俄罗斯计算机水平_从四点到三十二点。俄罗斯计算机和网络的早期

俄罗斯计算机水平

第一部分：从四到八 (Part I: From four to eight)

I like to read the memoirs of people who observed the computers taking first steps in their countries. They always have something romantic about them. Usually, such memories are greatly influenced by the circumstances of that encounter with his first computer: it could be the workplace, or education establishment, it could be just an unexpected and random thing. 我喜欢阅读那些观察计算机在本国迈出第一步的人们的回忆录。他们总是对他们有些浪漫。通常，此类记忆会受到他与第一台计算机相遇的情况的极大影响：可能是工作场所或教育机构，可能只是意料之外的随机事物。

Like many of my friends, I was lucky to see the end of that special romantic period, when computer makers were not trying to please the regular users. They were creating the devices with distinctive and unique features they thought were right for some of reasons. This approach is clear to see in both software and hardware. Such features were making the device to sell in millions or be a commercial failure.

像我的许多朋友一样，我很幸运地看到那个特殊的浪漫时期的终结，那时计算机制造商并未试图取悦普通用户。由于某些原因，他们创建的设备具有与众不同的独特功能。在软件和硬件中都可以清楚地看到这种方法。这些功能使该设备的销量达到数百万美元或成为商业失败。

It all started differently for different people. Some of them were working with buzzing massive computers that could fill an entire room, the others had desktop-style home computers. There were people, who made their first computer themselves using specialist magazine publications. Different types of computers created the variety of specific traditions, interests and subcultures.

对于不同的人来说，一切开始的方式都不同。他们中的一些人正在嗡嗡嗡嗡的大型计算机上工作，这些计算机可能会占据整个房间，而其他人则使用台式计算机。有人通过专业杂志出版物自己制造了第一台计算机。不同类型的计算机创建了各种特定的传统，兴趣和亚文化。

Not digging deeply into history let's divide people who engaged themselves with computers into several groups.

我们不深入探讨历史，而是将从事计算机工作的人们分为几类。

The very first group would contain the people working with computer networks. It is all about multi-user systems, mainframe systems, Unix and all kinds of black and white alphanumerical terminal access. I must mention that X.25 and the early Internet created their own different subcultures back then.

第一组将包括使用计算机网络的人员。它涉及多用户系统，大型机系统，Unix和各种黑白字母数字终端访问。我必须提到X.25和早期的Internet创造了他们自己不同的亚文化。

The second group is all about home computers. We are talking here about color graphics, sound playback, and creating programs using assembler language. The people of this group were not using computer networks. The examples of computers used in this group would include Commodore 64, Amiga, PC (at least for the time period when they were competing with Amiga), Atari, and some others.

第二类是关于家用计算机的。我们在这里谈论彩色图形，声音回放以及使用汇编语言创建程序。该组的人没有使用计算机网络。该组中使用的计算机示例包括Commodore 64，Amiga，PC(至少在与Amiga竞争的时间段内)，Atari等。

The third group, best represented in the USSR and particularly in Russia — were people who built computers and were corresponding subculture (with borrowings of Western ones) by themselves. This is related to BK-0010, ZX Spectrum clones, Radio-86RK, Orion, Specialist.

第三类人，是苏联人，尤其是在俄罗斯最能代表的人，他们自己是计算机制造者，并且是相应的亚文化(借用西方国家的亚文化)。这与BK-0010，ZX Spectrum克隆，Radio-86RK，Orion，专家有关。

As for me, my first serious encounter with a computer happened in 1989. I was studying in the school in Leningrad, USSR (now it is known as Saint-Petersburg, Russia).

对于我来说，我第一次遇到计算机是在1989年。我在苏联列宁格勒的学校学习(现在被称为俄罗斯圣彼得堡)。

My understanding of computers was pretty vague back then. That was the time I was trying to make some basic electronic circuits myself. Those creations were limited to basic register combinations, counters and logic schemes to make some nice flashing LEDs. I was using Soviet military chipsets of series-133 and series-134. I do remember reading about the NE555 timer in some of the translated books and seeing thrilling examples of circuits and applications using it. It was really exciting as there was no direct replacement of NE555 in Soviet chips.

那时我对计算机的理解还很模糊。那时我正试图自己制作一些基本的电子电路。这些创造仅限于基本的寄存器组合，计数器和逻辑方案，以使一些漂亮的LED闪烁。我使用的是133系列和134系列的苏联军事芯片组。我确实记得在一些翻译过的书中读过关于NE555定时器的内容，并看到了使用它的电路和应用的激动人心的例子。确实令人兴奋，因为苏联芯片没有直接替代NE555。

There was an «Electronics» shop in Gagarin avenue. My father used to bring me there and those visits were something similar to visiting a museum. That was the main city shop which specialized in electronics. There were two sections: the first section was dedicated to electronic components and different devices, the other was like an exhibition. I was never interested in the first section, as the only components for sale were pretty basic and not of the best quality. The most interesting was always in the second section. It was absolutely empty as the products in that section were exclusively offered to large companies and were for sale on special request only. Of course, this section had the most interesting things: microprocessors in ceramic cases with golden plated contacts (the regular reference book would not even have a description for those!), fiber optical cables, visual indicators of various types – LED, luminescent. It was a small piece of our own VDNKh.

在加加林大街上有一家“电子产品”商店。我父亲曾经带我去那里，那些访问类似于参观博物馆。那是专门从事电子产品的主要城市商店。有两个部分：第一部分专门讨论电子元件和不同的设备，另一部分就像一个展览。我对第一部分从来没有兴趣，因为出售的唯一组件是非常基本的，而且不是最优质的。最有趣的总是在第二部分。它绝对是空的，因为该部分中的产品专门提供给大型公司，并且仅应特殊要求出售。当然，本节最有趣的是：带镀金触点的陶瓷外壳微处理器(常规参考书甚至没有对此的描述！)，光纤电缆，各种类型的视觉指示器– LED，发光。这只是我们自己的VDNKh的一小部分。

Closer to graduation I got programmable calculator «Electronica MK-61» and typed programs published in popular technical journal «Tekhnika-Molodyozi» — mostly simple games like «Landing on the Moon», experimented with undocumented functions (was made seven segment display show non-numeric symbols).

临近毕业时，我得到了可编程计算器“ Electronica MK-61”，并打入了流行技术杂志“ Tekhnika-Molodyozi”中打字的程序，其中大多数是诸如《着陆月球》之类的简单游戏，并进行了无证件功能的试验(使七段式显示器无法显示-数字符号)。

Although my father had access to «Iskra-226» (Wang 2200 clone) computers at the factory where he worked, and I had a possibility to come there sometimes, I had never done that because I was sure that some day there would be regular access to computers. I was convinced that very soon the computers would be readily available everywhere and there is no need to tease myself off in the meantime.

虽然我父亲在他工作的工厂可以使用“ Iskra-226”(Wang 2200克隆)计算机，而且有时我可能会到那里，但我从未这样做过，因为我确定总有一天会有规律访问计算机。我坚信，很快这些计算机将随处可见，并且在此期间无需自嘲。

The school where I studied was quite ordinary and there weren't any computers (and even calculators). However, closer to my graduation (at the end of the 1980s) the USSR state became anxious of insufficiency of computer knowledge among people, so computer science lessons were held in another school which had two classes of Commodore 64 with disk drives and color displays.

我读过的学校很普通，没有电脑(甚至没有计算器)。但是，在我毕业不久(1980年代末)时，苏联州开始担心人们之间的计算机知识不足，因此在另一所学校开设了计算机科学课程，该学校有两节Commodore 64，配有磁盘驱动器和彩色显示器。

It is worth mentioning that in those years Yamaha MSX-2 was considered as a standard by the Department of Education, but it wasn't obligatory. Because of lack of computers divergence of this standard was not uncommon. Nevertheless, a situation with three classes of exactly Commodore 64 was quite unusual. I personally know only two such cases — the second one was school in Moscow.

值得一提的是，在那些年中，雅马哈MSX-2被教育部视为标准，但并不是必须的。由于缺乏计算机，此标准的差异并不少见。然而，具有三类完全准将64的情况是非常不寻常的。我个人仅知道两个这样的案例-第二个是在莫斯科上学。

I clearly remember that during our first lesson we were left to ourselves. We were put at computers by the teacher and suggested trying to move the cursor across the screen and press some keys. Sometimes he answered our questions like «how to change the color of the cursor?».

我清楚地记得，在我们的第一堂课中，我们留给了自己。我们被老师放在电脑前，建议尝试在屏幕上移动光标并按一些键。有时，他回答了诸如“如何更改光标的颜色？”之类的问题。

That was something completely new to us, as none of us had ever had such an experience before.

