> In general, the first models of calculators had their own operational language, and the user had to learn the specific procedures related to each calculator. Let's take, for example, the C3-07, the first calculator of the Series "C" manufactured by the Leningrad factory "Svetlana."
Forgive the focus on tangential information, but I'm curious, was this factory named after Stalin's daughter, Svetlana Alliluyeva? If so, it would seem a little strange that the factory would remain in the '70s with this name long after Khrushchev's secret speech and the subsequent de-Stalinization that took place to deconstruct the influence of Stalin's cult of personality. I can't seem to find any real info on the factory with a google search, but does strike me as curious.
I must have used too many search terms in my query. Thanks for providing the link. Appears the company was founded in the late 1800s, so certainly not named after Stalin's daughter.
A sibling post noticed it seems to be an abbreviation related to electrical lights, but it is worth mentioning that Svetlana is just a common name. Like say, Jenny or Stacy. A few my teachers had that name, for example. The shortened version, "Sveta" is also common.
It would be different, for example, if it was an extremely rare name shared with Stalin's daughter.
Yes, it would appear it is a common name in Russia. Though, in the late '70s (and perhaps even now), I believe Stalin's daughter was still the most famous person bearing the name. And me being ignorant of both this particular factory and its origins couldn't help but wonder (knowing the Soviet propensity for naming things in honor of the leaders - e.g. Stalingrad, Leningrad, etc.) if there happened to be any relation.
I can see how you could get confused. "Svetlana" is a strange name since it hasn't been used to name real people until early 20th century. The most famous Svetlana had always been the character from the eponimous poem. The name had been used to name things, places and literally characters but not real people since it has not been recognized by the Church. So, in a sense, it is the Stalin's daughter who is named after the factory.
In Soviet Union places were named in honor of the people that did something good for the country. Stalin's daughter didn't do anything significant in her life - why would anyone name anything in honor of her?????
People in the West has so perverse understanding of Russian/Soviet realities due to exorbitant amount of anti-Russian and especially anti-Soviet propaganda. I wonder if there was even a single positive thing ever published on the West about USSR.
And people laugh at me when I say I don't believe any news (they believe they're becoming enlightened by reading or watching fake news which is any news source).
I see the ignorance of my question now - essentially the question was borne out of a lack of knowledge about how common the name 'Svetlana' is. The only 'Svetlana' I knew about was Stalin's daughter. My brain made a connection where one didn't exist.
You are most certainly correct about the lack of understanding in the West about Russian/Soviet realities. Do you have any books you'd recommend to aid in an understanding of this? I recently picked up 'Everyday Stalinism' by Sheila Fitzpatrick - focusing on the lives of the average person during Stalin's time in power but it certainly casts a more negative light on this time than positive. With that said, I'd be more than interested in reading accounts that cast a more positive light on things. I've also read 'Khrushchev Lied' by Grover Furr - this book focuses more on half-truths and omissions of truth made in Khrushchev's secret speech about Stalin. Reading about Grover's history, it would seem he is not entirely unbiased but there were details in there that gave pause for thought.
As for whether there was anything positive published in the West about the USSR, have you heard about Walter Duranty's writing for the New York Times and the subsequent Pulitzer Prize? That is, of course, a somewhat facetious example.
There were certainly positive things written about the USSR during the war (as they became allies with Western forces), with Stalin being affectionately called 'Uncle Joe' - things of course got less positive during the Cold War and the Red Scare.
Are there no news sources you trust? Aren't there news reports that cite primary evidence that you would deem as trustworthy? And if you don't get your current info from news sources, where do you get it from?
I do not know any truthful books about Soviet history, especially in English. We lost the cold war and winners always write the history. So even in contemporary books in Russian there's all kinds of nonsense about Soviet history.
I was a teenager when USSR collapsed so I can only guess from my own short experience living in USSR and from tales of my parents and grandparents. It's radically different from anything you can find in any book.
Memories of horrible years of "freedom" are brighter though. We had nothing to eat (millions died because of hunger but nobody cares, there's no Amnesty International to punish somebody for this), but were inundated in a flood of all kinds of bullshit. Soros-published books for the schools that contained nothing but lies about history and economics. Good and enlightening Soviet science shows were replaced with gross shows showing nudity and all kinds of fake science (psychics, UFO freaks, etc). Academics running the old shows said that they were closed specifically by request from the very top. Same for education: it was deliberately destroyed by direct guidance of US advisers.
But we're still struggling...
But I do not know if there's a book about it. It's a taboo theme both here and especially on the West. Everybody just reinforces the same old meme how "repressive" was Soviet society and how everybody was happy to become free (just conveniently omit the ending: "free from education, free from having work, free from having enough food, free from having self-esteem").
