Page 9 - Kotov

To build BESM, Lebedev needed more than 50,000 vacuum tubes. That was a significant portion of the
yearly production of the tubes in the USSR. Besides, the production and distribution of goods were
prescribed by the State Planning Committe a year ahead. Lebedev directly approached the plants
producing the tubes trying to be the tubes for BESM, but had no success, as they there were no surplus to
sell him. During this trips he noticed huge stands with thousands of vacuum tubes, which were tested for
20 days for failures. He proposed the plant to use his BESM as a testbed for the tubes. The management
agreed and each 20 days the computer was shut down, all tubes that survived test has been returned to
the plant and new tubes replaced them.

Bruk’s Computers
While Sergey Lebedev designed the first general-purpose mainframe computers, Isaak S.
Bruk was the father of the future mini and control computers. Prior to starting work on dig-
ital computers, Bruk designed mechanical differential analyzers (with up to thousand rack-
wheels). He and Bashir I. Rameev were awarded the first Russian patent on a “digital com-
puting machine” in 1948, which however was never built. With a small team of enthusiasts
and students, Bruk built his first computer M-1 in 1951 and immediately started the second
computer M-2, then M-3. These machines were not commercial, they were used mostly for
solving some unique problems, such as durability of large hydro power dams built at that
time.
Isaak S . Bruk He founded the Institute of Electronic Control Machines, which became the head organi-
(1902–1974) zation that designed computers for real-time control of power stations, power grids, and
technological processes.

The First Serial Computer Strela
Strela (Arrow) was the first computer serially produced in 1953–1956 in Russia, in Moscow, though the series
was of only 20 machines. The com-
puter had 6200 vacuum tubes, two
tapes with capacity 1.5 mln words,
used 150 kwt power, occupied an
area of more than 3000 square feet,
and performed 3000 operations per
second. The Strela programmers
were pioneers in developing soft-
ware technology in Russia.

– 7 –