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Nikolai Prokhorov: “American giants suppressed everything new due to mass



In the second part of the interview to the DataArt museum project, Nikolai Prokhorov is the general designer of SM computers and the director of INEUM in 1983-2006. - talks about the factories that produced Soviet computers, the process of creating new machines, the creative processing and direct borrowing of foreign models, salaries, bonuses, life and leisure of engineers in the USSR.

Read the first part of the interview with Nikolai Leonidovich here .

Factories and orders


- In 1989, there was a reorganization. The Ministry of Instrumentation was liquidated, and all computer equipment was transferred to the Ministry of Radio Industry. But it was a simple process for me, because we had worked together before, I knew them all - both the minister and the deputies. It was easy to work. As with the Ministry of the Appliance and the military-industrial complex, I could come to the deputy minister who oversaw us: “Let's help.” If something complicated happened, he rode with me to the factory. There was real help, and we could solve all the issues.

For SM computers there were 16 factories; two or three were basic. Among them is the huge Kiev VUM - a factory of control and computing machines, which for many years was led by Appolinarii Fedorovich Nezabitovsky. Vilnius Industrial Association “Sigma” is a wonderful factory, it also produced our machines. An outstanding director Algis Boleslavovich Chuplinskas worked there, and the chief engineer was a man with whom I studied at MPEI. By the way, in Ukraine there were five factories of computer technology. There was also the Orel UVM plant, we worked less with it. It all ended when the Soviet Union collapsed.


Kiev VUM was created on January 1, 1965 on the basis of the units of the RadioPribor plant. In 1972, transformed into NPO Electronmash

The complexity of our work was that in the manufacture of any machine we could not use a single foreign part. I had a special department for elemental base, but our electronic base itself was behind the world level. We tried to stimulate its development. In 1986, we worked a lot with the Voronezh Electronics Association. More than Zelenograd, and they produced microprocessors for our largest 32-bit machines. But when I arrived there seven or eight years later, they could no longer do what they were doing in 1988. Everything turned out to be lost, people fled.

There was a factory in Voronezh that made excellent cathode ray tubes for graphic displays. It was bought by foreigners, and as a result, production was closed so that there were no competitors. The computer lives a year, maybe a little longer, so this system collapsed quickly.

INEUM kept afloat thanks to small orders and unexpected contracts. At this time, we were greatly helped by the fact that the Chinese appealed to our Atomprom with a request to supply equipment to nuclear plants and nuclear power plants. They were asked to control this equipment to buy computer systems in America - as they say, cheaply and cheerfully. However, the Chinese stumbled: "It is only necessary what worked for you," so that the management is the same as in the Soviet Union. They were probably right in terms of reliability and safety. We held out on these Chinese contracts for the first years. And we assembled the cars ourselves, because the factories were gone. In addition, with this money, the institute developed and produced the SM1820 machine. Modern SM1820, built on the only domestic Elbrus microprocessors, is produced today.


The CM1820 machine is used for control at nuclear power plants.

In the same years, a new direction was opened in the work of our institute - the development and production of computerized medical equipment. We are successfully continuing this work to this day together with medical scientists.

Creative borrowing


- How was the process of birth of a new car? Who did you receive the assignment from?
- We ourselves came up with suggestions: this and that and that is required, because industry needs to manage this and that. A plan was prepared for this. The institute had a system department that was engaged in analysis. Each ministry had a scientific and technical department and an industrial research institute, with which we agreed on our proposals. His boss was subordinate to one of the deputies of the minister, who approved the project through the technical department, which allocated money for science.

When our proposal was agreed, a plant was appointed, which was to make the machine, and work began: the search for elements, replacing one with another, schemes, drawings, design bureaus, pilot production. Then - state tests. A large interdepartmental commission was convened, headed by often academician Anatoly Dorodnitsyn, director of the computing center of the USSR Academy of Sciences.


