''Minsk'' was a family of

mainframe A mainframe computer, informally called a mainframe or big iron, is a computer used primarily by large organizations for critical applications like bulk data processing for tasks such as censuses, industry and consumer statistics, enterpris ...

computers that were developed and produced in the

Byelorussian SSR The Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic (BSSR, Byelorussian SSR or Byelorussia; ; ), also known as Soviet Belarus or simply Belarus, was a republic of the Soviet Union (USSR). It existed between 1920 and 1922 as an independent state, and ...

from 1959 to 1975.

Models

The MINSK-1 was a vacuum-tube digital computer that went into production in 1960. The MINSK-2 was a solid-state digital computer that went into production in 1962. The MINSK-22 was a modified version of Minsk-2 that went into production in 1965. The MINSK-23 went into production in 1966. The most advanced model was ''Minsk-32'', developed in 1968. It supported

COBOL COBOL (; an acronym for "common business-oriented language") is a compiled English-like computer programming language designed for business use. It is an imperative, procedural, and, since 2002, object-oriented language. COBOL is primarily ...

, FORTRAN and ALGAMS (a version of

ALGOL ALGOL (; short for "Algorithmic Language") is a family of imperative computer programming languages originally developed in 1958. ALGOL heavily influenced many other languages and was the standard method for algorithm description used by the ...

). This and earlier versions also used a machine-oriented language called ''AKI'' (''AvtoKod "Inzhener"'', i.e., " Engineer's Autocode"). It stood somewhere between the native

assembly language In computing, assembly language (alternatively assembler language or symbolic machine code), often referred to simply as assembly and commonly abbreviated as ASM or asm, is any low-level programming language with a very strong correspondence bet ...

''SSK'' (''Sistema Simvolicheskogo Kodirovaniya'', or "System of symbolic coding") and higher-level languages, like FORTRAN. The word size was 31 bits for Minsk-1 and 37 bits for the other models. At one point the Minsk-222 (an upgraded prototype based on the most popular model, Minsk-22) and Minsk-32 were considered as a potential base for a future unified line of mutually compatible mainframes — that would later become the

ES EVM The ES EVM (, "Unified System of Electronic Computing Machines"), or YeS EVM, also known in English literature as the Unified System or Ryad (, "Series"), is a series of mainframe computers generally compatible with IBM's System/360 and System/ ...

line, but despite being popular among users, good match between their tech and Soviet tech base and familiarity to both programmers and technicians lost to the proposal to copy the

IBM/360 The IBM System/360 (S/360) is a family of mainframe computer systems announced by IBM on April 7, 1964, and delivered between 1965 and 1978. System/360 was the first family of computers designed to cover both commercial and scientific applicati ...

line of mainframes — the possibility to just copy all the software existing for it was deemed more important.

References

External links

Russian Virtual Computer Museum
{{Authority control Soviet inventions Mainframe computers Computers designed in Belarus Ministry of Radio Industry (USSR) computers

Models

See also

References

Further reading

External links