这对我们来说是全新的，因为我们之前从未有过这样的经历。

The practical lessons were twice a week. It only took a couple of classes to see who is the most interested in computers and it did not take a long time to see three or four of us (unsurprisingly, guys) skipping the other classes to spend this time in the computer room. Those rooms were called «Vychislitenly Tsentr» – the «Computation centre» literally.

实际课程每周两次。只花了几节课就知道谁对计算机最感兴趣，而我们花了很长时间才看到我们三四个人(当然，伙计们)跳过了其他班级，把这段时间花在了计算机房里。这些房间被称为“ Vychislitenly Tsentr”，即“计算中心”。

Most of the teachers showed understanding to us. If there were available computers, we were always allowed into the computer class, and disk drives were given (there were several of them and they often broke). The secretary usually allowed us to use her computer even if it required kicking out her son who only played games.

大多数老师对我们表现出了理解。如果有可用的计算机，我们总是被允许进入计算机类别，并且提供了磁盘驱动器(其中有多个驱动器，而且它们经常坏掉)。秘书通常允许我们使用她的计算机，即使它需要踢掉只玩游戏的儿子。

Back then, the USSR had no global networks as well as the earliest Western examples of such networks were pretty much uninspiring, at least judging by modern technological standards. That's why it was a serious achievement to obtain some software or just to get an answer for a computer related question. It was all the more so for the USSR where computers were much less common in contrast with the US.

那时，苏联没有全球网络，而西方的这种网络的最早例子几乎没有启发性，至少从现代技术标准来看。这就是为什么获得一些软件或仅仅为与计算机相关的问题的答案是一个了不起的成就。对于苏联而言，情况尤其如此，与美国相比，计算机的普及率要低得多。

Teachers were not able to help us so in several months we knew about those computers much more thаn they did.

老师无法帮助我们，所以几个月后我们对这些计算机的了解远远超过了他们。

There were a dozen floppy disks available for us. Most of them contained games, but we also found a «monitor» — simple assembler/disassembler/debugger. From the documentation we had а couple of books — Machine Language Manual in English (this significantly improved my English grades in school!) and Basic Manual in German. Unfortunately we couldn't take those valuable books home.

有十多个软盘可供我们使用。其中大多数包含游戏，但我们还发现了一个“监视器”，即简单的汇编器/反汇编器/调试器。从文档中我们可以找到几本书-英语机器语言手册(这大大提高了我在学校的英语成绩！)和德语基础手册。不幸的是，我们无法将那些有价值的书带回家。

Within two years of our visits to «VC» (on good days we were there from morning till evening) we several times were visited by people «from outside» — as far as I remember, from Moscow school. They brought a 3.5" disk drive C1581 which was quite rare among Commodore 64 owners.

在我们访问“ VC”的两年内(好日子，我们从早到晚都在那儿)，我们“几次”从人们那里“拜访”了我多次-据我所记得，是从莫斯科学校访问的。他们带来了3.5英寸磁盘驱动器C1581，这在Commodore 64所有者中非常罕见。

It was our rare chance to exchange the knowledge and get some new software. Every single book was a real treasure and was a subject for the most detailed inspection. We read every single sentence, every word and even letters trying to understand the meaning of particular words or phrases. There always were technical words and abbreviations that could not be translated using a regular dictionary.

这是我们难得的交流知识并获得一些新软件的机会。每本书都是真正的宝藏，是进行最详细检查的主题。我们阅读每个句子，每个单词甚至字母，试图理解特定单词或短语的含义。总有一些技术单词和缩写无法使用常规词典进行翻译。

There were attempts to make something useful out of our time spent with computers. The teachers asked us to help with creating some educational programs for other students. Such programs were usually written using built-in BASIC language and it would be true to say, this was the primary choice for C64 owners back then. BASIC language was a starting point for us too. Very soon it became clear that more serious programs and games are written in a different programming language. We got a good experience writing those educational programs in BASIC language and we were well aware about limitations of such programs – the execution performance was one of the major issues.

有一些尝试使我们在计算机上所花费的时间变得有用。老师请我们帮助为其他学生创建一些教育计划。此类程序通常是使用内置的BASIC语言编写的，可以说，这是C64所有者当时的主要选择。 BASIC语言也是我们的起点。很快就很清楚，更严肃的程序和游戏是用另一种编程语言编写的。我们有使用BASIC语言编写这些教育程序的良好经验，并且我们清楚此类程序的局限性–执行性能是主要问题之一。

That was the time we reached «the next level». The things we started to perform the others would call a «hacking». Of course, we never knew that word back then. It was curiosity that pushed us to see how the particular pieces of code and data work together. We were changing small bits of code and testing what would change in the program.

那是我们达到“新高度”的时候。我们开始执行其他任务的事情称为“黑客行为”。当然，那时我们从来不知道这个词。好奇心驱使我们了解特定的代码段和数据如何协同工作。我们正在更改少量代码，并测试程序中将要更改的内容。

Most of the computer games had short and nice looking introductions with music and sound effects. It could be scrolls, some graphics effects (sparkling color bars and logos were quite common) and music. Those start sequences were called «intro» for short and were added by computer software pirates. Those individuals and teams were stripping down the software off any protection and validation code, cheated the game engine for «infinite lives or ammo» and the program was distributed in this modified version. Such copies were mostly sent as 5.25" floppy disks via the regular post. BBS (Bulletin Board Service) for Commodore 64 was a rare thing anywhere in the world and the typical modem speed was quite slow and not exceeding 300 bps.

大多数计算机游戏的音乐和音效介绍都很简短。可能是滚动，一些图形效果(闪烁的彩条和徽标非常普遍)和音乐。这些开始序列简称为“介绍”，由计算机软件盗版者添加。这些个人和团队正在剥夺该软件的任何保护和验证代码，欺骗游戏引擎以“无限生命或弹药”，并且该程序以该修改版发行。此类副本通常通过常规邮寄作为5.25英寸软盘发送。Commodore 64的BBS(公告板服务)在世界任何地方都是罕见的，并且典型的调制解调器速度非常慢且不超过300 bps。

We admired those intros. It would be true to say that many of those intros were real pieces of art. Intro sequence was a «business card» for a group. It was the way to make a good impression. Apart from appearance, the intros were very technologically advanced. We are talking about the time when available computer memory and other sources was very limited and occupied by the game itself. The game itself must be optimized and compressed to allow adding an intro. The typical intro would take 2-3 kilobytes of space when the host game would take the rest of 30-50 kilobytes.

我们很欣赏这些介绍。可以肯定地说，其中的许多介绍都是真实的艺术品。简介顺序是一个小组的“名片”。这是给人留下深刻印象的方法。除外观外，介绍影片的技术水平很高。我们谈论的是可用的计算机内存和其他资源非常有限并被游戏本身占用的时间。游戏本身必须进行优化和压缩，以允许添加简介。通常的介绍会占用2-3 KB的空间，而主机游戏会占用其余的30-50 KB的空间。

It is well known that in the USSR access to Western culture was very limited. Just to give you an example – the meaning of the word «Beatles» was unclear to me while I was seeing it written on the walls sometimes.

众所周知，在苏联，进入西方文化的机会非常有限。仅举一个例子，我有时看不到“甲壳虫”一词的含义，而我有时看到它写在墙上。

Therefore intros which later were grown to self-sufficient «demos» as well as games were the source of information from abroad. This information was not political, or protest driven as it was very common with music but in the meantime, they were concentrated showcases of some mixed elements of western culture and style for us.

因此，后来成长为自给自足的“演示”以及游戏的介绍都是来自国外的信息来源。这些信息不是政治性的，也不是抗议引起的，因为它在音乐中非常普遍，但与此同时，它们却是我们对西方文化和风格的某些混合元素的集中展示。

We were unfamiliar with American culture and movies so we understood almost nothing. For example, we had no idea why in «Back to the Future» game somebody rode on a skateboard or why some pirate/cracker groups had such strange names like «Beastie Boys». But in spite of that we imbued with spirit itself — via way the pirates exchanged messages, special style of pictures, fonts, logos, music. And also because of declared values like value of original ideas and its implementations in combination with freedom of information exchange. That combination meant limitations. For example using someone else's code in intro wasn't welcome.

我们不熟悉美国的文化和电影，因此几乎一无所知。例如，我们不知道为什么在“回到未来”游戏中有人骑着滑板，或者为什么某些海盗/爆竹团有这样奇怪的名字，如“野兽男孩”。但是尽管如此，我们还是充满了灵魂本身-通过海盗交流信息，特殊风格的图片，字体，徽标，音乐的方式。而且还因为声明了价值，例如原始思想的价值及其实现以及信息交换的自由。这种结合意味着局限性。例如，不欢迎在介绍中使用别人的代码。

Probably that everything happened in that bubble world (it was called «on scene») still waiting for its serious researchers.