Regarding news: I simply avoid consuming any news. I do not want to receive anything from news. I don't need it. I work as a developer, in my job it's not necessary to know the "news". They doesn't affect my life much and even if they does, there's nothing I can do about it.
All the news I consume against my will (by browsing social media where it's almost impossible to avoid seeing shared articles). So my ultimate goal is to stop consuming social media as well, but I lack the willpower.
I also believe that it's good to know what is happening around IT (new languages, frameworks, etc) but all IT sources also publish lots of news about current politics (e.g. witch hunt against Huawei), so it seems as almost impossible to avoid news.
Thanks a lot for taking the time to share your experience. There's probably not many better ways to learn about the realities of a foreign country than by chatting with someone who actually lived there and can tell stories from first-hand experience. It's also somewhat curious that the ties of our professions (programming, development, IT) can serve as the channel by which this information is shared - as always, my appreciation of HN in this regard is immense.
> Good and enlightening Soviet science shows were replaced with gross shows showing nudity and all kinds of fake science (psychics, UFO freaks, etc). Academics running the old shows said that they were closed specifically by request from the very top. Same for education: it was deliberately destroyed by direct guidance of US advisers.
This bit in particular intrigued me. What would be the point of steering science and public academia in this way? To lower the level of public discourse to the advantage of the US? I did not realize such things were so tightly guided by US advisers after the collapse, though I hold no illusions that Boris Yeltsin was lobbied for and supported by the US (it might more accurately be described as 'election meddling' - which made it ironic during the investigation into Russian meddling in US elections that very few news outlets were brave enough to address the actions of the US in other countries' elections and in Russia's in particular).
> Everybody just reinforces the same old meme how "repressive" was Soviet society and how everybody was happy to become free (just conveniently omit the ending: "free from education, free from having work, free from having enough food, free from having self-esteem").
Many here in the US claim that Gorbachev's policies of Glasnost and Perestroika contributed to the momentum of the collapse. I've heard it said before that while many here in the US hail Gorbachev as a kind of unwitting hero (due to this contribution and his affectations and coordination with Reagan), many who lived through his time in power view him more as the one who ruined everything his forebears had worked to build and achieve. Just for my own edification and curiosity, can you speak to how he's commonly viewed by former citizens of the Soviet Union?
Your take on news consumption is cogent and refreshing. Many of us probably pay more attention to it than necessary. As for social media, if you use it responsibly, it can be a net benefit rather than a net detriment. I've personally excised myself from social media because I don't agree with their data privacy practices. I don't know what social media you use, but Facebook has a feature I believe where you can deactivate your account - for 30 days (or so), you can log back in and reactivate your account without losing anything. At the very least, it could be useful for a trial run if you simply want to attempt to get rid of it without the risk of losing everything if you decide you want to keep it two weeks later.
> What would be the point of steering science and public academia in this way? To lower the level of public discourse to the advantage of the US?
One can only guess. For one thing, West (especially the US) needed USSR to be broken not to "free" from ourselves, but to create a new market for US goods. USA didn't need a global competitor - it needed a new market.
If population is educated, they tend to create industry products instead of mindlessly consuming. If you need a new market, you just need lowbrow population extracting natural resources for the western companies and buying consumer goods produced in the West.
Also, it would be harder to manipulate educated population.
Almost nobody analyzed this because even to this day our education is run by agents of the West. If you read articles and interviews of people who are in charge of education in Russia now, they're very openly and aggressively pro-West, nevermind that all their efforts only lowered the quality of education. It's obvious that western influence to destroy what remains of our education still remain.
I've lived for some time in some of South Asian countries and I believe it's same there. It's a part of neo-colonial politics. E.g. there's very little incentive to teach and learn mathematics and physics, chemistry, biology. There's a huge incentive to study humanities subjects and corresponding flood of US-printed books on marketing, management, "human rights", "lgbt rights", etc. But economy can't grow if everyone is a manager or lawyer - real education is needed for people to create industry products. But it's not in the West interest to allow growth of industry in Asia, Russia, Africa.
> Many here in the US claim that Gorbachev's policies of Glasnost and Perestroika contributed to the momentum of the collapse. I've heard it said before that while many here in the US hail Gorbachev as a kind of unwitting hero (due to this contribution and his affectations and coordination with Reagan), many who lived through his time in power view him more as the one who ruined everything his forebears had worked to build and achieve. Just for my own edification and curiosity, can you speak to how he's commonly viewed by former citizens of the Soviet Union?
