BESM (БЭСМ) is the series of Soviet mainframe computers built in 1950–60s. The name is an acronym for "Bolshaya[1] (or Bystrodeystvuyushchaya) [2] Elektronno-schotnaya Mashina" ("Большая электронно-счётная машина" or "Быстродействующая электронно-счётная машина"), meaning "Big Electronic Computing Machine" or "High-Speed Electronic Computing Machine". It was designed at the Institute of Precision Mechanics and Computer Engineering
Models
[edit]The BESM series included six models.
BESM-1
[edit]BESM-1, originally referred to as simply the BESM or BESM AN ("BESM Akademii Nauk", BESM of the Academy of Sciences), was completed in 1952.[3][4] Only one BESM-1 machine was built. The machine used approximately 5,000 vacuum tubes. At the time of completion, it was the fastest computer in Europe. The floating-point numbers were represented as 39-bit words: 32 bits for the mantissa, one bit for sign, and 1 + 5 bits for the exponent. It was capable of representing numbers in the range 10−9 – 1010. BESM-1 had 1024 words of read–write memory using ferrite cores, and 1024 words of read-only memory based on semiconducting diodes. It also had external storage: four magnetic tape units of 30,000 words each, and fast magnetic drum storage with a capacity of 5120 words and an access rate of 800 words/second. The computer was capable of performing 8–10 KFlops. The energy consumption was approximately 30 kW, not accounting for the cooling systems.
BESM-2
[edit]BESM-2 also used vacuum tubes.
BESM-3M and BESM-4
[edit]BESM-3M and BESM-4 were built using transistors. Their architecture was similar to that of the M-20 and M-220 series.[citation needed] The word size was 45 bits.[citation needed] Thirty BESM-4 machines were built. BESM-4 was used to create the first ever computer animation.[5][6] The prototypes of both models were made in 1962–63, and the beginning of the series release was in 1964.[7]
EPSILON (a macro language with high-level features including strings and lists, developed by Andrey Ershov at Novosibirsk in 1967) was used to implement ALGOL 68 on the M-220.[8]
BESM-6
[edit]![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/10/BESM-6_%28London_Science_Museum%29.jpg/220px-BESM-6_%28London_Science_Museum%29.jpg)
The BESM-6 was the best-known and most influential model of the series. The design was completed in 1965. Production started in 1968 and continued for the following 19 years.[9]
See also
[edit]- Sergei Alekseyevich Lebedev
- Lev Korolyov
- List of Soviet computer systems
- History of computing hardware
- History of computing in the Soviet Union
- List of vacuum tube computers
References
[edit]- ^ Н. П. Бусленко; В. Н. Бусленко (1977). Беседы о поколениях ЭВМ. Эврика. Молодая гвардия. p. 240.
- ^ Metropolis, Nicholas (1980). A History of Computing in the Twentieth Century. Elsevier Inc, Academic Press. p. 152. ISBN 978-0-12-491650-0.
- ^ Metropolis, Nicholas (2014). History of Computing in the Twentieth Century. Elsevier. p. 149. ISBN 978-1-4832-9668-5.
- ^ Impagliazzo, John; Proydakov, Eduard (2011). Perspectives on Soviet and Russian Computing: First IFIP WG 9.7 Conference, SoRuCom 2006, Petrozavodsk, Russia, July 3-7, 2006, Revised Selected Papers. Springer. p. 14. ISBN 978-3-642-22816-2.
- ^ Кошечка - Математические этюды [Cat - Mathematical Etudes] (in Russian). Archived from the original on 2011-05-10. Retrieved 2011-05-28.
- ^ ""Kitty": One of the First-Ever Computer Animations". www.geekosystem.com. 22 March 2010. Retrieved 2018-04-21.
- ^ Олегович, Одинцов Игорь (2004). Профессиональное программирование. Системный подход, 2 изд [Professional programming. A Systems Approach, 2nd ed.] (in Russian). БХВ-Петербург. p. 401. ISBN 5-94157-457-6.
- ^ "EPSILON macro language". Retrieved May 29, 2007.
- ^ Очерки по истории советской вычислительной техники и школ программирования (Издательство "Открытые Системы") [Essays on the history of Soviet computer technology and programming schools (Open Systems Publishing)], (in Russian), Archived 2007-09-30 at the Wayback Machine Google translation.
Further reading
[edit]- Malinovsky, Boris Nikolaevich (2010). Pioneers of Soviet Computing. Archived from the original on 2011-05-09 – via Wayback Machine.
- Swade, Doron (1996). "Back in the U.S.S.R." Inc. Archived from the original on 1997-04-13. Retrieved 2021-12-03 – via archive.today.
{{cite magazine}}
: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link) A museum curator suggests Russia's BESM supercomputer may have been superior to the USA's supercomputers during the early stages of the Cold War. - Williams, Al (July 16, 2022). "A Look Back at the USSR Computer Industry". Hackaday.