------ Original Message ------
From: "Holm Tiffe via cctalk" <[email protected]>
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
<[email protected]>
Cc: "Holm Tiffe" <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, 18 Oct, 2022 At 08:45
Subject: [cctalk] Re: Soviet PDP clones
Joshua Rice via cctalk wrote:
Hi all,
After some discussion on reddit about russian PDP-11 clones, i made the
(perhaps erronous) claim that the PDP series in general was cloned by
the Soviets.
I’m aware that there was a lot of QBUS/LSI PDP-11 clones, and depite
poor documentation, there is significant evidence of PDP-8 clones. Also,
depite not strictly a “PDP”, the VAX series was also cloned.
However, i’m curious whether anyone has any evidence of either the
18-bit or 36-bit PDP machines being cloned? I imagine that given the
rather lacklustre success of the 18-bit series, that there would have
been less demand for an 18-bit PDP machine in the Soviet Union, but i
find it quite hard to believe that no attempt to clone the PDP-6 and
PDP-10 machines would have been attempted.
Does anyone here have any information on such clones?
Cheers,
Josh Rice
Josh, it seems to be difficult for any "western" guy to belive that
russians or the "warshaw pakt countries" where able to develop ther own
systems of computers, that's simply wrong.
Hi,
I apologise for any misunderstanding. By "clone", i didn't exactly mean
a 1-to-1 copy, but more a reimplementation. Much like the term "IBM PC
clone" is still used to describe non-IBM-derived PC designs.
I understand that the eastern european countries can and di design their
own machines, but it's undeniable that the Soviet leaders deemed it more
valuable to copy western designs than design their own domestic
architectures from scratch. There was also plenty of designs that were
literal "clones", down to the silicon gates.
Cheers, Josh