Anatoly Alekseevich Dorodnitsyn (second photo on the left) was the director, and then honorary director and scientific director of the Computing Center of the Academy of Sciences from 1955 to 1994.

But when the SM 1700 was handed over, our former director, academician Boris Naumov, was already chairing it. Some comments were made, time was given for their development. Then they handed over the car to the plant - they sat there all day so that he accepted this development. The plant, on the one hand, wanted to get it into production, on the other, wanted it to be good, that is, it corresponded to its capabilities and requirements for constructs, control systems and production capacities. All the plants had serious SKB, in fact research institutes, which to some extent also worked on our instructions.
Our institute was considered the leading one; several other factories were subordinate to me. This was called the "scientific and industrial association." There were also industrial associations, when the head was not the institute, but the factory. But at the factory there was SKB, or even its own institutes.

The science at the factories was largely funded through INEUM, the parent institution, and we helped distribute the money. At the same time, overseas equipment was bought only in those cases when it was proved that it was impossible to manage one's own. On the purchase of computers, we gave a certificate that there was nothing like that in the Soviet Union. On the other hand, there was a COCOM limitation, according to which Americans were forbidden to sell strategic equipment and technologies in the USSR. We offered them to work together, we were ready to buy a license, companies were ready to cooperate, but no, the US State Department banned. At the same time, when I went to a computer technology exhibition in Munich or Hanover and went to the famous DEC company, which, to be honest, we borrowed a lot from 1970-1980, I was always greeted with respect.


XXXI , , 1988 .

In the 1990s, when everything was open, I concluded an agreement with DEC that I would make new machines for the SM computer system using their latest microprocessors. One of the DEC executives said that despite the roughness of the 1970s and 80s, the firm is not in a complaint: “Let's shake hands. I’m coming to Russia, and thanks to you all our company knows. ” A similar agreement was concluded with Siemens. But since 1992, my good friends from Siemens and DEC have proposed another option: “It makes no sense to cooperate in development when we were allowed to sell in Russia what we want and how much we want. Become our sales agent, we will pay you good money. " I refused, but such a movement has already begun. Many big bosses spoke in the 1990s and even in the early 2000s, saying why we need to do this, if we can buy.We did not want to think about technological independence and information security. I quarreled with some because of this.

- Tell us about what you borrowed from the Americans.
- We had our own elemental base. Just like constructs and technology. They borrowed the basics of architecture, and most importantly, the ideology of operating systems to ensure compatibility with foreign software. Both the CM and the EU had to adapt to the compatibility requirements. And it was a real creative work.

American IBM and Microsoft massively suppressed everything new, although their characteristics were not the best. When you come to international exhibitions, where various small firms are represented, a lot of interesting things can be found. Because they are willing to take risks. Then half of them will die, and half will be bought. And large firms - they are slow-moving, in general, this is logical and understandable.

Universal Russians


- It is believed that the most developed line in the family of computer computers was a series of machines compatible with the DEC PDP-11 system of commands and architecture.
- Compatibility with the architecture of PDP-11 was in the first 16-bit SM computers. The CM1700 and 1702 had compatibility or similarity with the VAX-750 and VAX-730 architectures, also from DEC. And the first cars SM-3, SM-4 were compatible with PDP-11/40. The machines SM1800 and 1820 architecture was compatible with Intel.

Then, for compatibility, I had to put Microsoft mathematics there, “pull” it on our architecture, because we made these machines as controllers, for which a real-time operating system was needed.

In the mid-90s, the Americans ordered us to develop a universal operating system - real-time UNIX. I asked why they turned to us. “Because Russians are more universal. Our UNIX specialist does not know real time, and if he knows real time, he cannot work on UNIX. And you work in everything. ”

At INEUM, a team was allocated that developed such a system - completely domestic. By the way, the main mathematician of the SM computer was Gennady Egorov, who not only supervised, but also participated in the development as a programmer.

