Brilliant. This reminds me of the apocryphal tale where NASA spent millions developing a pen that could work in microgravity… and Russia just used a pencil.
Which means they are of doubtful origin. There is no doubt that this particular story is a complete fabrication
Yup. Completely false. The Russians ended up using that pen too or their own version of it; the Americans started off using pencils but it turns out having electrically conductive graphite shavings floating around is bad for electronic equipment.