Reverse-engineering the Globus INK, a Soviet spaceflight navigation computer
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If nothing else, at least skim through this article to see the photos. It really was quite a remarkable and beautiful piece of machinery!
Marc mentions how Teletypes would commonly run with one or 1.5 stop bits. You need this to tell the mechanical parts to "lock up" at the end of a character. Preferred would be to run with 1.5 stop bits so that the machines became self-synchronizing -- if the wire got reconnected in the middle of a character they would start producing readable output again after only a few garbled characters.
The way the camshaft worked was each bit had a window of time where it could be set or cleared (marking vs spacing) by the solenoid. For letter H the bits are 10100 [0]. So the first lobe of the camshaft would come around and the solenoid would be in it's marking position (1) so the 1st bail would be selected. The second lobe would come around a few milliseconds later and the solenoid would be in it's spacing position (0) and the 2nd bail would NOT be selected. A few milliseconds later the third lobe would come around and the solenoid would be in it's marking position (1) so the 3rd bail would be selected. This would continue for the next two bits (spacing) and then the stop bit would arrive and the machine would use the values stored in the bails to print the letter H and/or punch an H (10100) into the paper tape.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ug5lUI-hs3s
Ever wonder why carriage return and line feed are different codes in Baudot, ASCII, and Unicode? It's because Teletypes needed the time to physically move the printing carriage back to column 1. Operators were trained to hit CR CR LF in case the Teletype at the other end was a little slow in returning from column 80 so the next line would start in column 1.
[0] Assuming you were in Letters. Because you only had 5 bits, alphabetic (Letters) and numbers/symbols (Figures) were alternately selected by 11111 and 11011. So 10100 could produce either an H or a # depending on whether you were in Letters or Figures mode.
RUBOUT is also how you would correct a typo on the tape: you would backspace the tape punch, hit RUBOUT, and then the character you meant. The RUBOUT character had all holes punched, effectively erasing the typo.
When operating the remote computer interactively, we just had to type CR, as the remote system would provide the LF and a slight pause. Working directly on the remote timesharing was strongly discouraged, as dial-up time cost $30/hour back then, or about $250/hour in today's dollars.
So we would punch our code on a tape, dial in just long enough to run the tape and get our printout, and hang up right away.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_home_ow...
all ex socialist countries
What it does not say though, is that housing supply was extremely poor. There was extreme lack of decent housing, and people could be easily on a 10+ year wait list (as my parents were). There was practically only government provided houses (e.g. apartments), you could not buy land to build your house yourself (all land was nationalized and belonged to "people", i.e. government). So your option was to wait until you were given one. There was also virtually no secondary housing market, you could not buy an apartment since the supply was so low. So while you waited for the gift from government, you either lived with your parents (if they had place), lived in "kommunalka" (shared apartment where each family got one room but shared kitchen, bathroom etc with other families), or rented a room from whomever you could find (which was not legal actually because it was deemed private entrepreneurship which was not allowed). Was not fun, believe me.
nope. the us for example had a much higher population growth than eastern europe. every western country continues to experience population growth. the population growth pre 1990 in eastern europe was at a healthy 1%. stagnation and negative rates started in the 90s, which was hardly a period of prosperity in eastern europe
> Countries that stagnated for 50 years went through a 10x growth in 30 years after the Soviet grip disappeared
tell that to everyone that dreams about leaving and working in western europe
My point is that USSR was providing bare basics for some and not for all. If you were member of CPSU or an informer, or of privileged nationality then your chances were much higher.
in the mean time, here are some of my own
NUTRITION
Approved For Release 2007/05117: CIA-RDP84B00274R000300150009-5 RFUTEPS 8 JANUARY 1983 5 PENGTH-DIET American and Soviet citizens eat about the same amount of food each day but the Soviet diet may be more nutritious. According to a CIA report released today both nationalities may be eating too much for good health.
LITTERACY
The education system that emerged after the establishment of the Soviet Union in 1922 became internationally renowned for its successes in eradicating illiteracy and cultivating a highly educated population.
MEDICAL CARE
Despite its drawbacks, the soviet healthcare system (Semashko model) is considered by the majority of Russian experts to have been one of the best in the world, because overall it met the requirements of quality, availability and provision of healthcare services, drugs and materials. After the collapse of the USSR, the health-care system was stagnant: funding was greatly limited, highly-skilled medical professionals emigrated, medical research came to a halt and manufacture of drugs and medical equipment declined dramatically.
HOUSING
https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/what-is-it-like-living...
and yes ... nato is bad. every imperialist organisation is bad. be it russian, american, chinese, or whatever
Yeah... no. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russification
The socialist revolution may begin in the very near future. In that event the proletariat will be faced with the immediate task of capturing power, of expropriating the banks and of introducing other dictatorial measures. In such a situation, the bourgeoisie, and particularly intellectuals like the Fabians and the Kautskyists, will strive to disrupt and to hinder the revolution, to restrict it to limited democratic aims. While all purely democratic demands may—at a time when the proletarians have already begun to storm the bulwarks of bourgeois power—serve, in a certain sense, as a hindrance to the revolution, nevertheless, the necessity of proclaiming and granting freedom to all oppressed nations (i.e., their right to self-determination) will be as urgent in the socialist revolution as it was urgent for the victory of the bourgeois-democratic revolution, for example, in Germany in 1848, or in Russia in 1905
You just have to look the refuges after the wall fell which were buying all the basic necessities in bulk, you know it's BS.
The US took advantage by forcing them to increase military spending. Gorbachev tried to find a way out of stagnation and killed the whole thing instead.
Russia 1985–1999: TraumaZone docuseries by Adam Curtis gives a great answert to that.[1] While it may be factually inaccurate at times, it conveys the feeling those times better than anything else I've ever seen.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDA3hIsf7LA&list=PLSjQL8MYni...
An oversimplification, as any explanation that’s not way too long for this forum would be, but: a decade long war in Afghanistan without an effective democratic outlet for frustration against the regime for the failure.