可能在那个泡沫世界中发生的一切(被称为“现场”)仍然在等待认真的研究人员。

The contemporary debugging, disassembling and emulating tools are not even possible to compare with basic and most primitive tools available on Commodore 64 a long time ago. The modern approach is very different to what people tried to do before.

当今的调试，拆卸和仿真工具甚至无法与很久以前Commodore 64上可用的基本和最原始的工具进行比较。现代方法与人们以前尝试做的非常不同。

Usually we proceeded like that: loading program (1-2 minutes), loading monitor (half a minute), looking block of memory we were interested in (if code was packed or encrypted we also had to find out unpacker/decrypter code), inserting BRK opcode and run program. In most cases it led to computer freezing. There were a lot of reasons for that — for example, the monitor would load over program code or it changed some variables that were important for the program. Anyway, we had to switch off/on computer and disk drive and do the same thing over and over for dozens of times. If there wasn't any progress, we took another program and did the same with it.

通常，我们这样进行：加载程序(1-2分钟)，加载监视器(半分钟)，查找我们感兴趣的内存块(如果代码是打包或加密的，我们还必须找出解压缩器/解密器的代码)，插入BRK操作码并运行程序。在大多数情况下，它会导致计算机死机。造成这种情况的原因很多-例如，监视器将加载程序代码，或者它更改了一些对程序很重要的变量。无论如何，我们不得不关闭/打开计算机和磁盘驱动器，并且一次又一次地执行相同的操作数十次。如果没有任何进展，我们采用了另一个程序并对其进行了相同的处理。

This approach took a great amount of patience and time. It was a proper celebration every time we could extract a piece of code that could play a piece of music and save it as a stand-alone application. The real magic beyond our understanding were pieces of code that could write anything on the screen border. For a long time it was a real mystery for us.

这种方法花费了大量的耐心和时间。每当我们提取一段可以播放音乐的代码并将其保存为独立应用程序时，这都是一次恰当的庆祝。我们无法理解的真正魔术是可以在屏幕边框上编写任何内容的代码段。长期以来，这对我们来说是一个真正的谜。

The existence of dedicated hardware for graphics (VIC-II) and sound effects (SID) was making the experience of working with Commodore 64 very different compared to ZX Spectrum or even PC. It was like having a conversation with something that lives inside of the computer. We were putting random values at different memory addresses (POKE command) and were waiting for something to happen. Sometimes, we would get a square in the middle of the screen, or characters would appear distorted, the other time the entire screen was moving a few pixels in one direction. Of course, we were trying to record and systematize those observations which was a very difficult task due to the lack of information in general and the only available books in the language we did not know.

与ZX Spectrum甚至PC相比，用于图形(VIC-II)和声音效果(SID)的专用硬件的存在使使用Commodore 64的体验大为不同。就像与计算机内部的某些内容进行对话。我们正在将随机值放在不同的内存地址(POKE命令)，并且正在等待发生某些事情。有时候，我们会在屏幕中间得到一个正方形，或者字符看上去会变形，而另一次，整个屏幕却在一个方向上移动了几个像素。当然，我们试图记录和系统化这些观察结果，这是一项非常艰巨的任务，因为总体上缺乏信息，并且只有我们不知道该语言的可用书籍。

One of the unusual things was the sprites. At those times this word meant exactly hardware sprites — simple pictures 24x21 pixels size that were displayed by graphics chip using data from specific memory addresses. Being enabled, sprites were kind of «sticking» on the screen and kept there independently of foreground and even video mode.

精灵是不寻常的事情之一。在那个时候，这个词恰好意味着硬件精灵-图形芯片使用来自特定存储器地址的数据显示的24x21像素大小的简单图片。启用精灵后，它们就像是在屏幕上“粘住”一样，并独立于前景甚至视频模式而保留在屏幕上。

As it was mentioned earlier, the main programming language for Commodore 64 was ROM BASIC. It was quite primitive. Despite all the variety of graphics and sound features of this computer, BASIC didn't support those features directly — we had to use POKE commands. Program which draws line took 2-3 screens of code and worked for several seconds. It was also non-trivial even to delete file from disk without using special utilities!

如前所述，Commodore 64的主要编程语言是ROM BASIC。这是很原始的。尽管该计算机具有各种图形和声音功能，但BASIC并不直接支持这些功能-我们必须使用POKE命令。画线的程序花了2-3个屏幕代码，并工作了几秒钟。即使不使用特殊实用程序从磁盘删除文件，这也不是一件容易的事！

As we had a disk drive we could load extended BASIC (or anything else). But there were no disk drives quite often — some of them were used by students, others were just broken. This resulted in memorizing huge number of various memory addresses, values and their combinations which let us directly control computer chips using POKE/PEEK commands: enable and move sprites, change characters, make sounds, etc (I still can list powers of two at least till 2^16 even being awaken at night). We typed some command sequences without even thinking.

当我们有了磁盘驱动器时，我们可以加载扩展的BASIC(或其他任何东西)。但是通常没有磁盘驱动器-其中一些磁盘供学生使用，而其他磁盘则坏了。这导致记忆了大量的各种内存地址，值及其组合，使我们可以使用POKE / PEEK命令直接控制计算机芯片：启用和移动精灵，更改字符，发出声音等(我仍然可以列出至少两个的幂)直到2 ^ 16甚至在晚上醒来。我们什至没有思考就键入了一些命令序列。

I remember one day we found only one vacant computer. Unluckily there were no vacant disk drives at all! Leaving wasn't an option, so in half an hour we wrote a game using just ROM BASIC — something like a maze scrolling top down and a cross (the «hero») which the player had to lead through. The main idea was a very small source that allowed us to enter it very fast using just a keyboard, without a disk drive. Full source took about one screen (40x25 chars).

我记得有一天我们只发现了一台空计算机。不幸的是，根本没有空闲的磁盘驱动器！离开不是一种选择，所以在半小时内，我们仅使用ROM BASIC编写了游戏-类似于迷宫从上向下滚动和玩家必须穿过的十字架(“英雄”)。主要思想是一个很小的源，它使我们能够仅使用键盘而不使用磁盘驱动器来快速输入它。完整的源代码大约需要一个屏幕(40x25个字符)。

Working with disk drives on Commodore 64 was different to the majority of other computers of that period. Starting with a special recording method which allowed to put on one side of the disk roughly 144kb of data (you could always cut through another gap to flip the disk itself thus enabling an ability to write on the other side of the same disk) and ending very unusual circuit design.

在Commodore 64上使用磁盘驱动器不同于该时期的其他大多数计算机。从一种特殊的记录方法开始，该方法允许将大约144kb的数据放在磁盘的一侧(您总是可以切开另一个间隙以翻转磁盘本身，从而能够在同一磁盘的另一侧进行写操作)，然后结束非常不寻常的电路设计。

The main characteristic of the C1541 disk drive was its own processor (the same as in the computer), program memory and I/O port. As a matter of fact, the disk drive was a full-fledged computer and behaved accordingly.

C1541磁盘驱动器的主要特征是其自己的处理器(与计算机相同)，程序存储器和I / O端口。实际上，该磁盘驱动器是一台功能完善的计算机，其行为也相应。

This feature was utilized by some of the games and tools. For example, programs could implement their own low-level data exchange protocol between computer and disk drive to greatly reduce the loading time while the standard way protocol would take up to two minutes to transfer just 50 kilobytes of data. The other programs would control the disk drive LED switching it on and off according to some pattern. This code would run on the disk drive itself.

一些游戏和工具都利用了此功能。例如，程序可以在计算机和磁盘驱动器之间实现其自己的低级数据交换协议，以大大减少加载时间，而标准方式协议最多仅需两分钟即可传输50 KB的数据。其他程序将控制磁盘驱动器LED根据某种模式将其打开和关闭。此代码将在磁盘驱动器本身上运行。

Software protection also extensively used disk drives features writing data between the tracks and even on non-existing ones. There were a lot of utilities designed to circumvent these protection schemes and copy disks. Disk drives malfunction after using such programs was common that made teachers angry. Broken disk drives would be taken to the IT lab nearby. Near the end of our «training» it turned out that most malfunctions were caused by the movement of magnetic head outside the nominal working area. It could be easily repaired by simple BASIC command like LOAD":*",8 which forced the disk drive to recalibrate. I do remember I was so proud to discover it, as it was not a random guess but a well-performed research.

