I'm more interested in their chip technology over time. What 8bit processors did they use? What do they have today? I am under the impression they are several nodes behind the state of the art today.
Your impression is correct. I don't think Russia continue the race anymore. Back Soviet time they were even ahead of the World in some breakthrough - ternary computing instead of binary and so on....
> Note that robot comes from a porting to English of the Russian verb "to work"
Which is definitely not true. 'Robot' was first used by Czech writer Karel Čapek and was invented by his brother, based on old-Czech 'robota' which translates as 'corvee'.
It is partially true, in that both Russian and Czech come from Old Church Slavonic, where it does come from the verb for "work". All three of the languages use the same root.
I was mistaken in thinking that Russian was the origin of the word - I am not familiar with all the languages that descend from OCS.
You are correct that it comes not via Russian but via Czech:
For what it's worth, the story was that at some point there was a secret Lenin Prize [1] awarded for a machine that could clone an existing chip by simply shaving it layer by layer and copying a layout.
In particular, this was said to explain why a famous Soviet electronic wrist watch (Elektronika 5) would sometime randomly switch from a 24-hour to an am/pm mode when put through a washing machine. Even though there was no mention of this mode anywhere in the manual, nor there was a button on the watch itself for that.
UNAS/UNIX should be translated as "in here/out there" not "ours/theirs". Home Computer in Russian will never be BK, it will be DK. Other than that I have some deja vu....
One of them even has a lightpen, nothing like a 'stylus for your smartphone'. A lightpen noticed the brightening of the video signal just as the x/y deflection made the electron beam hit the phosphor under the tip of the pen (which contained a photo-diode), so it was a pretty clever device. A stylus for a smartphone, by comparison is simply a piece of passive plastic. That's also why the lightpen is connected to the computer with an umbilical.
I recently came upon a very old 8 bit machine of Russian manufacture that isn't in this line-up, I'll try to get a picture next time I'm close to it.
HN's rule is that if a story has had major attention in the last year or so, and no new information has come up, then we treat it as a dupe and keep it off the front page. Mainly because front page space is so limited, and also because if we didn't do that, HN would be flooded with complaints about reposts.
A year for threshold seems to be an overkill. A repost from the last week is indeed a waste of a FP space, but from 6 months ago? Especially for a static article where HN comments are as a good read as the article itself.
I'd say the rule may need a revision. Besides, HN rules have always been "more what you call guidelines, than actual rules" :)
23 comments
[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 59.1 ms ] threadNot even sure where you'd get that notion.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elbrus_(computer)
2. Korvet - КР580ВМ80А (КR580VM80А) clone of Intel 8080A.
3. Lvov - same 8080A clone.
4. Mikrosha - same 8080A clone.
5. BK - К1801ВМ1 (K1801VM1) designed in USSR based on DEC T-11 and LSI-11.
6. Robotron 1715 - U880, clone of Zilog Z80.
7. Iskra 1030 - КР1810ВМ86 (KR1810VM86), clone of Intel 8086.
8. Radio-86RK - 8080A clone.
9. Krista - 8080A clone.
10. Apogei - 8080A clone.
11. Okean - 8080A clone.
Bear in mind that even a lot of them were based on the same 8080 clone and used various versions of CP/M, they were binary incompatible.
2. Corvette (probably a reference to the type of ship)
3. Lvov = present day Lviv, also known as Lemberg
4. Micro, like microcomputer
5. see other comment in this thread about BK
6. "Robotron" -pretty obvious. Note that robot comes from a porting to English of the Russian verb "to work"
7. "Spark" - Iskra was also used as a name for a line of film cameras
8. "Radio"
9. not sure - is it a girl's name?
10. "Apogee" 11 "Ocean"
Which is definitely not true. 'Robot' was first used by Czech writer Karel Čapek and was invented by his brother, based on old-Czech 'robota' which translates as 'corvee'.
I was mistaken in thinking that Russian was the origin of the word - I am not familiar with all the languages that descend from OCS.
You are correct that it comes not via Russian but via Czech:
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=robot
In particular, this was said to explain why a famous Soviet electronic wrist watch (Elektronika 5) would sometime randomly switch from a 24-hour to an am/pm mode when put through a washing machine. Even though there was no mention of this mode anywhere in the manual, nor there was a button on the watch itself for that.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenin_Prize
http://www.cnews.ru/news/top/2016-02-24_tplatformy_vypustili...
"ours / theirs" is close enough for English translation, I think.
I recently came upon a very old 8 bit machine of Russian manufacture that isn't in this line-up, I'll try to get a picture next time I'm close to it.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html
I'd say the rule may need a revision. Besides, HN rules have always been "more what you call guidelines, than actual rules" :)
Video of Tetris running on an E60: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0gAgQQHFcQ