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SOVIET UNION: Computer Games

7 minute read
TIME

The Soviet Union likes to boast that it is the land of the future. Yet in the one technology most essential for industrial and scientific progress, the country is far behind. Western experts believe Soviet computer development trails the U.S.’s by three to ten years, depending on the segment of technology, and the gap is not closing.

The state of Communist computer technology has been the focus of an important, largely behind-the-scenes debate in Washington over the wisdom of selling late-model machines to the U.S.S.R. Because advanced computers are essential to the development of modern weaponry, the U.S. and its NATO allies have long prohibited their export to a potential enemy. Now the Administration has reaffirmed that decision by blocking the sale to the Soviets of an advanced $13 million computer called the Cyber 76.

Central Brain. The U.S.S.R. had been seeking to buy the Cyber 76 from its manufacturer, California-based Control Data Corp., for three years. The announced use: a United Nations-sponsored, worldwide weather-forecasting system. Control Data had eagerly sought the necessary Commerce Department export license. To allay fears that the computer might be diverted to military purposes, the company pledged that its own technicians would tend the machine, which would be programmed to cry foul at the first attempt to alter its mission.

Nonetheless, Defense Department scientists became increasingly alarmed at the prospects of a Cyber 76 sitting in Moscow—and with good reason. An earlier Control Data model—the Cyber 74—is the central brain of the U.S. defense system. Installed in the Pentagon, the National Security Agency and numerous secret locations, the 74s perform such tasks as interpreting data relayed back from surveillance satellites arcing over the Soviet Union, deciphering intercepted codes and analyzing tracking reports on Russian submarines.

Carter, who at first had been in favor of the Cyber 76 deal, began to have second thoughts, and they were soon passed along to Commerce. Result: export license denied.

It was a sound decision. Contrary to the rosy projections of some Western computer makers, the Soviet Union in the immediate future will probably not be a lucrative market for Western equipment, even if the NATO nations drop their sales restrictions. Not only does Moscow lack the hard currency for large-scale purchases of Western equipment, but it also is pumping big amounts ($10 billion during 1970-75) into the development of its own computer industry, which has an estimated 80 plants employing 300,000 people. One Western expert, Bohdan Szuprowicz, a Polish-born authority on Soviet computers who advises major U.S. companies, sees signs that Moscow has been assembling only a sample of the most advanced Western computers it is permitted to buy as patterns for its own models. Says he: “It appears as if someone behind the scenes orchestrated the import of the latest obtainable Western computers.”

Esoteric Devices. Partly, the U.S.S.R.’s computer development lags because of its decision not to foster the kind of consumer society that has nurtured the rapid growth of the industry in the West. Of the large number of computers installed in the U.S. (300,000, v. an estimated 22,000 in the Soviet Union), fully three-quarters of them are engaged in commercial operations—everything from billing credit-card accounts and writing paychecks to sending flowers by wire and keeping baseball statistics up to date.

In the Soviet Union, by contrast, computers are still regarded as esoteric devices to be used only for the highest-priority scientific, industrial and military purposes. A Western cybernetics expert in Moscow estimates that while an American has dealings linked with a computer at least ten times a day, the average Soviet citizen comes in contact with a computer perhaps once every six months, if then. Though the Soviet State Bank is the world’s largest banking operation, it does not possess a modern computerized check-processing and accounting system. Stores do not use computers for charge accounts, since Soviet citizens are not permitted this capitalist excess, and they have not computerized other parts of their operations, like inventory control. Aeroflot, the Soviet national airline, in 1975 bought two Univac 1106 computers, worth about $5 million apiece, from the U.S.’s Sperry Univac to automate reservations on international flights; but the world’s largest airline has not yet computerized its domestic reservation system.

Where Soviet computer technology lags most is in speed. Their Ryad-model computers, the most advanced machines in general use in the Soviet Union, are close copies of the IBM 360 series, first introduced in the U.S. in 1964. The top design in the Ryad line, which has not yet gone into use, performs only 1.5 million operations per second, compared with up to 12 million for the Cyber 76. Even the latest Soviet computers are ten to twenty times slower than the present generation of U.S. computers.

Aiming to develop their own “number crunchers,” as the fast new U.S. machines are called, Moscow is designing a large computer, specified the BESM-10. Supposedly, it will be capable of 15 million operations per second. But although it is supposed to come into use this year, it has not appeared so far, and some Western experts wonder whether the BESM-10 has run into problems. If so, the Cyber 76 could conceivably be used to help solve them. Says Szuprowicz: “It is very difficult to believe they would not get some helpful ideas from Cyber 76 once they had it installed on their territory.”

One of the leading U .S. authorities on the present state of Soviet computers is Dr. Carl Hammer, director of computer sciences at Sperry Univac. Hammer, who often visits Russian cybernetic installations, believes the U.S.S.R. is nearly equal to the U.S. in the design and construction of computers. But it lags so badly in performance because of the Soviet failure so far to master “chip” technology—the ability to place large numbers of miniature circuits on tiny (usually ½ sq. in.) silicon chips or plates. While U.S. engineers can cram 10,000 to 50,000 components on one of these chips, the Russians have been able to place no more than 500 to 2,000.

Good Logicians. In terms of human talent—”brainware” in the argot of computer men—Hammer believes Russian cyberneticists are often better logicians than their U.S. counterparts. However, they are oriented toward the oretical problems. At the big Soviet training institutes, students concentrate very little on the standard international computer language for commerce, known as COBOL (Common Business Oriented Language). Instead, they drill in ALGOL and FORTRAN, the two major scientific languages.

Soviet officials seem unhappy with their computer industry. Earlier this year, a vice chairman of the state planning committee complained in an article in Pravda that just about everything was wrong with the computer effort, including underutilization of machines, missing printout attachments and poorly motivated technicians and managers.

The problems are the familiar ills that customarily plague Communist enterprises: top-heavy bureaucracy, lack of competition (the U.S. has more than 100 companies making computers), a work climate that inhibits innovation. These traits are bad enough in a less cerebral undertaking than computers, but in a field where experimentation is absolutely vital, the Communist system is especially stultifying.

To make up for its shortcomings, Moscow sometimes turns abroad for ideas and does not always use ethical methods to get them. Development of the Ryad series of computers began when KGB agents evidently spirited away an IBM 360 from West Germany in the late 1960s. In The Netherlands, where Moscow has set up a computer center, the Dutch government last year expelled the Soviet director on espionage charges. Suspicion about him arose after a Dutch employee at the center reported having been given a $4,500 bonus for explaining to the Russians how the Dutch police use their computer to identify wanted persons and stolen autos.

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