Sergei Lebedev and Early Russian computers

There is this article in 'i-programmer' which may just be of
intertest to some people on this list... possibly  (-;



Sergei Lebedev and Early Russian computers
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When you think of the early history of the computer you probably think of 
people and projects in the USA and the UK, with, perhaps a passing 
reference to Zuse's computers in Germany. If Russia, or as it was then the 
USSR, is mentioned at all it is usually in connection with the copies of 
western machines, the "three six-skis" of the 1970s, or the miniature 
valve based avionic and space computers that were rumoured still be in use 
up until recently ! However Soviet Russia had its own early computer 
program and its own computer creators - and neither were cheap western 
copies ! Russia's own "father of the computer" was Sergei Alekseevich 
Lebedev....


....There is of course the question of how original Lebedev's work was. At
the time he was thinking about building a stored program machine in 1947
there were articles available on the ENIAC and Von Neumann's report on the
EDVAC was available in 1945. However it is unlikely that Lebedev had
access to these sources. Certainly building MESM was not just a matter of
copying the blueprints of Western machines - even when the Russians tried
this some years later the results didn't work because of component
differences.

It is possible that Lebedev did receive intelligence from the KGB and the 
question of the independence of the invention of the stored program 
computer has to remain open - but when  Russia planned to catch up in 
computing by explicitly cloning the 360 series Lebedev was very much 
against it. He always believed that a Russian designed machine would be 
better. He didn't make a vast fortune from a computer company - but he did 
get the Order of Lenin - three times.


http://www.i-programmer.info/history/9-machines/237-sergei-lebedev-and-early-russian-computers-.html