The project to build the M-1 or Automatic Digital Computer (ADC) M-1 () was completed at the end of 1951, at the Energetics Institute of the
USSR Academy of Sciences
The Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union was the highest scientific institution of the Soviet Union from 1925 to 1991, uniting the country's leading scientists, subordinated directly to the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union (until 1946 ...
.
Overview
In charge of the Laboratory of Electrosystems was
Isaak Semenovich Brook
Isaac was one of the patriarchs of the Abrahamic faiths.
Isaac may also refer to:
* Isaac (name), including a list of people and fictional characters with the given name or surname of Isaac and its variants
Organizations
* International Socie ...
(or Bruk), who obtained the first domestic patent with the title "Digital Computer with Common Bus" in 1948.
Work to build the computer based on Brook's design began in 1950. Parts were very difficult to get due to
postwar rationing. On the other hand, due to availability of
copper oxide diodes which were brought as trophies from
Germany
Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG),, is a country in Central Europe. It is the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany lies between the Baltic and North Sea to the north and the Alps to the sou ...
, the machine had the lowest lamp count of contemporary designs, at 730. The memory was based on an original invention of an electrostatic memory using the ordinary
oscilloscope cathode-ray tube
A cathode-ray tube (CRT) is a vacuum tube containing one or more electron guns, which emit electron beams that are manipulated to display images on a phosphorescent screen. The images may represent electrical waveforms ( oscilloscope), pi ...
. Each tube was capable of holding 32 words, 25 bit each. The computer had 8 such tubes for a total fast memory of 256 machine words.
The computer turned out to work rather reliably and was immediately put to practical use, for numerical calculations in
nuclear physics
Nuclear physics is the field of physics that studies atomic nuclei and their constituents and interactions, in addition to the study of other forms of nuclear matter.
Nuclear physics should not be confused with atomic physics, which studies the ...
. For a period of about a year this was the first and the only working digital computer in
Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eigh ...
, and one of the first in the world.
References
Further reading
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External links
*
{{List of Soviet computer systems
Early computers
Soviet computer systems