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Comment by genman | Hacker News Reader

There was this joke at Soviet time, mimicking the usual Soviet propaganda: Soviet microprocessors - the most large microprocessors in the world!

They made many clones of Western designs but had also number of original designs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Soviet_microprocessors

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Systime, a UK based DEC var and terminal maker was busted copying VAX boards to on-sell to the SU when DEC couldn't under ITAR restrictions. They sold clones with DEC boards and decided to up the profit by cloning the DEC boards.

Systime was doing fine selling VT100 compatible terminals but went seeking bigger bucks. I think the VAX was a sweetspot for them while it lasted. They went bust in the end.

Their headquarters in Leeds was a futuristic (for the 1980s) building with magstripe guided parts moving robots, a fantastic works cafeteria, the owners helicopter parked outside, and featured in a nuclear missile thriller TV series called "edge of darkness" -I worked at Leeds Uni on a systime funded research project and spent time there. Nice people in the research labs, smart, motivated.

It interesting, because VAX had never been used much in the USSR. The main architectures were PDP-derived or IBM-derived.

Probably sold mostly to the sphere, not the core. Systime might have been in the pdp-11 business too but I was there working Vax, and the story was told to me about Vax (by systime employees I might add)

I remember using Soviet-made VAX clone from СМ ЭВМ series:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SM_EVM

Your list misses SM-1700 ("СМ-1700"), a full clone of VAX-11/730. But all the VAX-compatible computers were produced only during the last several years of the USSR, so just a few thousand had been built in total.

well, except one of the most famous vaxen of all time, kremvax

I've heard Latvia had a fisherman kolkhoz dedicated to smuggling dual purpose tech from Sweden (presumably with their benevolent neutrality).

I remember reading that some version of the MicroVAX CPU had etched into it, in broken Russian, something approximating "VAX: When you care enough to steal the very best". I'm not sure how many Soviet engineers would have been familiar with the Hallmark commercials to get the joke, though.

DEC celebrated this in their "VMS at 20" anniversary book in 1997: https://vtda.org/docs/computing/DEC/VMS/VMSat20Book.pdf

Yes, on CVAX: https://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/creatures/pages/russians.html

I think they would have gotten the point without it, given that they were into stealing its design - of course the subtle point might have been not familiar for them.

The broken Russian reads more like an advertisement to buy the real thing. Until you have supplied that quote I had no idea, even though I saw this picture.

Hm, indeed, can be interpreted this way, if you imagine commas at right places.

If you care, enough to steal, the real best.

(The word "настоящий" used as the translation of "very" means "real". For the rest we can leave the original english words and with commas even have some similar broken language effect)

The Russian is too broken to be comprehensible, so the burn doesn't work as well as it could. The equivalent broken English would be something like: "SVAX: when you whaaant enough steal genuine best". Yes, it's just as difficult to parse the Russian.

... with 16 pins and two carrying handles!

The table on that page says some chips used risc-v architecture. But made by the Soviet Union? Risc-v was introduced 10 years ago. What on earth?

The table includes post-USSR chips too:

> Newer devices from Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine are listed here if they are labelled according to the Soviet integrated circuit designation.

Derp, sorry I missed that. Thank you for pointing it out for me.

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