No, I don't know much about Soviet computers at all. Thanks for sharing, this was really interesting!
Also worth looking at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaksija_(computer)
During the 70s and early 80s, Yugoslavia produced a lot of electronic parts, but actual PCs were too expensive for the average consumer.
So some guy came up with a barebones design using parts you could pick up at any radio shack. It had 2-6 kb RAM and used audio cassettes for storage. It could output either 64×48 pixels or 32x16 chars.
The 4KB ROM used some of the same bytes for multiple things, eg certain words were chosen because the sequence of bytes of that word could later be interpreted as code that did something else
Despite all the jank, the computer became popular enough that there were radio shows where people would send in programs that would be broadcast. People could record the program on audio cassette and then run it on their PC.
One has to wonder how things might have evolved differently if Yugoslavia didn't collapse and instead the large educated populace and general availability of computers created a sort of silicon valley alternative where tech giants didn't hold back progress by crushing any development that didn't benefit them.
collapsed
the USA, standing in front of decades of siege warfare against the USSR: "It just collapsed!"
Reminds me of the stories of various us state functions that use 35+ year old computers at a snail's pace. A few years back I'd been all up in arms about shit like that, but a few shit computers and arcane systems is the last bastion of anti pmc thought, and I don't care if it takes 120 man hours to do what a spread sheet and a plugin can do in 15min if it puts food on the table for workers
End rant
Lots of government systems are written in COBOL, and just about everyone who knows how to develop it is retired or dead. Sometimes to replace outdated hardware, they just emulate the outdated hardware on a modern system and run the same ancient software.
imagine if the USSR had been dengist and not tried to go it completely alone.
