Internet & Eastern Block

[MrCool]

Does anyone have any information about utilization of computer networks in the Easter Block and in the Soviet Union?

I know that the USSR got it's country code top-level domain ".su" in 1990, a year before it's collapse. What were Soviet thoughts on the internet?

[m1omfg]

I'm from Slovakia and I know that if you had a capable computer (any 8-bit capable of networking would do) you could connect to the Internet in communist Czechoslovakia in the late 1980s, but practically it was absolutely unknown because communism collapsed 4 years before the rise of the WWW format and the only "internet" before that anywhere in the world were Usenet groups, BBS groups and telnet. Only one person in 20 had a computer of any sort in Czechoslovakia in 1987 and most just played 8-bit games on them, although most schools had some 8-bit computers.

In short - it was practically unknown and unused in that time, but this was more due to the lack of technology (not even the West had many internet users at that time). Almost nobody used it or even heard of it, but no, there were no censorship laws or laws prohibiting it, it was just an obscure technology that mostly only IT maniacs knew about.

Computers were scarce in personal possesion, but almost every school had IQ-151s or PMD-85s since 1985 or so http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IQ_151 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PMD_85 . These were 8-bit, MHB 8080 (Intel 8080 clone) based computers.

Btw here's a link to a Slovak TV show about computers from 1988 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZstFSgziTo .

[MrCool]

Did the goverment use it in more ways than in education? (military, factories, etc.)
And could one connect to the western network from the eastern block?

[m1omfg]

The goverment used mainframe, room sized computers since the 1950s in industry and military. Later, when first personal computers started to exist in the world they started using them too in these areas. There were even PC/XT and PC/AT clones but those were about 10x more expensive than a new car, so 8-bits were used more.

Connection to Western networks was probably limited only by technological equipment, there were no China style laws restricting personal computer networks as personal computing was still very much a new thing.

[m1omfg]

Here's a video of a computer centre (mainframe computers) in Bratislava in 1974 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQ4rwp9yA1s&feature=watch_response .

In general I'd say that the Eastern Bloc and the USSR were perhaps 5-10 years behind the West in computer technology, for example the computers shown in the last video look similiar to 1960s PDP computers and the PMD-85, while very weak compared to state-of-the-art Western computers at that time (mid to late 1980s), was certainly superior to cheap Western computers from the early 1980s such as the ZX80/ZX80, VIC-20, the weaker Apple II models etc.

Eastern Bloc and Soviet IT technology was not the top of the line but it wasn't stone age either.

[fractal-vortex]

comrade, if you go to my page on the Web, you'll find an article about computer use in the former USSR in mid 2000's. Please, e-mail me for the address, as I can not post a link yet, or see my profile,

fractal-vortex

[Ghazkull]

Does anyone have any information about utilization of computer networks in the Easter Block and in the Soviet Union?

The USSR network era in fact started afte the USSR collapse.



I know that the USSR got it's country code top-level domain ".su" in 1990, a year before it's collapse.

Yes, it still exists. ICANN want's to close it, but the soviet fans are against.
The name registration within the SU zone is quite expensive.



What were Soviet thoughts on the internet?
No thoughs, really.
The bureaucracy was indifferent regarding the internet, so all the movement was the reult of titanica efforts of several geeks and scientists.
I can look for an article about the first steps of the networking at the SU. But it was in Russian, so you'll need the Google Translate to undersand something