The Role of the Kazan Computer Manufacturing Plant in the Development of Computer Technology and Science in USSR and the Comecon Countries

On August 4th, 2014, the Kazan Computer Manufacturing Plant would have celebrated its 60th anniversary. Nowadays, companies producing electronic computers, as well as electronic computers themselves, have a short life span. Since 1947, the XX century has seen how four generations of computers were “born” and “died”. The first generation was determined by its hardware consisting of vacuum tubes. Due to considerable technical difficulties and high economic costs in the 1950s, only three countries could create and produce computers: Great Britain, the USSR and the USA. In the Moscow Institute of Precision Mechanics and Computer Engineering (IPMCE) of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, a team guided by the chief designer academician S.A. Lebedev built M-20, a first-generation computer aimed at batch industrial production.