软件保护还广泛使用了磁盘驱动器，其功能是在磁道之间甚至在不存在的磁道之间写入数据。有许多实用程序旨在规避这些保护方案和复制磁盘。使用此类程序后，磁盘驱动器出现故障很常见，这使教师感到愤怒。损坏的磁盘驱动器将被带到附近的IT实验室。在我们的“培训”快结束时，事实证明，大多数故障是由磁头在标称工作区域外移动引起的。可以通过简单的BASIC命令(如LOAD“：*”，8)轻松修复该问题，该命令会强制重新校准磁盘驱动器。我确实记得我为发现它感到骄傲，因为它不是一个随机的猜测，而是一项性能良好的研究。

Despite all that fun we had with digging deeper into the system we always had time to play the computer games too. Quite obviously, the teachers were strictly against the computer games in the classroom. The Commodore 64 had a good variety of high quality computer games compared to other computer platforms. Some of those games were the most popular for us: Cauldron II, Ghost'n'Goblins, Arkanoid, Driller. We were making the complete game level maps for Driller and Cauldron II using pieces of paper glued together. Many of the games would require a joystick. For obvious reasons the schools had small number of joysticks in the first place and their reliability left much to be desired. We had to construct our own joysticks and sockets. The Commodore 64 computer could mimic the joystick movement with a keyboard. Those keys were scattered all over the keyboard – one of the joystick ports is mapped to keys «C,B,M,F1,Z» (left, right, fire, up, down). The player had to hold the «space» key all the time to activate those shortcuts and was ok to have a piece of paper folded number time wedging the «space» key.

尽管我们在深入研究系统方面获得了很多乐趣，但我们也总是有时间玩计算机游戏。很明显，老师们严格反对教室里的电脑游戏。与其他计算机平台相比，Commodore 64具有多种高质量的计算机游戏。其中一些游戏对我们而言最受欢迎：大锅II，Ghost'n'Goblins，Arkanoid，Driller。我们正在使用粘在一起的纸片制作Driller和Cauldron II的完整游戏关卡地图。许多游戏都需要操纵杆。出于明显的原因，学校一开始的操纵杆数量很少，其可靠性令人望而却步。我们必须构造自己的操纵杆和插座。 Commodore 64计算机可以使用键盘模拟操纵杆运动。这些键分散在整个键盘上-游戏杆端口之一映射到键«C，B，M，F1，Z»(左，右，发射，上，下)。玩家必须一直按住«space»键才能激活这些快捷键，并且可以将一张纸叠号码与«space»键楔在一起。

At some point, we received disks with the copies of high-level languages like C and Oxford Pascal. It was quite an awful experience. It was required to load a few modules from the disk in a very specific sequence (the editor, P-Code translator, linker, P-Code to executable compiler) just to convert a simplest dozen lines of Pascal source into an executable file. The entire procedure would take several minutes and produce a massive file. This file was a dozen times bigger than BASIC or Assembler equivalent. C language compiler was just slightly better. We accepted this situation «as is» and never really used those languages. Sadly we didn't get Forth at those times and knew nothing about it.

在某个时候，我们收到了带有高级语言(如C和Oxford Pascal)副本的磁盘。这是一个非常糟糕的经历。仅需要将最简单的Pascal源代码行转换为可执行文件，就需要按照非常特定的顺序从磁盘中加载几个模块(编辑器，P代码转换器，链接器，P代码到可执行编译器)。整个过程将花费几分钟并产生一个庞大的文件。该文件比BASIC或汇编程序大12倍。 C语言编译器稍微好一点。我们“按原样”接受这种情况，从未真正使用过这些语言。不幸的是，那时我们还没有得到Forth，对此一无所知。

Despite lack of programs and manuals we sometimes even had secrets and «fought» with each other — demagnetized floppy disks and plotted against in various ways… I still have my old box which is reinforced with thick steel plates (if somebody took a magnet to the stack of floppy disks, it usually damaged data only on the top disk, but steel sheets provided additional guarantee).

尽管缺少程序和手册，我们有时甚至还相互之间有秘密并“打过架”-去磁的软盘并以各种方式作图……我仍然有旧的盒子，上面用厚钢板加固(如果有人将磁铁吸到了堆栈的软盘通常只损坏顶部磁盘上的数据，但是钢板提供了额外的保证)。

«Swapping» was considered one of the most widespread ways to obtain new software in those years. As I have mentioned earlier, almost nobody used networks to exchange software on C64 because of lack of modems and expensive long distance calls. The lack of network shaped the entire computer subculture back then, but none of it is reflected in any of the movies. The hackers in those movies were always using networks.

在那些年里，“交换”被认为是获取新软件的最广泛的方法之一。如前所述，由于缺少调制解调器和昂贵的长途电话，几乎没有人使用网络在C64上交换软件。当时缺乏网络影响了整个计算机亚文化，但任何一部电影都没有体现这一点。这些电影中的黑客一直在使用网络。

It was just so hard to get hold of the source code of desired visual effect. Most of the demos and intros of that period had their own ideas and custom implementations in their code. Of course, there were plenty of attempts to disassemble the code and attempts to understand how it works but this is a very different thing to the source code of the effect. Also, attempts to use ripped parts of code (to make the same nice scrolling as in another intro, for example) were not welcomed by the scene members.

很难获得所需视觉效果的源代码。那个时期的大多数演示和介绍在其代码中都有自己的想法和自定义实现。当然，有很多尝试反汇编代码并试图理解其工作原理，但这与效果的源代码截然不同。另外，场景成员不欢迎尝试使用翻录的代码部分(例如，使滚动效果与其他介绍相同)。

However there is an interesting fact that reusing the complete soundtrack from a game wasn't disgraceful.

但是，有一个有趣的事实，就是重用游戏中的完整配乐并不是可耻的。

The other person would ask – so what is the actual way the hacked games, demos and software was distributed? Every single established pirate group (or «crew») had a «swapper» member. The primary task for «swapper» was to keep in touch with other groups, send and receive disks from them. At some point, I met a person having his own Commodore 64. It was an extremely rare thing in St.Petersburg back then, true luxury. That guy knew English well and was exchanging disks with crews from other countries. I still have some of his disks with graffiti done in marker.

另一个人会问–那么分发被黑客入侵的游戏，演示和软件的实际方式是什么？每个建立的海盗团体(或“船员”)都有一个“交换者”成员。 “交换器”的主要任务是与其他组保持联系，并从其他组发送和接收磁盘。在某个时候，我遇到了一个拥有自己的Commodore 64的人。那在当时的圣彼得堡非常罕见，真正的奢侈。那家伙英语说得很好，正在和其他国家的工作人员交换磁盘。我仍然有他的一些带有标记的涂鸦磁盘。

Surprisingly, such communication channels were fairly effective. The FBI had just started their fight against piracy and it was even enjoyable to escape from them. It wasn't uncommon to read about FBI operations and their heroes in cracktros and diskmags (people were proud of it).

令人惊讶的是，这种沟通渠道相当有效。 FBI刚刚开始了打击盗版的斗争，从他们那里逃脱甚至是一件令人愉快的事情。了解FBI的运作以及他们在cracktros和diskmags中的英雄(人们为此感到自豪)的情况并不少见。

Diskmags was another phenomenon that quickly lost its meaning due to the birth of global networks. It was the counterpart of print media (printed magazines, to be exact) targeted to sceners. Typically they were several executable files recorded on one side of a floppy disk. Some diskmags were born, others came to decay. Total number of them reached dozens. Most famous ones I saw were Propaganda, Pulse, Reformation, Domination, Shock.

Diskmags是由于全球网络的诞生而Swift失去其意义的另一种现象。它是针对场景制作者的印刷媒体(准确地说是印刷杂志)的对应形式。通常，它们是记录在软盘一侧的几个可执行文件。一些磁盘磁片诞生了，而另一些则消失了。他们的总数达到了几十个。我看到的最著名的是宣传，豆豆，改革，统治，震惊。

Commodore 64 diskmags would typically have a number of articles, announcements, recent voting results for demoscene releases and software. It would have interviews with pirates and the creators of demos and intros as well.

Commodore 64 diskmags通常会发布许多文章，公告，最近发布的演示结果以及软件发布的投票结果。还将对海盗以及演示和简介的创建者进行采访。

The appearance of the diskmag had a paramount importance – all the artwork, logos, fonts and background music was carefully chosen and arranged together.

磁盘磁碟的外观极为重要-所有艺术品，徽标，字体和背景音乐都经过精心选择和安排。

As long as diskmags were released not very often (in the course of collecting content), there was another way to spread the news — noters.

只要不经常发布diskmag(在收集内容的过程中)，还有另一种传播新闻的方式-注意。

Noter was another, more frequent, standard way to spread the news. It is a very small executable file (less than a couple of kilobytes) with some text and music that is typically supplied with games and software disks. To a certain extent you can call it the replacement of «readme.txt».

Noter是另一种更常见的新闻传播标准方式。它是一个非常小的可执行文件(不到几千字节)，带有一些文本和音乐，通常随游戏和软件磁盘一起提供。在某种程度上，您可以称其为“ readme.txt”的替代。

There was no standard text editor supplied with Commodore 64, therefore Noter would always include a built-in text editor. This text editor would have rich text decorating features – not only colors and text styles could be changed but all the cursor movements and text changes were recorded and could be replayed. It could easily give the impression that you see a text that someone is typing right in front of you. When finished, the text and the recorded sequence would be saved as a new file – Noter was effectively cloning itself with modified text.

