Razdan-3 computer

In the Soviet Union, the machine was mainly used for military purposes, primarily for ballistic calculations (missile control). For this reason, they sought particularly secure solutions; for example, all data on magnetic tapes was stored twice (redundantly) with special error-correcting coding, which was of great importance in the case of magnetic tapes that were important for archiving.

University Computer Center (1968)
Electricity Industry Research Institute ( VEIKI )

Information Technology History Exhibition

Structure

Central unit

Word-organized machine: 48 bits/W

• main memory: 192 KB ferrite ring RAM, 2*16 KW

Technical interest: a main memory block consisted of 48 printed circuit boards, with a total of 16,384 ferrite cores strung together in 4*4,096 segments on each board.

• main store: no
• calculator: no

Periphery

• backup:
  • 8 magnetic drums, each with a capacity of 8 kW (48 kB)
  • 8 magnetic tapes, total ∼ 700 kB
    
• external devices: no

Operation

Average operation speed: 30 kips

Program set

• operating system: none
• compilers:
  • assembly
  • Algol 60

VEIKI created an information system for the maintenance tasks of power plants, which was programmed partly in machine code and partly in the Algol language.

Instead of the previous, rather unreliable telephone signaling system – where handwritten reports were stored – the computer system recorded data on punched tape, read it through telex machines, and then sorted and evaluated using a program.

Historical curiosities

Both during design and construction, quick repairability and easy handling were essential aspects; for this purpose, a separate engineering control panel was built for the machine, in addition to the operator's console.

The machine is particularly interesting: its total weight is 8.5 – 9 tons, mounted in 27 cabinets, which could be placed in an air-conditioned room with an area of ∼50 m ².

Resources

General description: Razdan-3

Detailed description: Razdan-3 manual

Video presentation about the Razdan-3 computer operated at the BME University Computer Center (The presentation will be given by two former VEIKI employees, Levente Terényi and Ödön Vid.)