Why is a foreign system bad? There can be any bookmarks - when necessary, the bomb will not explode, the nuclear power plant will stop, something will not start. There have been such cases in history. When all the math is written with us, and we ourselves are the only authors and owners of the source texts, you can be calm for safety. Our system, developed in 1996-1998. I tried to attach here, the same military showed: "Look, everything is written down, and you, for security reasons, make patches on other people's systems." “We have no money,” was the answer.


A guide written by Gennady Egorov and specialists from his working group can be found here.

I went around a bunch of bosses. I was told that we are well done. Gennady Egorov defended his doctoral dissertation on this topic. Many mathematicians, famous academicians, supported this work, but did not take the system. Limited in some places in our country and abroad, it was used, but as a competitor that suddenly appeared, it was not needed by large firms and died due to lack of money for development.

Other money


- Have you been awarded and awarded for your services?
- We worked for a salary. There were prizes, but they did not become the main stimulating factor. We were not particularly spoiled by state awards. For the first SM computers, several of our employees and employees of the Kiev VUM, led by General Designer Boris Naumov, received the USSR State Prize and then the USSR State Prize. Then, one of our collaborators, Boris Feldman, who led the development of the special Fourier processor for processing signals from the far side of the moon, received the USSR State Prize. This was a project of the Institute of Radio Electronics of the Academy of Sciences. For SM1810, I and several other INEUM employees received an award from the USSR Council of Ministers. We have no other bonuses.

I am one of the living of our employees who have a prize of the Council of Ministers of the USSR. For it they gave an additional payment to retirement, as to the State, Stalin and Lenin, but last year the Pension Fund informed me that the prize of the USSR Council of Ministers was excluded from this list. The premium would be large at the present time.

- And what about the prize?
- Our team, having received it, went to a restaurant with friends. After that, there was not a ruble left.

- So good going?
- No, it’s just that there was completely different money. When I defended my dissertation, it was customary to wash it. 1966, then just opened a new restaurant "Slavic Bazaar". I ordered a banquet for 40 people. I called my friends and laboratory staff. I was a leading engineer with a salary of 160 rubles and did not go broke. Pulling somewhere, but not to say that it was hard. Moreover, I live in a cooperative three-room apartment from the Academy of Sciences, from the same institute. I bought it in 1967, as a senior engineer, and nothing. Now I could not buy it.


"Slavic Bazaar", opened in 1872, was the first Russian restaurant in Moscow. After the revolution, it was closed, and the reopening took place in 1966. In the photo the restaurant hall in the 1970s

- Was there a tradition to celebrate the achievement?
- When the intergovernmental commission accepted the work, there was always a celebration and a big banquet was held. We had our own dining room, which we called "glass", did not go to restaurants. By the way, I managed to build a new building for the institute - there was a resolution of the Council of Ministers of the USSR and the Central Committee. Could build, if not for the end of the Soviet Union. And I did not require state funding for this, all at the expense of the institute.

- Is this a unique situation when you can build a building with the money earned by the institute?
- Everywhere in different ways. Our Ministry of Instrument Engineering was considered to some extent the foremost in the USSR, and it was on a self-financing basis. That is, we ourselves made money. Each quarter, the head of our Glavka convened a meeting where all the directors reported on what had happened during that time. I reported on what is being done in computer technology - in international, in SM computers, what our plans are. It united well, because we knew everything about each other, moreover, after the meeting a banquet was arranged. And such meetings were held in turn in all cities where our enterprises were. I organized them in Moscow. True, more modest than that of large associations, such as the Kiev factory, where about 10 thousand people worked.

Free time


- What other joint activities did you carry out?
- We went to collective farms regularly - we were mobilized by the party district committee. The sponsored collective farm was located near the city of Lakes near Moscow. I knew everyone there, because I myself traveled. In the Lakes, the district committee held meetings so that we were closer to the point. Many old people remember this with pleasure, because they worked - then they rested, sang, walked.

