Abstract
Achievements of the East European Socialist countries in computing -although considerable- remained little known in the West until recently. Retarded by devastations of war, economic weakness and very different levels of national science, computing ranged ‘from little to nothing’ in the 1950-s. However, full-scale collective cooperation with the USSR based on principles of equal rights and mutual assistance was aimed at increasing of common creative power. Centralised planning and ability to concentrate efficiently national resources on priority issues, state support for science and progressive educational system accessible for everybody played decisive role. The progress was impressive. Some (GDR) reached world’s level in science and engineering such as some (in Hungary) – advanced computer education, programming and efficient usage and some (in Bulgaria, Cuba) starting “from zero point” turned into reputable manufacturers. In 1970-1990, 300,000 people as the united team of eight countries jointly designed and produced advanced family of compatible computers ES. Given general review also displays some important technical and organisational details.
Chapter PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Trogemann, G., Nitussov, A., Ernst, W.: Computing in Russia. VIEWEG Wiesbaden (2001)
Rakovski, M.E. (ed.): Computer engineering in the socialist countries (periodical journ.). Statistics (1-8) (1977/1980)
Geschichte des VEB Kombinat Robotron. Zusammengestellt durch Frau Dr. Kretschmer
Malinovsky, B.N.: History of computers in personalities. Kiev KIT. A.S.K. Ltd. (1995)
Communism and Computing. Comm. of the ACM 35(11), 27–29, 112 (1992)
Russian Virtual Computer Museum (on-line) materials, http://www.computer-museum.ru
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2011 IFIP International Federation for Information Processing
About this paper
Cite this paper
Nitusov, A.Y. (2011). Computer Development in the Socialist Countries: Members of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA). In: Impagliazzo, J., Proydakov, E. (eds) Perspectives on Soviet and Russian Computing. SoRuCom 2006. IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology, vol 357. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-22816-2_25
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-22816-2_25
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-22815-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-22816-2
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)