Commodore 64没有提供标准的文本编辑器，因此Noter将始终包括内置的文本编辑器。该文本编辑器将具有丰富的文本修饰功能–不仅可以更改颜色和文本样式，还可以记录并重放所有光标移动和文本更改。它很容易给人一种印象，即您看到有人在您面前直接键入的文本。完成后，文本和记录的序列将保存为新文件-Noter正在有效地使用修改后的文本克隆自身。

There is a big variety of pseudo graphic symbols in standard PETSCII charset on Commodore 64 computers. Those symbols could be used to make a simple drawing. This charset was more flexible compared to standard IBM PC charset. While IBM«s was mostly designed to help drawing tables, the PETSCII had much wider ways to use it. On top of that, the standard C64 keyboard is having pictures of all special symbols making the typing process very simple.

在Commodore 64计算机上，标准PETSCII字符集中有多种伪图形符号。这些符号可以用来制作简单的图形。与标准IBM PC字符集相比，此字符集更加灵活。尽管IBM主要是为了帮助绘制表格而设计的，但PETSCII却有更广泛的使用方式。最重要的是，标准的C64键盘具有所有特殊符号的图片，使键入过程非常简单。

Pseudo graphic symbols were widely used to decorate the disk folder structure. The list of files was showing the file names exactly in the order they were recorded. It was possible to create empty files and draw a picture with filenames containing graphic symbols using special programs. You could make a simple drawing or crew logo and this practice was very widespread. Eventually, drawing with graphic symbols would evolve into PETSCII graphics competitions.

伪图形符号被广泛用于装饰磁盘文件夹结构。文件列表按记录的顺序准确显示文件名。可以使用特殊程序创建空文件并使用包含图形符号的文件名绘制图片。您可以制作一个简单的图形或船员徽标，这种做法非常普遍。最终，带有图形符号的绘图将演变为PETSCII图形竞赛。

Alternative feature of graphic symbols would be an ability of C64 to shorten BASIC command into two symbols to speed up typing in the program. The first symbol would be a normal letter the other – pseudo graphic range symbol. In the program listing it was automatically expanded and seen as normal commands.

图形符号的替代功能是C64能够将BASIC命令缩短为两个符号以加快程序输入速度。第一个符号是普通字母，另一个是伪图形范围符号。在程序列表中，它已自动展开并被视为普通命令。

As for Cyrilic chars, in some computers they were preloaded in ROM, but it was easy to load them programmatically even using BASIC.

至于Cyrilic字符，在某些计算机中，它们已预先加载在ROM中，但是即使使用BASIC，也很容易以编程方式加载它们。

The other day we were checking the collection of floppy disks we had in school and found a disk with the „GEOS“ label. This word meant nothing to us back then but applying modern classification it was a full-featured graphics operating system. It was one of the most advanced pieces of software for Commodore 64. GEOS provided an efficient way of working with multiple disk drives, well-thought graphics mode, albeit quite slow. It supported a variety of peripheral devices like mice, laser printers and expanded memory units.

前几天，我们检查了学校里收集的软盘，并发现了带有“ GEOS”标签的软盘。那时，这个词对我们没有任何意义，但使用现代分类法，它是一个功能齐全的图形操作系统。它是Commodore 64上最先进的软件之一。GEOS提供了一种有效的方式来处理多个磁盘驱动器，经过深思熟虑的图形模式，尽管速度很慢。它支持各种外围设备，例如鼠标，激光打印机和扩展的内存单元。

The supplied software would include graphics and text editor with custom fonts in WYSIWYG style, electronic spreadsheet, database system and publishing software. All of it was made bespoke to GEOS and was mind-bending considering it was available for home use 8-bit computers. Unlucky for us, we did not find GeoAssembler, GeoDebugger or any documentation supplied – so we could not do any development. All we could do – to get ourselves impressed by the level and complexity of this system and put it back on the shelf. It should be mentioned that the Windows operating system was still non-existent, and Macintosh was not realistic to see in the flesh in Russia back then.

提供的软件将包括图形和带有所见即所得样式的自定义字体的文本编辑器，电子表格，数据库系统和发布软件。所有这些都是由GEOS定制的，考虑到它可用于家用8位计算机，因此令人费解。不幸的是，我们没有找到GeoAssembler，GeoDebugger或提供的任何文档-因此我们无法进行任何开发。我们所能做的-使自己对系统的水平和复杂性印象深刻，并将其放回货架上。应该提到的是，Windows操作系统仍然不存在，而Macintosh在当时的俄罗斯看来并不现实。

Around this time our magazines „Radio“, „Modelist-konstruktor“, „Mikroprocessorniye sredstva i systemy“ started their series of articles on making your own home computer. This story developed along this Commodore 64 experience. Those computers were no match to Commodore 64 both by hardware capabilities and software availability.

大约在这个时候，我们的杂志“ Radio”，“ Modelist-konstruktor”，“ Mikroprocessorniye sredstva i systemy”开始了他们有关制造自己的家用计算机的系列文章。这个故事是根据Commodore 64的经验发展而来的。从硬件功能和软件可用性两方面来看，这些计算机都无法与Commodore 64相提并论。

Nonetheless, we always had a desire to make or at least buy DIY computer to have it within easy reach. One of the first and the most popular ones to make was „Radio-86RK“, but it required hard to get videochip 580VG75.

尽管如此，我们一直希望制造或至少购买DIY电脑，以使它触手可及。 “ Radio-86RK”是第一个也是最受欢迎的产品之一，但是很难获得580VG75视频芯片。

Another choice was „Irisha“ that was too complex to assemble and the „Spetsialist“ appeared much later. Majority of those DIY computers would not even have BASIC language built-in.

另一个选择是“ Irisha”，它组装起来太复杂了，“ Spetsialist”出现的时间要晚得多。这些DIY计算机中的大多数甚至都没有内置BASIC语言。

All in all, none of the listed choices progressed further than getting circuitry drawings or PCB with some components. Meanwhile, circuitry drawings of ZX Spectrum clones started to circulate around the country. It was uncomplicated, there was only one difficult-to-obtain (but available on the market) chip — z80. Furthermore, as far as it was functionally close enough to the original ZX Spectrum 48k, there was a lot of software and manuals available.

总而言之，列出的选择没有比获得带有某些组件的电路图或PCB更进一步的选择。同时，ZX Spectrum克隆的电路图开始在全国范围内传播。它并不复杂，只有一种很难获得(但在市场上可以买到)的芯片-z80。此外，在功能上与原始ZX Spectrum 48k足够接近的情况下，还有许多软件和手册可供使用。

Shortly after that I bought a partially assembled PCB (»Leningrad" version) and got quite a usable Spectrum computer. One of my friends did the same.

之后不久，我购买了部分组装的PCB(»Leningrad“版本)，并获得了一台相当实用的Spectrum计算机。我的一位朋友也这样做。

My Spectrum experience did not last long. Most of the time I used it to play a couple of games missing on C64. ZX Spectrum was much simpler than C64 having basic graphics, sounds and overall software quality. The ZX Spectrum Scene was just starting and had no rich heritage of C64. All I remember is the computer game «Elite» which had a label «CRACKED BY NICOLAS RODIONOV» that replaced traditional intro and my experiments to connect an H306 analogue plotter using two DACs. I have managed to print the title screen from the «Tomahawk» game by moving a pen for each pixel and drawing a single point where it was needed. It took one hour to print a single picture.

我的Spectrum经历持续时间不长。大多数时候，我用它来玩C64上缺少的一些游戏。 ZX Spectrum比具有基本图形，声音和整体软件质量的C64简单得多。 ZX Spectrum场景才刚刚开始，没有C64的丰富遗产。我只记得电脑游戏《精英》(Elite)，它的标签为《 CRACKED BY NICOLAS RODIONOV》，代替了传统的介绍，我的实验是使用两个DAC连接H306模拟绘图仪。我设法通过移动每个像素的笔并在需要的地方画一个点，来从《战斧》游戏中打印标题屏幕。打印一张照片花了一个小时。

ZX Spectrum was forgotten immediately after getting a new Commodore 128D.

在获得新的Commodore 128D之后，ZX Spectrum立即被遗忘了。

C128 was a strange computer. It had two CPUs, two video adapters, and two video outputs. This arrangement allowed it to work in one of the three modes: Commodore 64, Commodore 128, and CP/M. The disk drive was capable to read PC-formatted floppy disks and allowed me to get acquainted with CP/M software like Turbo Pascal 3.0 and Wordstar. By then I got access to the PC though, so my interest in C128 was limited by using it basically in C64 mode.

