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.

ТНЕ 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.

Страницы: 1, 2