S, RESEARCHES AT XEROX’S POLO ALTO RESEARCH  CENTER
(XEROX PARC) HAD REALIZED THAT THE PACE OF IMPROVEMENT IN THE TECHNOLOGY  OF
SEMICONDUCTORS - THE CHIPS OF  SILICON  THAT  ARE  THE  BUILDING  BLOCKS  OF
PRESENT-DAY ELECTRONICS - MEANT  THAT  SOONER  OR  LATER  THE  PC  WOULD  BE
EXTRAVAGANT NO LONGER. THEY FORESAW THAT COMPUTING POWER  WOULD  SOMEDAY  BE
SO CHEAP THAT ENGINEERS WOULD BE ABLE TO AFFORD TO DEVOTE A  GREAT  DEAL  OF
IT SIMPLY TO MAKING NON-TECHNICAL PEOPLE MORE  COMFORTABLE  WITH  THESE  NEW
INFORMATION - HANDLING TOOLS. IN THEIR LABS, THEY DEVELOPED OR REFINED  MUCH
OF WHAT CONSTITUTES PCS TODAY, FROM “MOUSE”  POINTING  DEVICES  TO  SOFTWARE
“WINDOWS”.
      Although the work at Xerox PARC was crucial, it was not the spark that
took PCs out of the hands of experts and into the popular imagination.  That
happened  inauspiciously  in  January  1975,  when  the   magazine   Popular
Electronics put a new kit for hobbyists, called the Altair,  on  its  cover.
for the first time, anybody with $400 and a soldering  iron  could  buy  and
assemble his own computer. The Altair inspired Steve Wosniak and Steve  Jobs
to build the first Apple computer, and a young college  dropout  named  Bill
Gates to write software for it.  Meanwhile.  the  person  who  deserves  the
credit for inventing the Altair, an engineer  named  Ed  Roberts,  left  the
industry he had spawned to go to medical school.  Now  he  is  a  doctor  in
small town in central Georgia.
      To this day, researchers at Xerox and elsewhere pooh-pooh  the  Altair
as too primitive to have made use of the technology they felt was needed  to
bring  PCs  to  the  masses.  In  a  sense,  they  are  right.  The   Altair
incorporated one of the first single-chip microprocessor -  a  semiconductor
chip, that contained all the basic circuits  needed  to  do  calculations  -
called the Intel 8080. Although the 8080 was advanced for its time,  it  was
far too slow to support the mouse, windows,  and  elaborate  software  Xerox
had  developed.  Indeed,  it  wasn’t  until  1984,  when  Apple   Computer’s
Macintosh burst onto the scene, that PCs were  powerful  enough  to  fulfill
the original vision of researchers. “The kind of computing that  people  are
trying to do today is just what we made at PARC in the  early  1970s,”  says
Alan Kay, a former Xerox researcher who jumped to Apple in the early 1980s.

                        MACINTOSH PERFORMA 6200/6300

      Researchers today are proceeding in the same spirit that motivated Kay
and his Xerox PARC  colleagues  in  the  1970s:  to  make  information  more
accessible to ordinary  people.  But  a  look  into  today’s  research  labs
reveals very little that resembles what we think of now as  a  PC.  For  one
thing, researchers seem eager to abandon the keyboard and monitor  that  are
the  PC’s  trademarks.  Instead  they  are  trying  to   devise   PCs   with
interpretive powers that are more humanlike - PCs that can hear you and  see
you, can tell when you’re in a bad mood and know to ask questions when  they
don’t understand something.
      It is impossible to predict  the  invention  that,  like  the  Altair,
crystallize new approaches in a way that captures people’s imagination.
                           Top 20 computer systems