C128是一台奇怪的计算机。它有两个CPU，两个视频适配器和两个视频输出。这种安排使其可以在以下三种模式之一中工作：准将64，准将128和CP / M。磁盘驱动器能够读取PC格式的软盘，并让我熟悉了Turbo Pascal 3.0和Wordstar等CP / M软件。到那时，我可以使用PC了，因此基本上在C64模式下使用它对我对C128的兴趣受到了限制。

第二部分：从十六岁到三十二岁 (Part II: From sixteen to thirty two)

仍然没有网络 (Still no networks)

The very peak of «Perestroyka» (1990-1991) coincided with the end of my epoch of using 8-bit computers. That was the time the very first IBM PCs were imported into the country, but no one understood why. Luckily for me, I had a friend that started a joint venture with a USA company. He received a PC AT 286 20MHz 1Mb computer with CGA monitor and Star 9-pin dot matrix printer directly from the USA. My friend had no experience or knowledge to operate this computer and this was an expected situation for early PC adopters back then. The computer itself was in very advanced configuration – PC AT 286 20MHz at the time when even PC XT was still considered as a very good option. The weakest part of that computer was the CGA video adapter – it could only do 4 horrible colors at a very low resolution of 320x200 which was very limiting. Anyway, exploring MS DOS operating system was interesting and entertaining enough on its own.

«Perestroyka»(1990-1991)的鼎盛时期恰好是我使用8位计算机时代的结束。那时是第一批IBM PC导入该国的时间，但是没人知道原因。对我来说幸运的是，我有一个朋友与一家美国公司建立了合资企业。他直接从美国获得了一台带有CGA监视器和Star 9针点矩阵打印机的PC AT 286 20MHz 1Mb计算机。我的朋友没有操作这台计算机的经验或知识，那是当时早期采用PC的人们的预期情况。计算机本身处于非常高级的配置中-PC AT 286 20MHz甚至在PC XT仍被认为是一个很好的选择的时候。该计算机最弱的部分是CGA视频适配器-它只能以非常低的320x200分辨率执行4种可怕的颜色。无论如何，探索MS DOS操作系统很有趣，而且很有趣。

Soon after I failed twice entry exams to the Leningrad Polytechnical University (it was for good because I would have been flunked anyway) I started working as a laboratory technician in the department of Computer Science of Leningrad Institute of Fine Mechanics and Optics (IFMO). At those times IFMO still didn't have its current status — there almost weren't any computers, except for the huge PDP-11 clone «SM-4», some Iskra-226 and a very few PCs.

在两次列宁格勒工业大学的入学考试不及格之后(很快，这是好事，因为无论如何我都会不及格)，不久，我开始在列宁格勒精密机械与光学学院(IFMO)的计算机科学系担任实验室技术员。那时IFMO仍然没有它的当前状态-除了巨大的PDP-11克隆《 SM-4》，一些Iskra-226和很少的PC外，几乎没有任何计算机。

My workplace was on the third floor where we had five MERA SM 7209 terminals. Our in-house computer gurus enhanced them to the level of more or less self-sufficient computers with z80 CPU, 128 K RAM and Bulgarian-made floppy disk drives. The students were rarely seen to be using those for anything but typing in some machine codes and using a primitive debugger/monitor. Such computers were not very reliable because of memory refresh issues. The probability of losing the entire program that took half an hour to type in was high. Students were trying to identify and share the most reliable memory ranges specific to a particular computer.

我的工作场所在三楼，那里有五个MERA SM 7209终端。我们的内部计算机专家使用z80 CPU，128 K RAM和保加利亚制造的软盘驱动器将它们增强到或多或少能够满足自给自足的水平。除了键入一些机器代码并使用原始调试器/监视器之外，很少看到这些学生将它们用于任何其他用途。由于内存刷新问题，此类计算机不是很可靠。丢失整个程序(耗时半小时才能键入)的可能性很高。学生们试图识别和共享特定于特定计算机的最可靠的内存范围。

The computer laboratory technician position required me to solder back the failing equipment cables and prevent taking any further damage to the computers from students, especially when there was no university staff around. I spent my available time with an «Iskra 1030» computer. It was not a very successful clone of PC XT 4.7 Mhz with 512 kb of RAM and CGA video adapter. The next room was home to «Iskra 226» – a massive steel box similar to the Wang-2200 computer with BASIC interpreter. Strangely enough, your hand would get cold whilst working with this computer as there were not one but three powerful fans blowing directly at the keyboard. My experience with those computers was driven by curiosity rather than a practical purpose.

计算机实验室技术人员的职位要求我回焊故障的设备电缆，并防止学生对计算机造成任何进一步的损害，尤其是在周围没有大学职员的情况下。我花了可用的时间在«Iskra 1030»电脑上。它不是具有512 kb RAM和CGA视频适配器的PC XT 4.7 Mhz的非常成功的克隆。隔壁的房间是“ Iskra 226”的所在地，“ Iskra 226”是一个巨大的钢制盒子，类似于带有BASIC解释器的Wang-2200计算机。 Strangely enough, your hand would get cold whilst working with this computer as there were not one but three powerful fans blowing directly at the keyboard. My experience with those computers was driven by curiosity rather than a practical purpose.

There was another lab technician in our department. He was responsible for the equipment in the room at the same floor but at the farthest side of the university building, we called that side «old block». Also, he was playing music in a heavy metal rock band which and the only time we had a chance to chat was monthly refuse disposal activities. The other days he could lock himself in the room to make himself busy with something very peculiar – those activities would force him to run across into the toilet «to hide from the crocodiles that were following him».

Meanwhile, I had full access to Iskra-1030 and Pravets-16. Pravets-16 arrived a bit later and was a clone of PC XT 4.7 Mhz with 640 kb of RAM and CGA video adapter. It was a better implementation than Iskra. Both of the computers were supplied with 10 or 20 megabytes HDDs with DOS v3.30. Most popular software existed only for DOS. Latest version of Windows was 2.0, it was awful and ran from the DOS too. It was impossible to imagine that Windows would become popular in just a few years.

DOS was an inevitable choice for the PCs of those years, and it had positive and negative aspects. Firstly, the pure DOS appeared as a very inconvenient way to start programs and manage files for a regular user.

On the other hand, there were more and more various utilities helping to deal with those routine operations. There was Norton Commander file manager and its blue two-sided panels were the icons of that epoch, especially in Russia. The single-task nature of DOS was addressed in DesqView, that allowed switching between a number of running applications even using XT computer. The variety of small «resident» programs provided instant access to the calculator, notebook and similar functionality. All in all, it was possible to create and adjust the comfortable working environment.

The viruses of that time were easy to detect and eliminate with popular antivirus software like Aidstest. The diversity and the speed of virus programs distribution was pretty easy to control, assuming the only way they could spread were the floppy disks.

I knew that computer networks existed in some research institutes and specialized establishments, but my knowledge was solely of theoretical nature. I saw a modem in the flesh just a couple of times. Even so, the overall situation with software supply was generally better than Commodore 64. More people purchased PCs and there were plenty of ways to exchange software. Computer piracy was not a big thing back then. No one would even bother tracking pirates down as there was no general understanding why copying some programs could be a bad idea. Of course, in reality we understood everything thanks to all of those sub-culture connections and scenes.

Radioelectronics Lyceum SPTU-38 was one of the biggest and most popular software exchange locations in St.Petersburg. Because of its cult status it really deserves to have a commemorative panel on the building itself.

This SPTU had a large computer classroom with a couple dozens of Yamaha MSX-II. Those computers were not so popular already, mostly because of several PCs on the other side of the classroom. The PCs were of quite decent type – mostly 286s or even 386s. They were always occupied by people coding in Turbo C, Watcom C (just C, no pluses) or even in Prologue computer language. There was a metal box full of 5.25" and 3.5" floppy disks next to the one of the PCs. It was the equivalent of a modern data-center of considerable capacity.

There was a procedure of working with this archive. We would approach and do a polite and quiet greeting. The person using the computer would ask «what you've got?» in the most incautious manner. We were hesitant to present our floppy disks which were quickly taken and put into a disk drive. The person would check the contents of those disks with no visible interest. We were really proud if any of our files or archives would be copied from our disks. When this ritual was complete, the person would usually allow us to use the computer and the box of floppy disks saying something like «just grab what you need».

The box was nicely organized, and the disks had labels with contents description. Still, it took some time to get around that collection. Some of the programs, like compilers with all its libraries, would take up to 10 different disks and the copying process wasn't quick in general. Even so, each visit would enrich us with such a number of programs and tools that it would take weeks to get through all of them. The copied programs were valuable assets for further software exchange in other locations.

A friend of mine had his own Tandy-1000. It was an IBM PCjr clone – similar to PC XT, but with 320x200x16 video mode and enhanced audio capabilities, well, compared to a regular PC beeper. The biggest issue came in a form of monochrome display capabilities in shades of black and green. It wasn't a big problem for 16-color requiring games, they would start and work perfectly. That was a time when Sierra made quests were really popular: Space Quest, Hero Quest, and Larry.