I don't believe there was a momentum to collapse. It was a deliberate sabotage by Gorbachev. All the visible economical problems started on his term. USSR economy wasn't capitalist: it could survive whatever pressure. It survived WWII, it certainly could survive any sane reform or temporary crisis. It was deliberately destroyed by Gorbachev. Even some of pro-US/pro-West/pro-capitalist advocates agree that some of Gorbachev's decisions were caused economical disaster and it was very likely deliberate because any sane person could foresee that.
I don't know what everybody thinks about Gorbachev, but many people around me consider him a traitor (and they're probably right, there're some conspiracy theories that he was recruited by the West long time ago). People do not speak about him usually, but everyone understands that he destroyed huge a powerful country to pieces and every piece now lives much worse than before (at least economically). I'd say that significant part of population hates him for his crime, and even part of the population that is pro-West doesn't like to talk about him because he definitely betrayed his country and his people and there's little doubt about it.
Also, there's a constant pressure to tear remaining pieces even further (especially Russia which is still too big to be a tame colony for providing natural resources without any geopolitical ambitions). So, there're endless "revolutions" and coups in former USSR republics and attempts to stage such a coup in Russia. We're flooded with anti-Russian propaganda in our media, especially social networks. USA has created many institutions before and after...
I loved my MK 85 a lot! When I was at school in late 80s I used to store complex physics and trigonometrics formulas in it as a BASIC program text. Those days using calculators was allowed on exams so this little electronic cheat-sheet saved my sole many times :-).
> the calculator combined not only the functions [+=] and [-=], but also the multiply-divide functions [X -:-].
Very interesting. It finally solved the mystery for me. My aunt was an accountant and she had one of those in her office. I remember looking at the keyboard and wondering how in the world you're supposed to divide and multiply with a single button. [-=] seems to be something like "invert the previous operation and then produce the result"
To calculate (20 - 8 + 7) it was necessary to press the following keys [C] [2][0] [+ =] [8] [-=] [7] [+=]. Result: 5. To multiply the result, say by 3, the calculation could be continued by pressing the keys: [X] [3] [+=]. A [K] key was used for calculations with a constant.
When you design a product with a a committee of 27 engineers..
A group of 27 engineers were assigned to this complex problem. It was a huge project which involved: producing the drawings, circuit and patterns consisting of 144 thousand points required to fit a microprocessor with 3400 elements within a 5x5 mm crystal.
Don't old HP scientific calculators have a similar syntax?
It's actually pretty logical; there's a running total, and you decide what to do with the number you just typed in, after typing it. Costs an extra button press to 'add' the first number to the total, I suppose.
No, HP calculators were more efficient it would seem with their RPN.
"20 ENTER 8 ENTER - 7 ENTER +"
So you push 20 onto the stack and then 8 on the stack. Then you hit the minus key which returns 12 and puts that 12 on the stack, then you put 7 on the stack and click the plus key to give you 19.
Not in general, I guess; 20 - 8 * 7 would be "20 ENTER 8 ENTER 7 * -". So if you need to do first operation which is not the leftmost, you'd have to add another "ENTER".
That will give you 20 0 14 on the stack (top to the right). After 20 ENTER 8 ENTER you have 20 8 8 on the stack (and the stack lifter disabled). - gets you 20 0; 7 ENTER gets you 20 0 7 7 (and the stack lifter disabled again); + gets you 20 0 14. If you want to compute 20 - 8 + 7, type 20 ENTER 8 - 7 + . As another comment points out, you only use ENTER to separate two numbers. Other ENTER:s are not optional, they are usually downright wrong, unless duplicating the number at the top of the stack is what you want. (Edit: as I am mentioning the stack lifter, I should probably say "bottom" rather than "top". The HP calculator stack was usually visualized as being above the display, with operations taking place at the display, i.e. at the bottom of the stack.)
Well, I admit that soviet calculators were of nearaly same size and same functionality as their western siblings. Some, were very interesting from engineering and use points.
Max levchin stated he learned indirection in memory addressing because his mom was assigned to work calculator programming in the USSR before the family fled to the US in the early 90s. Amazing that a calculator had pointer features.
32 comments
[ 4.1 ms ] story [ 42.9 ms ] threadForgive the focus on tangential information, but I'm curious, was this factory named after Stalin's daughter, Svetlana Alliluyeva? If so, it would seem a little strange that the factory would remain in the '70s with this name long after Khrushchev's secret speech and the subsequent de-Stalinization that took place to deconstruct the influence of Stalin's cult of personality. I can't seem to find any real info on the factory with a google search, but does strike me as curious.
