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Comment by flohofwoe | Hacker News Reader

> What I find quite surprising: The keyboard and output of the device mostly uses English words. A bit unexpected for a device developed in eastern Germany for use in the Soviet Union; I would rather have expected Russian there.

This isn't all that surprising, the Lingua Franca for electronics and software development in Eastern Germany was also English, not Russian (or rather a mix of German and English, with much more German than the "Denglish" that is used today, but for terms that didn't already have an established German word, the English word was used, and I guess it was much the same in the Soviet Union).

If you browse through East German vintage computer manuals, there's a lot of English used for "special terms" like "BREAK", "HOME", "ESCAPE" etc.

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A much simpler explanation of the phenomenon is that a lion share of digital electronics made in the union was a direct copypaste down to documentation, and UI

Russian language based domestic computing industry existed, but it has stopped developing in early seventies, and by eighties was behind hopelessly, despite being quite well adapted in civilian use.

Funnily, it was the union's military that was the biggest user of hardware, and software derived from Western products, while civilians were left to use obsolete stuff from sixties, and seventies. Even mechanical computers were still around by the time of union's collapse.

Not sure why you're downvoted, as this was a fact. If a country is behind, the best way to catch up is to copy, there's nothing wrong with that (especially since it was illegal for Western companies to sell computer technology into the East, see COCOM [1]). And at least for basic elements like CPUs and other microchips it would have been foolish to create parts that are incompatible with the rest of the world.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coordinating_Committee_for_Mul...

DEC even taped out their opinion: https://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/creatures/pages/russians.html

The successor to COMECON streisands the fun stuff: https://www.wassenaar.org/app/uploads/2019/12/WA-DOC-19-PUB-...

In the 80s, if you had a lot of money, you could import an actual PC. Or so I was told.

There apparently also were ZX Spectrum clones that no one could afford. Also the Agat computer, a slightly incompatible Apple II clone that used a real imported 6502 because USSR wasn't able to produce its own one.

I wandered around the Polytechnic Museum in Moscow a couple of decades ago, thinking, at so many of the technology exhibits, "that looks reeeeeeaaally familiar".

-As did I, chuckling at the 'built with foreign documentation' label affixed to many of the exhibits, in particular in the consumer electronics exhibition.

Chuckle turned to laugh when I looked at the replica H-bomb in the lobby before leaving - first, a label stating 'Replica. Does not contain explosives.'

Beneath this label? Another, stating 'built with foreign documentation.'

I probably should visit this museum the next time I come to Moscow for whatever reason.

Even largely copied machines were typically adapted and 'localized' so I'm not sure this is really a much simpler or accurate explanation.

I've looked at some old soviet computing papers, and was surprised at how much english they used. I think, just like we all import "programming" keyboards, EN-US rapidly took over from EN-GB after the initial baby steps in computing.

http://ershov.iis.nsk.su/files/archive/fold0256/256_125.gif

"optimists learn english — pessimists, chinese"

this went on "realists study re-assembling a Kalashnikov".

There was lots of English, obviously, but also a lot of adaptation and modifications. Almost nothing (in wide use) was copied identically so I don't think this is a 'simple explanation' why this machine is the way it is. If I were to guess - this is a fairly late, specialized, small-run device made by a DDR space research institution. Maybe they were more geared up to make 'international' equipment. Maybe that's just the buttons they had on hand. The device was also intended to be used in 'friendly' countries so that might have been a factor. It's also possible this was considered more unobtrusive - on the museum site linked in the article there's a Soviet spy field radio with English markings, for instance, for use overseas.

So far @textfiles has traced that quote back to '65, give him another hour or so and I fully expect him to come up with a fragment from the dead sea scrolls or some fragment in Linear-A hewn into a rock.

Damn if that means Linear-A will finally be deciphered, I'm going to sit here hitting F5 all night long.

Optimists learn egyptian. Pessimists learn assyrian. Realists learn horsemanship.

(TIL AK-47s are simpler than our assault rifles. Decent times: разборка, 8s, сборка, 15s, both, 30s)

Heh, the last bit - that the Chinese part is a later modification I think I could have told you myself. I wouldn't be too surprised if there's a pre-WW2 variant of some sort. But I doubt it's actually a 'quote' with an origin you can pinpoint any better than many such aphorisms like 'we pretend to work and they pretend to pay us'.

Googling the last bit took me to a reddit post in a socialism subreddit that questioned whether people actually said that so there's that sidemusement as well.

1961 now, still including the 'Chinese bit'. The Kalashnikov is the later modification I think.

https://twitter.com/textfiles/status/1300882097150795779

You won't find any references to the Kalashnikov prior to 1948 ;)

There was a Czech one that didn't have Chinese of similar vintage and this kind of sentiment and the saying to go with it must have been pretty common around WW2+, when 'Chinese' would have made as little sense as Kalashnikov. But like I said, fundamentally it's not really a 'quote'.

It really makes sense for Germany in this edition: The optimists in West Germany learn Russian the pessimists - Chinese.

This then seems to be specifically East German, since West German electronics were entirely self-sustained till the 90s or so, so the entire education and engineering used German and German only. (And oh-my, it's beautiful. Much more expressive than English EE jargon.) Computing, well they (Siemens, Nixdorf and some others) tried, and found their niches outside personal computing (Mainframes, industrial control systems).

Perhaps it was easier for them to get a hold on western/international electronics instead of West German stuff.

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