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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.