Soviet mainframes the size of rooms stand outdoors in Kyiv. Relics of a parallel computing history where Ukrainian engineers built machines that rivaled IBM.
Panther, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
A graveyard of cybernetic dreams
Behind the V.M. Glushkov Institute of Cybernetics in Kyiv, a collection of Soviet-era mainframe computers is exposed to the Ukrainian elements. Metal cabinets, the size of refrigerators, stand in rows on the grass. Their panels are gone, revealing dense webs of wires, vacuum tubes, and logic boards. This is the Vera & Donald Blinken Open-Air Museum of Computing and Cybernetics, an unintentional record of a distinct and powerful branch of computer science that developed in the USSR.
The machines represent the work of Ukrainian engineers who, from the 1950s through the 1980s, were leading Soviet computing. The institute itself was founded in 1962, growing out of a computing center established just a few years earlier in 1957. It became the hub for a massive effort in cybernetics, a field that in the Soviet context encompassed computer science, automation, and economic management. At its peak, the institute employed thousands and was responsible for a significant portion of the computers produced in the entire Soviet Union. The decaying mainframes in its backyard are the physical remains of that intense period of innovation.
The mainframes of the Eastern Bloc
Among the hulks are examples of the "Ural" series of computers. Developed in Penza, Russia, the first Ural-1 was produced between 1956 and 1961. This vacuum-tube machine could perform about 100-120 floating-point operations per second and its hardware occupied nearly 100 square meters of space. Data was input via punched tape, and the machine's magnetic drum memory could hold 1,024 36-bit words. Over 180 Ural-1 computers were built and used for engineering and scientific problems across the socialist countries.
Other machines were developed directly in Kyiv under the leadership of Victor Glushkov, the institute's founder. The Dnepr-1, first produced in 1961, was the Soviet Union's first semiconductor-based, general-purpose control computer. It was manufactured for ten years, an unusually long production run, and two Dnepr computers were even used to control the display screens at the mission control center for the joint "Soyuz-Apollo" space flight. The museum also has machines from the MIR (an acronym for "Machine for Engineering Calculations") series. The MIR-1, developed in 1968, weighed about 400 kg and could perform 200-300 operations per second. The subsequent MIR-2, from 1969, was much faster at around 12,000 operations per second and featured a vector graphic display with a light pen, an advanced user interface for its time.
💡Fun Facts
Victor Glushkov, the founder of the Kyiv Institute of Cybernetics, proposed a nationwide computer network in 1962 called OGAS for managing the Soviet planned economy. It was a precursor to the internet but was ultimately rejected by Communist Party leaders.
The Ural-1 computer required a 30kVA three-phase power supply to operate, equivalent to the power needed for several modern homes.
A MIR-1 computer was purchased by IBM at a London exhibition in 1967, and not for practical use, but to study its innovative micro-programming architecture.
The Dnepr-1 computer was developed and put into production in just three years, a world-record pace for a control computer at the time.
The outdoor exhibit is located on the grounds of the V.M. Glushkov Institute of Cybernetics. Access is not formally regulated with set hours and may require arranging a visit with the institute itself.
Admission
Free
Accessibility
The exhibits are located on an open, grassy area behind the main institute building. The terrain is unpaved and may be uneven.
