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The Comparative Analysis Of The History Of The Computer Science And The Computer Engineering In The USA And Ukraine

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



                      HOWARD H. AIKEN AND THE COMPUTER
Howard 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.

                     DEVELOPMENT OF COMPUTERS IN THE USA
In 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
From 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.

The development of computers in ukraine and the former USSR
The 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.
                                    Kiev

                            the homecity of mesm
MESM 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”


The  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.
The comparison of the computer development

in the usa and ukraine
At 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

Having 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. Stephen G. Nash “A History of Scientific Computing”, ACM Press History
      Series, New York, 1990.
   2. The America House  Pro-Quest  Database:  “Byte”  Magazine,  September,
      1995.
   3. William Aspray,  Charles  Babbage  Institute  Reprint  Series  in  the
      History of Computing 7, Los Angeles, 1985.
   4.  D.J.Frailey  “Computer  Architecture”  in  Encyclopedia  of  Computer
      Science.
   5. Stan Augarten “Bit by Bit: An Illustrated History of  Computers”,  New
      York, 1984.
   6. Michael R. Williams “A History  of  Computing  Technology”,  Englewood
      Cliffs, New Jersey, 1985.



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