Meanwhile in IFMO I got PC AT 286 with EGA and Amstrad PC1640 (similar to PC XT with EGA Mono) as a replacement of Pravets. By that time I was skilled in x86 Assembler and Turbo Pascal programming as well as in PC hardware. However, in neglecting my responsibilities and work attitude I matched my above mentioned colleague from the old block. The only difference was that damage caused by taken substances was in a different league compared to the damages done to me by computers.

This quality of our work was best characterized by the fact that after we left those positions a year later, there was no need in this position altogether. As far as I heard – there were no objections.

I tried to enter IFMO the next year, but my score was below the acceptance threshold for the Computer Science department. Instead, I got myself into a brand new Mechatronics department (Mechanics + Electronics, literally) in 1991.

We had applied mathematics practical studies using SM-4 every month. I remember having no good feelings about that noisy wonder with scattered flashing lights separated by a glass wall. We had to use terminals to write a simple Fortran program implementing a mathematical model. The compilation process would require closing source code editor TED and running two other programs which usually took minutes. Everything was so slow in general, SM-4 resources were inadequate to work with a dozen of terminals, on top of that the system crashes required to start over with the source code from time to time.

A single class was enough to understand that I am not willing to come back there again. Still, I had to persuade my teacher that I've got the Fortran language knowledge and experience. I started to search for the way to get out of this situation by getting through a Fortran book. It wasn't a reading as such, just browsing. There was an idea to write a Turbo Pascal program that performed all required calculations and to print the listing of that program with all Pascal keywords replaced with Fortran ones. This is what I tried to bring to my teacher. Unsurprisingly, he was very confused and surprised. It was clear and obvious that such a Fortran program would not work at all, even if it was written using a PC computer. The most discouraging was to see the working program printing the correct results. The deception was of the highest quality and my Fortran teacher, apparently, wasn't all that confident in his Fortran knowledge. To make things even trickier I told him a story about a new dialect of Arity Fortran which I made up of recently released Arity Prolog. This little fraud ended well and everything was accepted.

The situation with computer availability continued to improve. First of all, I obtained my first PC-compatible home computer – SM-1810.13 «Nivka». It was a PC XT 4.7Mhz 640 kb RAM CGA video adapter computer assembled with soviet components in a massive «full tower» computer case. Video card and the processor were original components but the system bus was not standard and could not accept extension cards. It had a sound of a jet plane taking off all thanks to not one but four powerful mains voltage operated fans.

It did not take me long to increase the CPU clock speed to 10MHz. The only known side-effect was a disk drive controller chip ejecting himself from PCB which I fixed with teeing it down with some threads. Not long after that I got a PC AT 286 with EGA and consecutively VGA video cards. The computer upgrade process by boards and adapters replacement was quite popular.

Those days I spent a lot of time after the classes or even instead of my classes in the Computer Science department at IFMO. There were two IBM PS/2 Model 30 (PC 286 with MCGA video adapter and microchannel bus), few PC AT 286, and the fastest computer I saw at that time – PC AT 386SX running at 16Mhz with VGA adapter. I remember the attempts to install the OS/2 operating system on that machine. OS/2 version 1.0 was still a joint development effort of Microsoft and IBM.

It was around 1992 when I discovered FidoNet…

FidoNet and BBS (FidoNet and BBS)

I had an unused modem for quite a while. It was in this «unused» state mainly down to two reasons. First of all, I had no one to connect to. On top of that it was an acoustic modem. This type of modem would require a phone handset to be connected to the modem using rubber sealed speaker and microphone outlets of the modem itself. The connection was established by using controls and buttons of the host phone itself. I will reveal no secret by saying I have never managed to connect to anyone using this modem.

The first modem that had a practical meaning was 1200 baud modem without MNP error correction protocol support. It was a full-size ISA board that required an active fan cooling for a reliable operation.

FidoNet was nothing like contemporary Internet. There are massive technological and organizational differences. Since the very start it was volunteer-driven network of «nodes» connected with each other in different towns and even countries. So-called «SysOps» (short for System Operator) had arrangements on data transfer, text electronic mail exchange, user base management, and resolving conflicts.

There was no membership cost and large nodes could be deployed in large companies that would actually foot the phone calls bill. Sometimes, it would include international calls as well. Any attempts to commercialize the FidoNet were terminated apart from some designated echo-conferences to buy and sell some hardware.

Echo-conference (or «echo» for short) was a main thing in FidoNet. I would describe it as a collection of global-size topic-driven forums. In contrast to the Internet, such forums could not have a dedicated owner, but rather had its own life within a network. Moderators were usually assigned by forum creators and managed the behaviour of participants and checked the content. To coordinate mail and echomail transfer as well as to warn or even excommunicate people who broke the rules there were network and regional coordinators and echo coordinators.

Technologically wise a typical FidoNet station was a computer connected to a phone line via modem and specialist software. It was a requirement to accept the other nodes' inbound connections at least for an hour within a day to do electronic mail exchange. More often, such stations used to be available during the night time when no people used the phone line; while the stations deployed in large companies could operate 24/7.

FidoNet used to have hundreds of active nodes and countless number of «points» at its height in the USSR. «Points» were managed by nodes through which they had access to electronic mail. That situation with the scale and efficiency of management was unique – such success was never seen in Europe or the USA.

FidoNet was different from the Internet for being not only the data transfer network but for being a society of people brought together by some basic democratic values allowing this network to exist. The mechanisms of those values' implementation were of a very pragmatic nature. Everything was designed to have a robust and reliable electronic mail exchange and to make sure that echo-conferences work as they should. All the proposed document alterations and changes were widely discussed and voted by Sysops. The same approach was used to elect system coordinators.

You needed nothing else but a computer with modem and configured software to get connected to FidoNet. Some of the FidoNet users improvised with electronic mail exchange using floppy disks – this rare sight was nicknamed «floppynet». The minimum level of computer knowledge required to set up computers and software was the most powerful filter to leave all of those occasional and random people outside the network. Most of the FidoNet users were in IT anyway, although there were non-technical background enthusiasts that wanted to discover this network and society. This type of semi-open society allowed to build a certain trust within users of FidoNet.

At the same time there was a version of an offline Internet called Relcom similar to the name of the largest provider. It was quite popular in companies and had newsgroups similar to echo-conferences. Those newsgroups were managed not in the best way and it was reflected in the quality of content too. It could be the lack of this natural filter as for FidoNet or absence of organized structure of echo-coordinators. It was a paid relationship between companies and providers which resulted in a mixture of spam and offtopic that no one could really stop. FidoNet users debated a lot about allowing the data exchange between certain FidoNet gateway nodes and such newsgroups.

FidoNet participation had a footprint in real life too. For example, it could be considered as a positive employment reference if an applicant was a FidoNet user. Also, the rumor had it — if the share of FidoNet users in one given company would exceed a certain number — the company is doomed and will eventually collapse.

On top of that it was common to mention that you are a FidoNet user to get a discount or additional services in computer hardware shops.

FidoNet coordinators were often well-known people in the real world. I remember the COMTEK exhibitions in Moscow in the late 90s. Those events were among other things informal meetings events for SysOps from Russia and ex-USSR states. They were gathering there in impressive numbers — just imagine a few thousands for people in a single square.

One day, a car with someone important inside tried to use the shortcut across that square instead of going all the way around it.

The car was moving slowly through the crowd while beeping and flashing lights. It managed to get to the middle of the square where was our regional FidoNet coordinator. I was talking to him that very moment when the car appeared high behind him. He glanced at my face looking behind him and instead of moving away he just waited and when the car literally touched him — he sat on a bonnet. The bodyguards jumped out of the car and took a menacing stance. It wasn't a smartest move as the other people got closer and decided to take part in this confrontation. The bodyguards were smart enough to see the size of the crowd around and finally they retreated in the car which moved back.

Bulletin Board System — or BBS for short coexisted with FidoNet those years. Those systems were hosted on the same computers as FidoNet stations and people often mixed those two in this country. BBS was different from FidoNet. While FidoNet station was a system to exchange electronic mail, the BBS allowed online access to the computer itself — contemporary telnet is the nearest thing. Anyone could call the phone number of BBS and start downloading files, read mail, or talk to sysop after logging in. The users were valued and ranked by sysops which would give them different connection time allowances and download limits. The user value would depend on the amount and quality of shared software or how well the administrator knows the user himself. The phone line impose a connection limit of a single user at a time, while the rest of the users would be dialing in repeatedly trying to connect. Finally, the active user would hit the time limit or the line would be dropped by the modem.

