BESM

BESM (БЭСМ) is the series of Soviet mainframe computers built in 1950–60s. The name is an acronym for "Bolshaya^[1] (or Bystrodeystvuyushchaya) ^[2] Elektronno-schotnaya Mashina" ("Большая электронно-счётная машина" or "Быстродействующая электронно-счётная машина"), meaning "Big Electronic Computing Machine" or "High-Speed Electronic Computing Machine". It was designed at the Institute of Precision Mechanics and Computer Engineering

Models

The BESM series included six models.

BESM-1

BESM-1, originally referred to as simply the BESM or BESM AN ("BESM Akademii Nauk", BESM of the Academy of Sciences), was completed in 1952.^[3]^[4] Only one BESM-1 machine was built. The machine used approximately 5,000 vacuum tubes. At the time of completion, it was the fastest computer in Europe. The floating-point numbers were represented as 39-bit words: 32 bits for the mantissa, one bit for sign, and 1 + 5 bits for the exponent. It was capable of representing numbers in the range 10⁻⁹ – 10¹⁰. BESM-1 had 1024 words of read–write memory using ferrite cores, and 1024 words of read-only memory based on semiconducting diodes. It also had external storage: four magnetic tape units of 30,000 words each, and fast magnetic drum storage with a capacity of 5120 words and an access rate of 800 words/second. The computer was capable of performing 8–10 K Flops. The energy consumption was approximately 30 kW, not accounting for the cooling systems.

BESM-2

BESM-2 also used vacuum tubes.

BESM-3M and BESM-4

BESM-3M and BESM-4 were built using transistors. Their architecture was similar to that of the M-20 and M-220 series.^{[citation needed]} The word size was 45 bits.^{[citation needed]} Thirty BESM-4 machines were built. BESM-4 was used to create the first ever computer animation.^[5]^[6] The prototypes of both models were made in 1962–63, and the beginning of the series release was in 1964.^[7]

EPSILON (a macro language with high-level features including strings and lists, developed by Andrey Ershov at Novosibirsk in 1967) was used to implement ALGOL 68 on the M-220.^[8]

BESM-6

BESM-6 at London Science Museum

The BESM-6 was the best-known and most influential model of the series. The design was completed in 1965. Production started in 1968 and continued for the following 19 years.^[9]

References

^ Н. П. Бусленко; В. Н. Бусленко (1977). Беседы о поколениях ЭВМ. Эврика. Молодая гвардия. p. 240.
^ Metropolis, Nicholas (1980). A History of Computing in the Twentieth Century. Elsevier Inc, Academic Press. p. 152. ISBN 978-0-12-491650-0.
^ Metropolis, Nicholas (2014). History of Computing in the Twentieth Century. Elsevier. p. 149. ISBN 978-1-4832-9668-5.
^ Impagliazzo, John; Proydakov, Eduard (2011). Perspectives on Soviet and Russian Computing: First IFIP WG 9.7 Conference, SoRuCom 2006, Petrozavodsk, Russia, July 3-7, 2006, Revised Selected Papers. Springer. p. 14. ISBN 978-3-642-22816-2.
^ Кошечка - Математические этюды [Cat - Mathematical Etudes] (in Russian). Archived from the original on 10 May 2011. Retrieved 28 May 2011.
^ ""Kitty": One of the First-Ever Computer Animations". www.geekosystem.com. 22 March 2010. Retrieved 21 April 2018.
^ Олегович, Одинцов Игорь (2004). Профессиональное программирование. Системный подход, 2 изд [Professional programming. A Systems Approach, 2nd ed.] (in Russian). БХВ-Петербург. p. 401. ISBN 5-94157-457-6.
^ "EPSILON macro language". Retrieved 29 May 2007.
^ Очерки по истории советской вычислительной техники и школ программирования (Издательство "Открытые Системы") [Essays on the history of Soviet computer technology and programming schools (Open Systems Publishing)], (in Russian), Archived 30 September 2007 at the Wayback Machine Google translation.