                                      &

      [pic]ROM SOLDERING IRONS TO SPARCSTATIONS,  FROM  MITS  TO  MACINTOSH,
PERSONAL COMPUTERS HAVE EVOLVED  FROM  DO-IT-YOURSELF  KITS  FOR  ELECTRONIC
HOBBYISTS INTO MACHINES THAT  PRACTICALLY  LEAP  OUT  OF  THE  BOX  AND  SET
THEMSELVES UP. WHAT ENABLED THEM TO GET FROM THERE TO HERE?  INNOVATION  AND
DETERMINATION. HERE ARE TOP  20  SYSTEMS  THAT  MADE  THAT  RAPID  EVOLUTION
POSSIBLE.
      . MITS Altair 8800
      There once was a time when you could buy  a  top-of-the-line  computer
for $395. The only catch was that you had to  build  it  yourself.  Although
the  Altair  8800  wasn’t  actually  the  first  personal  computer  (Scelbi
Computer Consulting`s 8008-based Scelbi-8H kit probably took that  honor  in
1973), it grabbed attention. MITS sold 2000 of them in 1975 - more than  any
single computer before it.
      Based on Intel`s 8-bit 8080 processor, the Altair  8800  kit  included
256 bytes of memory (upgradable,  of  course)  and  a  toggle-switch-and-LED
front panel. For amenities such as keyboard, video  terminals,  and  storage
devices, you had to go to one of the companies that  sprang  up  to  support
the Altair with expansion cards. In 1975, MITS offered 4-  and  8-KB  Altair
versions of BASIC, the first product  developed  by  Bill  Gates`  and  Paul
Allen`s new company, Microsoft.
      If the personal computer hobbyists movement was simmering, 1975 saw it
come to a boil with the introduction of the Altair 8800.
      . Apple II
      Those of you who think of the IBM PC as  the  quintessential  business
computers may be in for a surprise: The Apple II  (together  with  VisiCalc)
was what really made people  to  look  at  personal  computers  as  business
tools, not just toys.
      The Apple II debuted at the first West  Coast  Computer  Fair  in  San
Francisco in 1977. With built-in keyboard, graphics display,  eight  readily
accessible expansion slots, and BASIC  built-into  ROM,  the  Apple  II  was
actually  easy  to  use.  Some  of  its  innovations,  like  built-in  high-
resolution color graphics and a high-level language with graphics  commands,
are still extraordinary features in desk top machines.
      With a 6502 CPU, 16 KB of RAM, a 16-KB ROM, a cassette interface  that
never really worked well (most Apple It ended up with the floppy  drive  the
was announced in 1978), and color graphics, the Apple II sold for $1298.
      . Commondore PET
      Also introduced at the first West Coast  Computer  Fair,  Commondore`s
PET (Personal Electronic  Transactor)  started  a  long  line  of  expensive
personal computers that brought computers to the masses.  (The  VIC-20  that
followed was the first computer to sell 1 million units, and the  Commondore
64 after that was the first to offer a whopping 64 KB of memory.)
      The keyboard and small monochrome display both fit in  the  same  one-
piece unit. Like the Apple II, the PET ran on  MOS  Technology’s  6502.  Its
$795 price, key to the Pet’s popularity  supplied  only  4  KB  of  RAM  but
included a built-in cassette tape drive for data storage  and  8-KB  version
of Microsoft BASIC in its 14-KB ROM.
      . Radio Shack TRS-80
      Remember the Trash 80? Sold at local Radio Shack stores in your choice
of color (Mercedes Silver), the TRS-80 was the  first  ready-to-go  computer
to use Zilog`s Z80 processor.
      The base unit was essentially a thick keyboard with 4 KB of RAM and  4
KB of ROM (which included BASIC). An optional expansion box  that  connected
by ribbon cable allowed for  memory  expansion.  A  Pink  Pearl  eraser  was
standard equipment to keep those ribbon cable connections clean.
      Much of  the  first  software  for  this  system  was  distributed  on
audiocassettes played in from Radio Shack cassette recorders.
      . Osborne 1 Portable
      By the end of the 1970s, garage start-ups were pass. Fortunately there
were other entrepreneurial possibilities. Take Adam  Osborne,  for  example.
He sold Osborne Books to  McGraw-Hill  and  started  Osborne  Computer.  Its
first product, the 24-pound Osborne 1  Portable,  boasted  a  low  price  of
$1795.
      More important, Osborne established the practice of bundling  software
- in spades. The Osborne  1  came  with  nearly  $1500  worth  of  programs:
WordStar, SuperCalc, BASIC, and a slew of CP/M utilities.
      Business was looking good until Osborne preannounced its next  version
while sitting on a warehouse full of Osborne 1S. Oops. Reorganization  under
Chapter 11 followed soon thereafter.
      . Xerox Star
      This is the system that launched a thousand innovations in  1981.  The
work of some of the best people at Xerox PARC (Palo  Alto  Research  Center)
went into it. Several of these - the mouse and a desktop GUI  with  icons  -