- Have you had any tourist trips?
- They organized themselves. I didn’t go with institute ones, but we had a whole warehouse through the union - you could take a backpack, a kayak ... Even I took it once, although I had everything of mine. The guys played volleyball, the institute rented halls. Although Komsomol and party organizations are now scolding, life was in full swing. Almost all attended the party meetings at the end of the year. The director made a full report on what happened and what will happen. Questions were asked rather sharp. I prepared for the report very seriously, because it is not an easy event. But people were aware of what was happening. Now many do not know what is being done behind the wall.

As for hiking, in those years it was a fashionable activity. Since my student days I began to walk. Now they recall the Dyatlov group in 1958, and I was there in 1956. He walked in the Urals - in his third year, during the winter holidays. There were 12 of us. Stretched tents, a bonfire, sleeping bags ... In the summer they were going to Altai, but instead we went to the virgin lands. Our course is all, I don’t know anyone who wouldn’t go. I have a letter from the Kulunda District Party Committee, a badge of the Komsomol Central Committee for the development of virgin lands. Recently I learned that he allows you to get the title of veteran of labor. True, I did not need it.


Vremyanka and virgin soil tents in the Kulundinsky district of the Altai Territory. The second half of the 1950s

- Tourism - your hobby for life?
- Yes, from 1956 until today. I went kayaking on the rivers, mostly northern. Several times I was in the south - on Akhtuba, in the Urals. With a small daughter, he rafted along the Pre River and along the Ugra River. It was very interesting, she still remembers, although she is already a pensioner. I love the North, why - I do not know. When I first got to the White Sea, I simply admired it. The Black Sea is like a big lake, and here there are ebbs and flows. Sea level drops by several meters, starfish at the bottom.

The unique White Sea biological station of Moscow State University was organized on the islands of the White Sea, and it still exists. When we first arrived there, we met a very interesting person who made sea boats for all our friends. He worked as a simple carpenter. Jack of all trades, but he never took money from us.


Belomorsk Biological Station. N. A. Pertsova was founded in 1938.

When my daughter grew up, I specially brought her there in the 1970s. What sunsets on the White Sea! When I see the northern landscape, something in my soul shifts. Although I was in the Caucasus, in Crimea, in the mountains of Norway, Romania - I saw a lot of things. But with our North can not be compared. This is a real vacation: berries, mushrooms, fishing ... I caught Taimen. The entire Polar Urals went around almost the entire Kola Peninsula. Good, beautiful and helpful.

Once again about money


- Remember the most amazing story that happened during your work with computer technology.
- Life is so long that it is impossible to single out one thing. But I was curious. The vacation was over, he came from the forest and wanted to go to work. We did not work for money, although they were needed. On the other hand, all our needs were not expensive. Students even went to large central restaurants sometimes. On a scholarship. When I entered, she was 395 rubles. Increased after the first course - 525 rubles. Half of us lived in a dormitory, half of our classmates were medalists. A few people from the orphanage. One orphanage girl became a doctor of technical sciences, a professor at MPEI - Rita Kolomeytseva. She is a master of sports in skiing. In our group, two orphanage girls studied. Both with gold medals.

Suppose we received a scholarship of 400 rubles. We bought coupons - two lunches for each day - 60 dinners in our dining room cost about 210 rubles, and the hostel I don’t remember exactly, something 25-30 rubles a month. And half a scholarship remained. In addition to the fact that in the MEI dining room there was always bread on the tables, white and black. Another simple snack is a vitamin salad, sauerkraut. Free, take as much as you want. That is, it was possible to study without thinking about earnings, although sometimes we went to the port to carry some bags. To earn extra money, to get some rubles.

Or am I going, for example, on vacation to the Urals. The plane Moscow - Tyumen, then Tyumen - Berezovo, from there to the village also by plane, where he collected a kayak and walked along the river. Three aircraft with overload, and enough vacation money, no debts. On the contrary, money was saved on vacation, because it was spent less than in Moscow.

