What was the Soviet Unions/Russia's reaction to the rise to tech and computer programming in the US in the 80s and 90s?

by Doncuneo

What was their reaction to powerful companies like IBM or Microsoft? Was there ever any attempt to compete?

louisvillelambo

State run agencies began to copy successful designs by others for domestic production. The Elektronica BK-100, for instance was a PDP-11 clone. This was so widespread that DEC eventually began printing "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery" inside their cases. This didn't stop at hardware, either. MOS (or DEMOS, not sure if they're different systems or not) was a UNIX clone. I'm not sure if there were clones of VMS, but I'd think dealing with communism and VMS in the same century would be too much for any nation.

So far as consumer hardware is concerned, the soviets produced the kinda adorable Agat (a poor attempt at an Apple II clone). This was considered very cheap, but was woefully underpowered due to the difficulty in importing compatible chips. It ran under some sort of emulation scheme that made it software compatible.

Microsoft and IBM were also copied, I'm sure. The Elektronika and the Agat were probably deemed "enough" by the powers that be.

Quick side note: Soviet obsession with DEC hardware may have had something to do with the PDP-11s contemporary (and, to my knowledge, continued) use in the minutemen missile program. So if you're an American, you can rest easy tonight knowing you're protected by 50 year old computer systems!