I must have used too many search terms in my query. Thanks for providing the link. Appears the company was founded in the late 1800s, so certainly not named after Stalin's daughter.
It would be different, for example, if it was an extremely rare name shared with Stalin's daughter.
People in the West has so perverse understanding of Russian/Soviet realities due to exorbitant amount of anti-Russian and especially anti-Soviet propaganda. I wonder if there was even a single positive thing ever published on the West about USSR.
And people laugh at me when I say I don't believe any news (they believe they're becoming enlightened by reading or watching fake news which is any news source).
You are most certainly correct about the lack of understanding in the West about Russian/Soviet realities. Do you have any books you'd recommend to aid in an understanding of this? I recently picked up 'Everyday Stalinism' by Sheila Fitzpatrick - focusing on the lives of the average person during Stalin's time in power but it certainly casts a more negative light on this time than positive. With that said, I'd be more than interested in reading accounts that cast a more positive light on things. I've also read 'Khrushchev Lied' by Grover Furr - this book focuses more on half-truths and omissions of truth made in Khrushchev's secret speech about Stalin. Reading about Grover's history, it would seem he is not entirely unbiased but there were details in there that gave pause for thought.
As for whether there was anything positive published in the West about the USSR, have you heard about Walter Duranty's writing for the New York Times and the subsequent Pulitzer Prize? That is, of course, a somewhat facetious example.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Duranty
There were certainly positive things written about the USSR during the war (as they became allies with Western forces), with Stalin being affectionately called 'Uncle Joe' - things of course got less positive during the Cold War and the Red Scare.
Are there no news sources you trust? Aren't there news reports that cite primary evidence that you would deem as trustworthy? And if you don't get your current info from news sources, where do you get it from?
I was a teenager when USSR collapsed so I can only guess from my own short experience living in USSR and from tales of my parents and grandparents. It's radically different from anything you can find in any book.
Memories of horrible years of "freedom" are brighter though. We had nothing to eat (millions died because of hunger but nobody cares, there's no Amnesty International to punish somebody for this), but were inundated in a flood of all kinds of bullshit. Soros-published books for the schools that contained nothing but lies about history and economics. Good and enlightening Soviet science shows were replaced with gross shows showing nudity and all kinds of fake science (psychics, UFO freaks, etc). Academics running the old shows said that they were closed specifically by request from the very top. Same for education: it was deliberately destroyed by direct guidance of US advisers.
But we're still struggling...
But I do not know if there's a book about it. It's a taboo theme both here and especially on the West. Everybody just reinforces the same old meme how "repressive" was Soviet society and how everybody was happy to become free (just conveniently omit the ending: "free from education, free from having work, free from having enough food, free from having self-esteem").
Regarding news: I simply avoid consuming any news. I do not want to receive anything from news. I don't need it. I work as a developer, in my job it's not necessary to know the "news". They doesn't affect my life much and even if they does, there's nothing I can do about it.
All the news I consume against my will (by browsing social media where it's almost impossible to avoid seeing shared articles). So my ultimate goal is to stop consuming social media as well, but I lack the willpower.
I also believe that it's good to know what is happening around IT (new languages, frameworks, etc) but all IT sources also publish lots of news about current politics (e.g. witch hunt against Huawei), so it seems as almost impossible to avoid news.
> Good and enlightening Soviet science shows were replaced with gross shows showing nudity and all kinds of fake science (psychics, UFO freaks, etc). Academics running the old shows said that they were closed specifically by request from the very top. Same for education: it was deliberately destroyed by direct guidance of US advisers.
This bit in particular intrigued me. What would be the point of steering science and public academia in this way? To lower the level of public discourse to the advantage of the US? I did not realize such things were so tightly guided by US advisers after the collapse, though I hold no illusions that Boris Yeltsin was lobbied for and supported by the US (it might more accurately be described as 'election meddling' - which made it ironic during the investigation into Russian meddling in US elections that very few news outlets were brave enough to address the actions of the US in other countries' elections and in Russia's in particular).
> Everybody just reinforces the same old meme how "repressive" was Soviet society and how everybody was happy to become free (just conveniently omit the ending: "free from education, free from having work, free from having enough food, free from having self-esteem").
Many here in the US claim that Gorbachev's policies of Glasnost and Perestroika contributed to the momentum of the collapse. I've heard it said before that while many here in the US hail Gorbachev as a kind of unwitting hero (due to this contribution and his affectations and coordination with Reagan), many who lived through his time in power view him more as the one who ruined everything his forebears had worked to build and achieve. Just for my own edification and curiosity, can you speak to how he's commonly viewed by former citizens of the Soviet Union?