- If you worked not for money, then for an idea?
- It is clear that I always wanted more money. Received a bonus - nice, salary increased - generally excellent. Moreover, every increase in salary at the institute is a whole problem. When I was the deputy director, a commission was going to meet with the planning department, with an accountant — we looked at what financial opportunities exist. An increase of ten could be a great help for a person. At the same time, it was impossible to get beyond the staffing table. Engineer - from 110 to 130 rubles, senior engineer - from 130 to 150. Researcher, Junior Researcher ... Going into another category of labor remuneration means becoming a wilderness or getting a degree. Everything was within this framework, money was allocated for this. Now you don’t understand how and what is happening. A student who still does not know anything will not go to the salary for which many people work.

Cinema and Germans


- Tell us about the relationship between physicists and lyricists. Was there a misunderstanding?
- I encountered very few lyrics. But, in principle, in the institutes where I worked, meetings were often organized with interesting people. Vysotsky was invited, he sang, told, a bunch of institute people gathered. They came Klyachkin, Kukin, Okudzhava, famous readers who read poems by Pushkin, Lermontov, Mandelstam, Yesenin. Such meetings were held regularly. There were trips to the theater - they got tickets. All this was organized by the union.

- How do you feel about science fiction?
- The Strugatsky always respected very much, ran after their books. Lem, Bradbury, Efremov, many others enjoyed reading ... In general, in our time there was a hunger for books. They were cheap, but it was difficult to get. I made acquaintances in a bookstore to let me know when something appears. Since the end of his institute years, he bought all the books in a row and read every one. Now in a three-room apartment my wife and I have nowhere to go - everything is in bookshelves and cabinets. In the country, there is no passage from them either.

I had a friend without education, a bookbinder. Fingerless after the war (in the penal battalion), but a great master - it was nice to watch how beautifully he works. And in some bookstores, he painted announcement posters. They gave him the opportunity to buy books - he also made a library for himself. We all collected books then.

Fiction played a big role, and not only she. Ask better whom I have not read. What now? Mayakovsky is not a poet, Gorky is generally an unnecessary writer. But he, if he had not even written anything other than plays, would have been a great playwright. Everyone should know more than a dozen of his plays. But now it’s fashionable to say that everything was bad.

- What is your favorite work in literature, cinema?
- Speaking of films, I really like The Ballad of a Soldier. An outstanding movie, although simple and without effects. Among the literary classics, perhaps one of the most beloved is Erich Maria Remarque. A short story, “On the Western Front Without Changes,” is about the same style as The Ballad of a Soldier. There were also “Three comrades”, “Time to live and time to die”, “Triumphal arch”. Outstanding writer. But the greatest out of time and circumstances for me is the greatest Pushkin. With virtuoso beauty, amazing simplicity - not a single extra word without meaning and content.

When I was in Germany, I worked with a number of doctors and future doctors of science. They: “Oh, Russian literature! Dostoevsky, Solzhenitsyn. " He became interested and realized that they did not know our other writers. “And what did you read to Dostoevsky?” - I ask. “Nothing.” Just surnames on hearing. I tried to talk with them about Remarque - many did not read it either.
By the way, after working there for a month with one doctoral student, I ask: “Tell me, what are the names of these 12 people with whom we work?” “This is the master so-and-so. I don’t know the name, we are not friends. ” “How much do you work together?” - "Years 10". When I left five months later, they all knew each other by name and were on you: “Kolya, it turns out so good!”

- And at your institute did everyone know each other by name?
- Of course! From directors to ordinary employees. The head of my Ph.D. thesis, corresponding member Boris Stepanovich Sotskov was not only an outstanding scientist, but also a highly educated intellectual. I come to take the candidate exam in my specialty (then there were more of them than now), he writes me three questions. “Boris Stepanovich, I’m not doing this,” I say. He: “Nikolai Leonidovich, you are going to become a scientist. Therefore, they should have a broad understanding of other areas of science. I do not require an answer right away. Read, come back in a week. " At first I was offended - to me so smart and able to say that. But he is right.

