Pioneers of on-Board Radio-Electronic System Computerization

Time to know and to remember

In the first post-War decades, the support of scientific researches by the state allowed to implement a number of "projects of century" in nuclear energy mastering, space exploration, rocket building, shipbuilding, aircraft construction, etc.

Of great importance was the appearance at that very period of a brilliant galaxy of such scientists as Kurchatov, Keldysh, Korolyov, Lebedev, Tupulyev, Antonov, Paton, Glushkov and many others, who turned out to be the merited and competent leaders of large scientific schools. Rather important was also the fact, that a generation of young people, whose world outlook and character were determined mostly by the war, joined a lot of scientific companies and enterprises in the post war years. The hardships of war made these people persistent, independent, able to overcome all difficulties. Begin of restoration of the national economy, hope for the better future created the atmosphere of universal upsurge, strive to learn, to continue the work, started before the war. Having taken all the best from their teachers, this very young generation went on in 60-s-70-s with the development of many trends of science and technique, including computer science. They developed new generation computers, created pioneer computer systems for various applications. They beared responsibility for practical use of computers in national economy, industry, science, power engineering, medicine and military complex.

Ukraine never stood aside from this work. A lot of research and production companies were involved in it. Leading roles were played by the Cybernetics Institutes of the Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Severodonetsk NPO "Impusle", Kyiv PO "Electronmash", NII of Micro-instruments, NPO "Kvant", NII of Hydro- instruments, NPO "Hartron", etc. In every institution there were its own leaders - head-designers of devices and systems. The Academician V.Glushkov was a generally acknowledged leader not only in Ukraine. In comparison with his bright talent and great achievements of the Cybernetics institute, under his leadership, the progress of other institutions was less remarkable and acknowledged. Nothing at all was published on computer development and military application systems.

It is time now to tell about such kind of developments and their performers, whose names were known only to a very small group of experts and state leaders.

First, let's remind our reader about the situation of that period. After restoration of the national economy, strongly destroyed by the war, the USSR began to increase intensively its economic and military power. The "cold war", started almost immediately after the end of the Great Patriotic War, caused the Soviet Union to do the later. The first step in this military competition was made by the USA: in August 1945 it dropped the atomic bombs on two Japanese cities: Hiroshima and Nagasaki, not only to frighten Japan, which was on the edge of capitulation, but mostly to threaten the Soviet Union. Soon the respond followed: atomic and hydrogen bombs were developed in the Soviet Union. Other spheres, including shipbuilding were involved