Your take on news consumption is cogent and refreshing. Many of us probably pay more attention to it than necessary. As for social media, if you use it responsibly, it can be a net benefit rather than a net detriment. I've personally excised myself from social media because I don't agree with their data privacy practices. I don't know what social media you use, but Facebook has a feature I believe where you can deactivate your account - for 30 days (or so), you can log back in and reactivate your account without losing anything. At the very least, it could be useful for a trial run if you simply want to attempt to get rid of it without the risk of losing everything if you decide you want to keep it two weeks later.
One can only guess. For one thing, West (especially the US) needed USSR to be broken not to "free" from ourselves, but to create a new market for US goods. USA didn't need a global competitor - it needed a new market.
If population is educated, they tend to create industry products instead of mindlessly consuming. If you need a new market, you just need lowbrow population extracting natural resources for the western companies and buying consumer goods produced in the West.
Also, it would be harder to manipulate educated population.
Almost nobody analyzed this because even to this day our education is run by agents of the West. If you read articles and interviews of people who are in charge of education in Russia now, they're very openly and aggressively pro-West, nevermind that all their efforts only lowered the quality of education. It's obvious that western influence to destroy what remains of our education still remain.
I've lived for some time in some of South Asian countries and I believe it's same there. It's a part of neo-colonial politics. E.g. there's very little incentive to teach and learn mathematics and physics, chemistry, biology. There's a huge incentive to study humanities subjects and corresponding flood of US-printed books on marketing, management, "human rights", "lgbt rights", etc. But economy can't grow if everyone is a manager or lawyer - real education is needed for people to create industry products. But it's not in the West interest to allow growth of industry in Asia, Russia, Africa.
> Many here in the US claim that Gorbachev's policies of Glasnost and Perestroika contributed to the momentum of the collapse. I've heard it said before that while many here in the US hail Gorbachev as a kind of unwitting hero (due to this contribution and his affectations and coordination with Reagan), many who lived through his time in power view him more as the one who ruined everything his forebears had worked to build and achieve. Just for my own edification and curiosity, can you speak to how he's commonly viewed by former citizens of the Soviet Union?
I don't believe there was a momentum to collapse. It was a deliberate sabotage by Gorbachev. All the visible economical problems started on his term. USSR economy wasn't capitalist: it could survive whatever pressure. It survived WWII, it certainly could survive any sane reform or temporary crisis. It was deliberately destroyed by Gorbachev. Even some of pro-US/pro-West/pro-capitalist advocates agree that some of Gorbachev's decisions were caused economical disaster and it was very likely deliberate because any sane person could foresee that.
I don't know what everybody thinks about Gorbachev, but many people around me consider him a traitor (and they're probably right, there're some conspiracy theories that he was recruited by the West long time ago). People do not speak about him usually, but everyone understands that he destroyed huge a powerful country to pieces and every piece now lives much worse than before (at least economically). I'd say that significant part of population hates him for his crime, and even part of the population that is pro-West doesn't like to talk about him because he definitely betrayed his country and his people and there's little doubt about it.
Also, there's a constant pressure to tear remaining pieces even further (especially Russia which is still too big to be a tame colony for providing natural resources without any geopolitical ambitions). So, there're endless "revolutions" and coups in former USSR republics and attempts to stage such a coup in Russia. We're flooded with anti-Russian propaganda in our media, especially social networks. USA has created many institutions before and after...
Very interesting. It finally solved the mystery for me. My aunt was an accountant and she had one of those in her office. I remember looking at the keyboard and wondering how in the world you're supposed to divide and multiply with a single button. [-=] seems to be something like "invert the previous operation and then produce the result"
When you design a product with a a committee of 27 engineers..
A group of 27 engineers were assigned to this complex problem. It was a huge project which involved: producing the drawings, circuit and patterns consisting of 144 thousand points required to fit a microprocessor with 3400 elements within a 5x5 mm crystal.
It's actually pretty logical; there's a running total, and you decide what to do with the number you just typed in, after typing it. Costs an extra button press to 'add' the first number to the total, I suppose.
"20 ENTER 8 ENTER - 7 ENTER +"
So you push 20 onto the stack and then 8 on the stack. Then you hit the minus key which returns 12 and puts that 12 on the stack, then you put 7 on the stack and click the plus key to give you 19.
"20 ENTER 8 - 7 +"
I rest my case
After programming (and patching) in hex codes, any other programming language seems fairly simple.
And on the back of MK-52 there was a potentiometer you could use to overclock it.
I did not know the trick of re-soildering the BRP jumper though.
Ah, good times.