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''Minsk'' family of
Russian Virtual Computer Museum
{{List of Soviet computer systems Belarusian inventions Soviet inventions Mainframe computers Science and technology in Belarus Ministry of Radio Industry (USSR) computers
''Minsk'' family of mainframe
A mainframe computer, informally called a mainframe or big iron, is a computer used primarily by large organizations for critical applications like bulk data processing for tasks such as censuses, industry and consumer statistics, enterprise ...
computers was developed and produced in the Byelorussian SSR
The Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic (BSSR, or Byelorussian SSR; be, Беларуская Савецкая Сацыялістычная Рэспубліка, Bielaruskaja Savieckaja Sacyjalistyčnaja Respublika; russian: Белор ...
from 1959 to 1975.
Models
The MINSK-1 was a vacuum-tube digital computer that went into production in 1960. The MINSK-2 was a solid-state digital computer that went into production in 1962. The MINSK-22 was a modified version of Minsk-2 that went into production in 1965. The MINSK-23 went into production in 1966. The most advanced model was ''Minsk-32'', developed in 1968. It supportedCOBOL
COBOL (; an acronym for "common business-oriented language") is a compiled English-like computer programming language designed for business use. It is an imperative, procedural and, since 2002, object-oriented language. COBOL is primarily us ...
, FORTRAN and ALGAMS (a version of ALGOL
ALGOL (; short for "Algorithmic Language") is a family of imperative computer programming languages originally developed in 1958. ALGOL heavily influenced many other languages and was the standard method for algorithm description used by the ...
). This and earlier versions also used a machine-oriented language called ''AKI'' (''AvtoKod "Inzhener"'', i.e., " Engineer's Autocode"). It stood somewhere between the native assembly language
In computer programming, assembly language (or assembler language, or symbolic machine code), often referred to simply as Assembly and commonly abbreviated as ASM or asm, is any low-level programming language with a very strong correspondence be ...
''SSK'' (''Sistema Simvolicheskogo Kodirovaniya'', or "System of symbolic coding") and higher-level languages, like FORTRAN.
The word size was 31 bits for Minsk-1 and 37 bits for the other models.
At one point the Minsk-222 (an upgraded prototype based on the most popular model, Minsk-22) and Minsk-32 were considered as a potential base for a future unified line of mutually compatible mainframes — that would later become the ES EVM
The ES EVM (russian: Единая система электронных вычислительных машин (ЕС ЭВМ), translit=Yedinaya sistema electronnykh vytchislitel'nykh mashin (ES EVM), "Unified System of Electronic Computers"), o ...
line, but despite being popular among users, good match between their tech and Soviet tech base and familiarity to both programmers and technicians lost to the proposal to copy the IBM/360
The IBM System/360 (S/360) is a family of mainframe computer systems that was announced by IBM on April 7, 1964, and delivered between 1965 and 1978. It was the first family of computers designed to cover both commercial and scientific applica ...
line of mainframes — the possibility to just copy all the software existing for it was deemed more important.
See also
*Mark Nemenman Mark Nemenman (russian: Марк Ефимович Неменман, be, Марк Яўхімавіч Неменман) (6 November 1936, Minsk, Belarus - 20 September 2022, San Mateo, California) was a Soviet computer scientist, notable as a pione ...
References
Further reading
* (NB. Has info on the Minsk-32 character set.)External links
Russian Virtual Computer Museum
{{List of Soviet computer systems Belarusian inventions Soviet inventions Mainframe computers Science and technology in Belarus Ministry of Radio Industry (USSR) computers