BESM

Short description: Series of Soviet mainframe computers built in 1950–60s

BESM (БЭСМ) is the series of Soviet mainframe computers built in 1950–60s. The name is an acronym for "Bolshaya[1] (or Bystrodeystvuyushchaya) [2] Elektronno-schotnaya Mashina" ("Большая электронно-счётная машина" or "Быстродействующая электронно-счётная машина"), meaning "Big Electronic Computing Machine" or "High-Speed Electronic Computing Machine". It was designed at the Institute of Precision Mechanics and Computer Engineering

## Contents

* 1 Models
* 1.1 BESM-1
* 1.2 BESM-2
* 1.3 BESM-3M and BESM-4
* 1.4 BESM-6
* 2 See also
* 3 References
* 4 Further reading

## Models

The BESM series included six models.

### BESM-1

BESM-1, originally referred to as simply the BESM or BESM AN ("BESM Akademii Nauk", BESM of the Academy of Sciences), was completed in 1952.[3][4] Only one BESM-1 machine was built. The machine used approximately 5,000 vacuum tubes. At the time of completion, it was the fastest computer in Europe. The floating-point numbers were represented as 39-bit words: 32 bits for the mantissa, one bit for sign, and 1 + 5 bits for the exponent. It was capable of representing numbers in the range 10−9 – 1010. BESM-1 had 1024 words of read–write memory using ferrite cores, and 1024 words of read-only memory based on semiconducting diodes. It also had external storage: four magnetic tape units of 30,000 words each, and fast magnetic drum storage with a capacity of 5120 words and an access rate of 800 words/second. The computer was capable of performing 8–10 KFlops. The energy consumption was approximately 30 kW, not accounting for the cooling systems.

### BESM-2

BESM-2 also used vacuum tubes.

### BESM-3M and BESM-4

BESM-3M and BESM-4 were built using transistors. Their architecture was similar to that of the M-20 and M-220 series. The word size was 45 bits. Thirty BESM-4 machines were built. BESM-4 was used to create the first ever computer animation.[5][6] The prototypes of both models were made in 1962–63, and the beginning of the series release was in 1964.[7]

EPSILON (a macro language with high-level features including strings and lists, developed by Andrey Ershov at Novosibirsk in 1967) was used to implement ALGOL 68 on the M-220.[8]

### BESM-6

BESM-6 at London Science Museum

Main page: BESM-6

The BESM-6 was the best-known and influential model of the series. The design was completed in 1965. Production started in 1968 and continued for the following 19 years.[9]

## See also

* Sergei Alekseyevich Lebedev
* Lev Korolyov
* List of Soviet computer systems
* History of computing hardware
* History of computing in the Soviet Union
* List of vacuum tube computers

## References

1. ↑ Н. П. Бусленко; В. Н. Бусленко (1977). Эврика. Молодая гвардия. p. 240.
2. ↑ Metropolis, Nicholas (1980). A History of Computing in the Twentieth Century. Elsevier Inc, Academic Press. p. 152. ISBN 978-0-12-491650-0.
3. ↑ Metropolis, Nicholas (2014) (in en). History of Computing in the Twentieth Century. Elsevier. p. 149. ISBN 978-1-4832-9668-5. https://books.google.com/books?id=AsvSBQAAQBAJ&q="BESM"+1952&pg=PA149.
4. ↑ Impagliazzo, John; Proydakov, Eduard (2011) (in en). Perspectives on Soviet and Russian Computing: First IFIP WG 9.7 Conference, SoRuCom 2006, Petrozavodsk, Russia, July 3-7, 2006, Revised Selected Papers. Springer. p. 14. ISBN 978-3-642-22816-2. https://books.google.com/books?id=-jSqCAAAQBAJ&q=BESM+1952&pg=PA14.
5. ↑ "Error: no `|title=` specified when using {{Cite web}}" (in ru). http://www.etudes.ru/ru/mov/kittie/.Error:+no+`|title=`+specified when+using+{{[[Template:Cite+web|Cite+web]]}}[[Category:Articles+with+incorrect+citation+syntax|BESM]]&rft.atitle=&rft_id=http://www.etudes.ru/ru/mov/kittie/&rfr_id=info:sid/en.wikibooks.org:BESM">
6. ↑ ""Kitty": One of the First-Ever Computer Animations" (in en). 22 March 2010. http://www.geekosystem.com/kitty-computer-animation-russia-1968-video/.
7. ↑ Олегович, Одинцов Игорь (2004) (in ru). Профессиональное программирование. Системный подход, 2 изд.. БХВ-Петербург. p. 401. ISBN 5-94157-457-6. https://books.google.com/books?id=fLCEXWkQXvQC&q=бэсм-3м&pg=PA401.
8. ↑ "EPSILON macro language". http://foldoc.org/index.cgi?query=EPSILON&action=Search.
9. ↑ Очерки по истории советской вычислительной техники и школ программирования (Издательство "Открытые Системы") [Essays on the history of Soviet computer technology and programming schools (Open Systems Publishing)], (in Russian), Google translation.

## Further reading

* Malinovsky, Boris Nikolaevich (2010). Pioneers of Soviet Computing. http://www.sigcis.org/?q=node/85/.
* Swade, Doron (1996). "Back in the U.S.S.R.". Inc.. http://www.inc.com/incmagazine/archives/16960811.html. Retrieved 2021-12-03. A museum curator suggests Russia's BESM supercomputer may have been superior to the USA's supercomputers during the early stages of the Cold War.
* Williams, Al (July 16, 2022). "A Look Back at the USSR Computer Industry". https://hackaday.com/2022/07/16/a-look-back-at-the-ussr-computer-industry/.

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