showed up two years later in Apple`s Lisa and Macintosh computers. The  Star
wasn’t what you would call a commercial success, however. The  main  problem
seemed to be how much it cost. It would be  nice  to  believe  that  someone
shifted a decimal point somewhere: The pricing started at $50,000.
      . IBM PC
      Irony of ironies that someone at mainframe-centric IBM recognized  the
business potential in personal computers. The result was  in  1981  landmark
announcement of the IBM PC. Thanks to an  open  architecture,  IBM’s  clout,
and Lotus 1-2-3 (announced one year later), the  PC  and  its  progeny  made
business micros legitimate and transformed the personal computer world.
      The PC used Intel`s 16-bit 8088, and for $3000, it came with 64 KB  of
RAM and a  51/4-inch  floppy  drive.  The  printer  adapter  and  monochrome
monitor were extras, as was the color graphics adapter.
      . Compaq Portable
      Compaq’s Portable almost single-handedly created the PC clone  market.
Although that was about all you  could  do  with  it  single-handedly  -  it
weighed a ton. Columbia Data Products just preceded Compaq  that  year  with
the first true IBM PC clone but didn’t  survive.  It  was  Compaq’s  quickly
gained reputation for engineering  and  quality,  and  its  essentially  100
percent   IBM   compatibility   (reverse-engineering,   of   course),   that
legitimized the clone market. But was it really designed on a napkin?
      . Radio Shack TRS-80 Model 100
      Years before PC-compatible subnotebook computers, Radio Shack came out
with a book-size portable with a  combination  of  features,  battery  life,
weight, and price that is still unbeatable. (Of course, the Z80-based  Model
100 didn’t have to run Windows.)
      The $800 Model 100 had only  an  8-row  by  40-column  reflective  LCD
(large at the time) but  supplied  ROM-based  applications  (including  text
editor, communications program, and BASIC interpreter),  a  built-in  modem,
I/O ports, nonvolatile RAM, and a great keyboard. Wieghing under  4  pounds,
and with a battery life measured in weeks (on four AA batteries), the  Model
100 quickly became the first popular laptop, especially among journalists.
      With its battery-backed RAM, the Model 100 was always in standby mode,
ready to take notes, write a report,  or  go  on-line.  NEC`s  PC  8201  was
essentially the same Kyocera-manufectured system.
      . Apple Macintosh
      Whether you saw it as a seductive invitation to personal computing  or
a cop-out to wimps who were afraid of a command line, Apple`s Macintosh  and
its GUI generated even more excitement than the IBM PC. Apple`s  R&D  people
were inspired by critical ideas from Xerox PARK (and  practiced  on  Apple`s
Lisa) but added many of their own ideas to create a  polished  product  that
changed the way people use computers.
      The original Macintosh used Motorola’s 16-bit 68000 microprocessor. At
$2495, the system offered  a  built-in-high-resolution  monochrome  display,
the Mac OS, and a single-button mouse. With only 128 KB of RAM, the Mac  was
underpowered at first. But Apple included some key  applications  that  made
the Macintosh immediately useful.  (It  was  MacPaint  that  finally  showed
people what a mouse is good for.)
      . IBM AT
      George Orwell didn’t foresee the AT in 1984. Maybe it was because  Big
Blue, not Big Brother, was playing its cards close to its chest. The IBM  AT
set new standards for performance and storage  capacity.  Intel`s  blazingly
fast 286 CPU running at 6 MHz and 16-bit bus structure gave the  AT  several
times the performance of previous IBM systems. Hard drive  capacity  doubled
from 10 MB to 20 MB (41 MB if you installed two drives - just donut ask  how
they did the math), and the cost per megabyte dropped dramatically.
      New 16-bit expansion slots meant new (and faster) expansion cards  but
maintained downward compatibility  with  old  8-bit  cards.  These  hardware
changes and new high-density 1.2-MB floppy drives meant a new version of PC-
DOS (the dreaded 3.0).
      The price for an AT with 512 KB of RAM, a serial/parallel  adapter,  a
high-density floppy drive, and a 20-MB hard drive was well over $5000 -  but
much less than what the pundits expected.
      . Commondore Amiga 1000
      The Amiga introduced the world to multimedia. Although  it  cost  only
$1200, the 68000-based Amiga  1000  did  graphics,  sound,  and  video  well
enough that many broadcast professionals adopted  it  for  special  effects.
Its sophisticated multimedia hardware design  was  complex  for  a  personal
computer, as was its multitasking, windowing OS.
      . Compaq Deskrpo 386
      While IBM was busy developing (would “wasting time  on”  be  a  better