Another life


- I went to international conferences a lot, not counting the Council of Chief Designers, which met four times a year. And every time in a new country. A business trip is one thing, and when you live, you see that their life is completely different and sometimes incomprehensible to me. A rare case: in Germany I was invited to one person for Christmas. Came, he has two small children. They read the prayer, sat down to eat a pheasant. I look, the children are eating something else. “This is a chicken,” the German explains to me. “Why not a pheasant?” - "Pheasant is dear, but the children do not understand, they do not care." It doesn’t fit very well in my head - on the contrary, children always give the best to us. And this is not from greed. Just the Germans brought up differently.

In Germany, relatively cheap canteens for university professors. I dined in them, but somehow I was hungry. On a business trip, you can save on food, but when 5 months - health is more expensive. I asked the guys where they were going. “Sometimes we go to a restaurant,” they say. - "Take me with you". “Oh, fish restaurant. It’s so good there. ” Let's go four together. In German I am still weakly guided: "What you order, then me." They ordered, brought me a beer and a snack of half a hot potato and a piece of herring. We ate, drank, I think we’ll have lunch now. They: “We ate well today. Let's settle. ” Everyone pays for himself. I say: “I won’t go to the restaurant with you again.”

According to their concepts, eating in a restaurant was expensive. I went to a restaurant, Chinese or Italian, twice a week from my scholarship that the Germans paid me. They told me: “You are like a capitalist!” And they still did not know that I had handed over half of the scholarship to the accounting department of the Academy of Sciences. I could spend a specific amount, and they paid me a higher scholarship, because my book came out. I collected these German stamps and handed over - I reported. But still, this trip was very interesting and useful for work, plus for the language - I involuntarily learned it.

“Have you studied before Germany?”
- He studied at school and at the institute, namely German. In English I can only watch literature - not speak.

About education


- Our education was much broader than now. I studied at one institute, worked and did my PhD in another, worked and defended my doctorate at the Academy of Sciences, working in the third. And more or less it turned out, the result was. I know a lot of such people. I saw how they study in Germany, got a little acquainted with American education. What is a bachelor in our specialization? Unfinished engineer. Now this is the first degree, it turns out. Our education taught us to think. Now people are weaned from thinking. You come to the doctor - he has a protocol of actions. He cannot retreat from the protocol. You will die, but by protocol. And so it is everywhere. It turns out that learning and treatment are services.

I was the chairman of the doctoral council at INEUM, the deputy chairman at MIREA, a member of the council at MPEI and some other institutes. Now the level of protected work has fallen very much, the assessment is highly formalized, the highest certification commission, which used to be under the USSR Council of Ministers, is now a department of the ministry. They say that earlier there was something about the doom. I just don’t remember that. Because in fact, you always know what a person is worth. Sometimes you even need to help him to protect himself, for example, with publication. There is much talk about plagiarism, especially in the humanities. In my area, I have not seen plagiarism. If a candidate for a candidate or a doctor comes to me, I see if he himself wrote or not. I can not see. Always tried to help those who are worthy. Now, as already mentioned,Every day my friends and I receive several offers on the Internet for money to print my article or even become a co-author of other people's articles. This gives rise to quasi-scientists, crooks.

I don’t believe that the Unified State Exam has opened the door for people from the periphery to easily enter the university ... I entered MPEI, coming from Bykovo near Moscow, more than half of those who came in our group. From Komi, from Bashkiria, from Kazakhstan. Our hostel was good, but I don’t know anyone from “thieves”, except for one athlete of the Olympic level. But the sports committee paid him a stipend, not an institute. Now many of my fellow students have already died, but the rest are sometimes found. I’m calling back with them more - I’m not mobile.

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