phrase?) proprietary Micro  Channel  PS/2  system,  clone  vendors  ALR  and
Compaq wrestled away control of the  x86  architecture  and  introduced  the
first 386-based systems,  the  Access 386  and  Deskpro  386.  Both  systems
maintained backward compatibility with the 286-based AT.
      Compaq’s Deskpro 386 had a further performance innovation in its  Flex
bus architecture. Compaq split  the  x86  external  bus  into  two  separate
buses: a high-speed local bus to support memory chips fast  enough  for  the
16-MHz 386, and a slower I/O bus that supported existing expansion cards.
      . Apple Macintosh II
      When you first looked at the Macintosh II, you may have said, “But  it
looks just like a PC. ”You would have  been  right.  Apple  decided  it  was
wiser to give users a  case  they  could  open  so  they  could  upgrade  it
themselves. The monitor in its 68020-powered machine  was  a  separate  unit
that typically sat on top of the CPU case.
      . Next Nextstation
      UNIX had never been easy to use , and only now, 10 years later, are we
getting back to that level. Unfortunately, Steve Job’s cube never  developed
the  software  base  it  needed  for  long-term  survival.  Nonetheless,  it
survived as an inspiration for future workstations.
      Priced at less than $10,000, the elegant Nextstation came with  a  25-
MHz 68030 CPU, a 68882 FPU, 8 MB of RAM, and the first  commercial  magneto-
optical drive (256-MB capacity). It also had a built-in DSP (digital  signal
processor). The programming language  was object-oriented C, and the OS  was
a version of UNIX, sugarcoated with a consistent GUI that rivaled Apple`s.
      . NEC UltraLite
      Necks UltraLite is the portable that put subnotebook into the lexicon.
Like Radio Shack’s TRS-80 Model 100, the UltraLite was a 4-pounder ahead  of
its time. Unlike the Model 100, it was expensive  (starting  price,  $2999),
but it could run MS-DOS. (The burden of running Windows  wasn’t  yet  thrust
upon its shoulders.)
      Fans liked the 4.4-pound UltraLite for its trim size and  portability,
but  it really needed one of today’s tiny  hard  drives.  It  used  battery-
backed DRAM  (1  MB,  expandable  to  2  MB)  for  storage,  with  ROM-based
Traveling Software’s LapLink to move stored data to a desk top PC.
      Foreshadowing PCMCIA, the UltraLite had a socket that accepted credit-
card-size ROM cards holding popular applications like WordPerfect  or  Lotus
1-2-3, or a battery-backed 256-KB RAM card.
Sun SparcStation 1
      It wasn’t the first RISK workstation, nor even the first Sun system to
use Sun’s new SPARC chip. But the SparcStation 1  set  a  new  standard  for
price/performance, churning out 12.5 MIPS at a starting price of only  $8995
- about what you might spend for a  fully  configured  Macintosh.  Sun  sold
lots of systems and made the words SparcStation and  workstation  synonymous
in many peoples minds.
      The SparcStation 1 also introduced  S-Bus,  Sun’s  proprietary  32-bit
synchronous bus, which ran at the same 20-MHz speed as the CPU.
     . IBM RS/6000
      Sometimes, when IBM decides to do something, it does  it  right.(Other
times... Well, remember the PC jr.?)The RS/6000 allowed  IBM  to  enter  the
workstation market. The RS/6000`s RISK processor chip set (RIOS)  racked  up
speed records and introduced many to term  suprscalar.  But  its  price  was
more than competitive. IBM pushed third-party software  support,  and  as  a
result, many desktop publishing, CAD, and scientific applications ported  to
the RS/6000, running under AIX, IBM’s UNIX.
      A shrunken version of the multichip RS/6000 architecture serves as the
basis for the single-chip PowerPC,  the  non-x86-compatible  processor  with
the best chance of competing with Intel.
Apple Power Macintosh
      Not many companies have made the transition from  CISC  to  RISK  this
well. The Power Macintosh represents  Apple`s  well-planned  and  successful
leap to bridge two disparate hardware platforms. Older Macs  run  Motorola’s
680x0 CISK line, which is running out of steam; the Power Macs run  existing
680x0-based applications yet provide Power  PC  performance,  a  combination
that sold over a million systems in a year.
IBM ThinkPad 701C
      It is  not  often  anymore  that  a  new  computer  inspires  gee-whiz
sentiment,  but  IBM’s  Butterfly  subnotebook  does,  with  its   marvelous
expanding keyboard. The 701C`s  two-part  keyboard  solves  the  last  major
piece in the puzzle of  building  of  usable  subnotebook:  how  to  provide
comfortable touch-typing.(OK, so the floppy drive is sill external.)
      With a full-size keyboard and a 10.4-inch screen, the  4.5-pound  701C
compares favorably with full-size notebooks. Battery life is good, too.

                                      Q
         THE DEVELOPMENT OF COMPUTERS IN UKRAINE AND THE FORMER USSR


      [pic]HE GOVERNMENT AND THE AUTHORITIES HAD PAID SERIOUS  ATTENTION  TO
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE COMPUTER INDUSTRY RIGHT AFTER THE SECOND  WORLD  WAR.
THE LEADING BODIES CONSIDERED THIS TASK TO BE ONE OF THE PRINCIPAL  FOR  THE
NATIONAL ECONOMY.
      Up to the beginning of the 1950s  there  were  only  small  productive
capacities which  specialized  in  the  producing  accounting  and  account-
perforating  (punching)  machines.   The   electronic   numerical   computer
engineering was only arising and  the  productive  capacities  for  it  were
close to the naught.
      The first serious steps in the development  of  production  base  were
made initially in the late  1950s  when  the  work  on  creating  the  first
industry samples of the electronic counting machines was finished and  there
were created M-20, “Ural-1”, “Minsk-1”,  which  together  with  their  semi-
conductor  successors  (M-220,  “Ural-11-14”,   “Minsk-22”   and “Minsk-32”)
created in the 1960s were the main ones in the USSR until the  computers  of
the third generation were put into the serial production, that is until  the
early 1970s.
      In the 1960s the science-research and assembling base was enlarged. As
the result of this measures, all  researches  connected  with  creating  and
putting into the serial production of  semi-conductor  electronic  computing
machines were almost finished. That allowed to stop the  production  of  the
first generation machines beginning from the 1964.
      Next decades the whole branch of the  computer  engineering  had  been
created. The  important  steps  were  undertaken  to  widen  the  productive
capacities for the 3d generation machines.
                                      =
                                    ÊIEV

                            THE HOMECITY OF MESM


      [pic]ESM WAS  CONCEIVED  BY  S.A.LEBEDEV  TO  BE  A  MODEL  OF  A  BIG
ELECTRONIC COMPUTING MACHINE (BESM). AT FIRST IT WAS  CALLED  THE  MODEL  OF
THE BIG ELECTRONIC COMPUTING MACHINE, BUT ,LATER,  IN  THE  PROCESS  OF  ITS
CREATION THERE APPEARED THE EVIDENT  EXPEDIENCY  OF  TRANSFORMING  IT  IN  A
SMALL  COMPUTER.  FOR  THAT  REASON  THERE  WERE  ADDED:  THE  IMPUTE-OUTPUT
DEVICES, MAGNETIC DRUM STORAGE, THE REGISTER CAPACITY WAS ENHANCED; AND  THE
WORD “MODEL” WAS CHANGED FOR “MALAYA” (SMALL).
      S.A.Lebedev was proposed to head the Institute of Energetics in  Kiev.
After a year; when the Institute of was divided into  two  departments:  the
electronical one and the department of heat-and-power  engineering,  Lebedev
became the director of the first  one.  He  also  added  his  laboratory  of
analogue computation to the already existing ones of the electronical  type.
At once he began to work on computer science instead of the  usual,  routine
researches  in  the  field  of  engineering  means  of   stabilization   and
structures of automated devices. Lebedev was awarded the State Prize of  the
USSR. Since autumn 1948 Lebedev directed  his  laboratory  towards  creating
the MESM. The most difficult part of the work was the practical creation  of
MESM. It might be only the many-sided  experience  of  the  researches  that
allowed the scientist to fulfill the task perfectly; whereas one  inaccuracy
was made: the hall  at  the  ground-floor  of  a  two-storied  building  was
assigned for MESM and when, at last, the MESM  was  assembled  and  switched
on, 6,000 of red-hot electronic lamps created the “tropics” in the hall,  so
they had to remove a part of the ceiling to decrease the temperature.
      In autumn 1951 the machine executed a complex program rather stabile.


ÒÍÅ MESM WITH SOME OF THE PERSONAL (KIEV, 1951)
      Finally all the tests were over and on December, 15 the MESM was put
into operation.
      If to remember those short terms the MESM  was  projected,  assembled,
and debugged - in two years - and taking into  consideration  that  only  12
people (including Lebedev) took part in the creating who were helped  by  15
engineers we shall see that S.A.Lebedev and his  team  accomplished  a  feat
(200 engineers and many workers besides 13 main leaders  took  part  in  the
creation of the first American computer ENIAC).
      As life have showed the foundations of the computer-building laid by
Lebedev are used in modern computers without any fundamental changes.
Nowadays they are well known:
     . such devices an arithmetic and memory input-output and control ones
       should be a part of a computer architecture;
     . the program of computing is encoded and stored in the memory as
       numbers;
     . the binary system should be used for encoding the numbers and
       commands;
     . the computations should be made automatically basing on the program
       stored in the memory and operations on commands;
     . besides arithmetic, logical operations are used: comparisons,
       conjunction, disjunction, and negation;
     . the hierarchy memory method is used;
     . the numerical methods are used for solving the tasks.

                          the main fault of The 70s

                                     or

                    the years of “might-have-been hopes”


                                      4

      [pic]HE  GREAT  ACCUMULATED  EXPERIENCE  IN  CREATING  COMPUTERS,  THE
PROFOUND COMPARISON OF OUR DOMESTIC ACHIEVEMENTS WITH THE  NEW  EXAMPLES  OF
FOREIGN COMPUTER TECHNIQUE PROMPTED THE SCIENTISTS THAT IT  IS  POSSIBLE  TO
CREATE THE COMPUTING MEANS OF NEW GENERATION MEETING  THE  WORLD  STANDARDS.
OF THAT OPINION WERE MANY OUTSTANDING UKRAINIAN SCIENTISTS OF  THAT  TIME  -
LEBEDEV, DORODNITSIN, GLUSHKOV AND  OTHERS.  THEY  PROCEEDED  FROM  QUITE  A
FAVORABLE SITUATION IN THE COUNTRY.
      The computerization of national economy was considered as one  of  the
most essential tasks. The decision to create the United system of  computers
- the machines of new generation on integrals.
      The USA were the first to create the families of computers. In 1963-64
the IBM Company worked out the IBM-360 system. It comprised the models  with
different capacities for which a wide range of software was created.
      A  decision  concerning  the  third  generation  of  computers  (their
structure and architecture) was to be made in the USSR in the late 60s.
      But instead of making the decision based  on  the  scientific  grounds
concerning the future of the United system  of  computers  the  Ministry  of
Electronic Industry issued the administrative  order  to  copy  the  IBM-360
system. The leaders of the Ministry did  not  take  into  consideration  the
opinion of the leading scientists of the country.
      Despite the fact that there were enough grounds for thinking  the  70s
would bring new big progresses, those years were the step back  due  to  the
fault way dictated by the highest authorities from above.

                                      1
                 THE COMPARISON OF THE COMPUTER DEVELOPMENT

                           IN THE USA AND UKRAINE


      [pic]T THE TIME WHEN THE COMPUTER SCIENCE WAS JUST UPRISING  THIS  TWO
COUNTRIES WERE ONE OF THE MOST NOTICEABLY INFLUENTIAL. THERE WERE A  LOT  OF
TALENTED SCIENTISTS AND INVENTORS IN BOTH OF  THEM.  BUT  THE  SITUATION  IN
UKRAINE (WHICH AT THAT TIME WAS ONE OF 15 REPUBLICS OF THE FORMER USSR)  WAS
COMPLICATED, ON ONE HAND, WITH THE CONSEQUENCES  OF  THE  SECOND  WORLD  WAR
AND, ON THE OTHER  HAND,  AT  A  CERTAIN  PERIOD  CYBERNETICS  AND  COMPUTER
SCIENCE WERE NOT ACKNOWLEDGED. OF CAUSE, LATER IT  WENT  TO  THE  PAST,  BUT
NEVERTHELESS  IT  PLAYED  A  NEGATIVE  ROLE  ON   THE   UKRAINIAN   COMPUTER
DEVELOPMENT.
      It also should be noticed that in America they paid more attention  to
the development of computers for  civil  and  later  personal  use.  But  in
Ukraine the attention was mainly focused  on  the  military  and  industrial
needs.
      Another interesting aspect of the Ukrainian computer  development  was
the process of the 70s when “sovietizing” of the IBM-360 system  became  the
first step on the way of weakening  of  positions  achieved  by  the  Soviet
machinery construction the first two decades of its  development.  The  next
step that led to the  further  lag  was  the  mindless  copying  by  the  SU
Ministry of  Electronic  Industry  and  putting  into  production  the  next
American elaborations in the field of microprocessor equipment.
      The natural final stage was buying in enormous quantities  of  foreign
computers last years and  pressing  to  the  deep  background  our  domestic
researches, and developments, and  the  computer-building  industry  on  the
whole.
      Another interesting aspect of the Ukrainian computer  development  was
the process of the 70s when the “sovietising” of the IBM-360  system  became
the first step on the way of weakening of positions, achieved by the  Soviet
machinery construction of the first two  decades  of  its  development.  The
next step that led to the further lag was the mindless copying of  the  next
American elaborations in  the  field  of  microprocessor  technique  by  the
Ministry of Computer Industry.

                                      :
                                 CONCLUSION


      [pic]AVING  ANALYZED  THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  COMPUTER  SCIENCE  IN  TWO
COUNTRIES I HAVE FOUND SOME SIMILAR AND SOME  DISTINCTIVE  FEATURES  IN  THE
ARISING OF COMPUTERS.
      First of all, I would like to say that at the  first  stages  the  two
countries rubbed shoulders with each other. But then,  at  a  certain  stage
the  USSR  was  sadly  mistaken  having  copied  the  IBM-360  out  of  date
technology. Estimating the discussion  of  possible  ways  of  the  computer
technique development in the former USSR in late 1960s -  early  1970s  from
the today point of view it can be noticed that we have  chosen  a  worse  if
not the worst one. The only progressive way was  to  base  on  our  domestic
researches and to collaborate with the west-European  companies  in  working
out the new generation of machines. Thus we would reach the world  level  of
production, and we would have  a  real  base  for  the  further  development
together with leading European companies.
      Unfortunately the last  twenty  years  may  be  called  the  years  of
“unrealized possibilities”.  Today  it  is  still  possible  to  change  the
situation; but tomorrow it will be too late.
      Will the new times come? Will there be a new renaissance  of  science,
engineering and national economy as it was in the post-war period? Only  one
thing remains for us - that is to wait, to hope and to do our best to  reach
the final goal.

                                bibliography:

     1. Á.Ì.ÌÀËÈÍÎÂÑÜÊÈÉ “²ÑÒÎгÿ ÎÁ÷ÈÑËÞÂÀËÜÍο ÒÅÕͳÊÈ    ÎÑÎÁÀÕ”,  ÊÈ¿Â,
        1995.
     2. Stephen G. Nash “A  History  of  Scientific  Computing”,  ACM  Press
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     3. Åíöèêëîïåä³ÿ ê³áåðíåòèêè, Êè¿â, 1985.
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     5. William Aspray, Charles Babbage  Institute  Reprint  Series  in  the
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        Cliffs, New Jersey, 1985.
      “³ä ÁÅÑÌ äî ñóïåð-ÅÎÌ. Ñòîð³íêè  ³ñòî𳿠 ²íñòèòóòó  ²ÒÌ  òà  ÎÒ  ³ì.
        Ñ.Î. Ëåáåäåâà ÀÍ ÓÐÑÐ ó ñïîãàäàõ ñï³âðîá³òíèê³â” ï³ä ðåäàêö³ºþ  Ã.Ã.
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