The connection was established by a terminal program. This program would control modem via serial port by sending commands like dial the phone number: 'ATPD123' or change the connection speed or protocol. It was common to keep the modem speaker turned on to control the connection status or to hear if another person picked up the phone. The modem would generate a noise-like connection sequence to synchronize connection parameters with the remote modem, people would even recognize connection parameters listening to those sounds. Sound would be turned off on successful connection and the user would see a connection confirmation in the terminal — something like 'CONNECT 2400/MNP'.

My home phone line was occupied by SkyNet Station BBS for a long time. It was really unusual and very interesting to talk to all those unknown callers from other towns and even countries. Some of them used «Iskra-2» (alternative industry-sponsored communication lines).

Because FidoNet/BBS stations' working time was from midnight to early morning, I often crashed out in some vulnerable moments during my classes in university. During the first and second course such an attitude to the study wasn't appropriate, but I was lucky.

Foreign BBS were one of the main sources to get new software, quite usually it was pirate software or warez. Those days the international calls were expensive, and people tried to use a company phone line to make them. Often, the company would not even know about such practices.

Because of calls costs there were a variety of attempts to fool the system and make free calls. Unfortunately, the 'bluebox' tricks known in the West did not work with local phone stations. By the time one creative person managed to adopt this approach to make it work in Russia. Sadly, by then BBS became obsolete.

The phone lines of that period left much to be deserved to say the least. At first typical modems would rarely hit the speed of 2400bps — most of the time the practical transfer speed would be much lower. There was rumor that the theoretical limit was 9600bps. It is fair to say — at the same time were people claiming 33 MHz to be the highest achievable frequency for CPUs. Of course, all of those numbers were about to change.

The new generation of more sophisticated modems arrived which could adapt better for phone lines of bad quality. Some of those modems could efficiently use the phone lines not very suitable for regular voice calls. Telebit modems were implementing PEP and TurboPEP protocols that could get to 23000 bps. Those were rare but very noise tolerant.

Zyxel (ZYX 19200bps) and US Robotics (HST 16800bps) modems were widespread. They supported the standard v32 (9600bps) and v32bis (14400bps) as well as their own higher speed protocols requiring compatible modems on both sides. The choice of Zyxel or US Robotics had a very religious taste to SysOps.

There was a curious story associated with HST protocol…

Initially, it was only supported in higher grade US Robotics Courier modems, and the cheaper model USR Sportster was released without HST support. A basic reverse engineering revealed that schematics of both modems are almost identical but firmware alterations wasn't enough to upgrade Sportster to Courier capabilities.

There was rivalry and some kind of a competition between two people in St.Petersburg was started. The intensity of this competition was much like a war sometimes. I remember bringing my Sportster to one of those gurus. I was told to wait for a couple hours for him to perform the required updates which would involve nothing less than particle matter accelerators in one of the research institutes. Of course it wasn't true and everything was much more down to Earth.

The other guru could be found in Medical University in Karpovka street. There was a large room with a large computer case taken from an older ES (IBM System/360 clone) computer. Inside of the case there was a mattress where you could find the sleeping owner. The semi-opened fireproof box that contained computer and modem acting as node 2:5030/131 was aligned to the wall.

The file sizes and storage size requirements were growing fast due to increased transfer speeds. HDDs were expensive and not very reliable and CDs were nowhere to be seen. Once, I saw an optical disk video player at LKI («Korabelka»). It was 1996, the disk was about 8" big and it had an analogue method of storing information.

That is why it was popular to increase the floppy disk capacity using different tricks. The special software would allow you to write 800kb of data into 360kb-rated floppy disk using 720kb capable floppy disk drive and 1.2mb floppy disks could be upgraded to 1.4mb. While it was nice to get extra floppy disk space it did not solve the major problem. We still needed to store all the software we had to exchange and backup. Losing a copy of the program was not an option considering how much effort it would require to get a replacement. Modern approach «why do I need to keep it — I will download it when I need it» was unfeasible.

One of the popular solutions was offered by a local company in Zelenograd. Arvid PC board would allow the use of a regular VHS player as a streamer. A single cassette would store up to 2Gb of data with all redundancy and error-correction codes. It was a very impressive capacity for those years while being affordable and reliable enough.

Hackers and the Demoscene (Hackers and the Demoscene)

At that time, the IT labor market in Russia looked odd. There was a supply of high quality specialists with up to date IT knowledge but very limited demand for those positions. It was tricky for a good specialist to gain practical benefits. As a direct result — it was typical to see non-profit high complexity projects.

Around that time movements took its shapes — the software hacking and the demoscene. They were closely related in the beginning similar to the world of Commodore 64, although for different reasons.

It all started with 'warez': commercial games, tools, and any software products obtained for free. Even before Internet arrival we had it all — you could download fresh software releases via special BBSes hosted in the USA and Europe. There was also IceNet — the international network designed to exchange the software technically similar to FidoNet. Almost every single IceNet station in Russia was running a FidoNet node on the same machine. The real names were forbidden to use and I created my first nickname 'coderipper' there. Actually, 'nickname' is a term brought by IRC, we used to have 'aliases' instead.

Many software products tried their best to protect themselves from illegal copying. A hacker would have to have an excellent knowledge for hardware, software and system level functions. There was nothing like contemporary IDA or virtualization tools, the target program would easily detect the presence of debuggers like AFD or Turbo Debugger. Additional tricks were incorporated in code itself to prevent the popular disassembler tools like Sourcer to work properly.

This valuable knowledge found its purpose in creating simple but nice looking graphic effects — fire effect or plasma. I decided to create a new FidoNet echo-conference DEMO.DESIGN in 1994. We exchanged the programming ticks, collected new effects and discussed the way to implement or optimize particular algorithms and effects.

It was inevitable to move from discussion on effects to have our first coding competitions. The tasks and challenges were pushing the limits of creativity and code optimization — for example, «implement triangle rasterization using the smallest code footprint» or to write a tiny piece of code of no longer than 128 bytes that would do a certain visual effect. Target platform was PC AT 80286 running DOS as the most widespread and common.

Early 90s was the time period of early demoparties. They started to appear in Scandinavian countries and gathered demosceners coding visual effects with music. Basically, it is all about non-interactive visual effects with music showing the author's skills in programming, extensive knowledge of software and hardware features and designed to impress with complexity, performance or visual appearance of generated animation.

The demoparties were known in the late 80s but they were very localized due to the lack of networks and the not so legal nature of those events. Such demoparties used to exchange paid software and were pretty much «copy-parties». It all set to change with the Assembly demoparty held in Finland in 1992. This party is known because of the release of a hugely important 'Second Reality' demo and massive attendance figures of thousands of people from many countries.

Here, in Russia we saw it from a distance and due to the increasing activity in our DEMO.DESIGN conference we started thinking of having our own demoparty. It was August of 1995 when our group of friends with a couple sponsors hired the venue with equipment and Internet connection in Saint-Petersburg to make our first ever Russian demoparty — ENLiGHT'95. It was a massive success and we still keep it going every year as Chaos Constructions demoparty.

Sadly, not many pictures are available from those early years — the digital cameras were not around yet and no one could be bothered to bring in film cameras and prints. There are some VHS tapes which capture the spirit and atmosphere of those parties. We had no projector so we had to improvise with a couple of regular CRT TVs — nothing fancy. People gathered around, sat on the floor trying to see what was displayed. There were no laptops and the only computers available — three PC AT 486s along with Commodore Amiga and Commodore 64 were allocated exclusively for competition events and showcasing other demoscene releases. The voting was organized in written form on pieces of paper. Internet connection used to broadcast updates from the party over IRC.

The majority of releases were PC DOS based and were written either in Assembler and Turbo Pascal. As a good indication of the skill level of some participants I remember one of the participants used the demo music track written all by himself in the music sequencer (SoundWave tracker) that he created himself too. It did not stop there, his 3D visualization engine used polygonal models created in bespoke 3D modelling software he created himself again. Even by modern standards it is a massive effort and excellent skill set. Later, that demoscener went into the cryptographic technology industry.

Many developers were captivated by the idea of creating their own operating system. There was a very limited choice of general use operating systems around. Unix was so basic that many of the developers saw it as a pile of disconnected chips and boards instead of a fully operational computer. DOS and Windows 3.xx did not match expectations of the user and OS/2 was about to get to 'usable' state, granted you had a compatible computer too. Macs were hard to find and only a few lucky ones saw Macs in Russia at all.

We had different groups identifying and addressing the most important aspects of a modern operating system — from the distributed processing and data storage systems all the way to intermediate code capable of running on different hardware and software environments. There were many ideas of optimizing the performance for an average computer which at that time was pretty limited in resources.

Most of the operating system development discussion was in SPB.SYSPRG FidoNet echo-conference and regular offline meetings hosted by SysOp 2:5030/269 who was known for creating IBM/360 emulator for PC. There was no final OS product created as such — mostly due to the requirement to create device drivers for all existing variety of devices. That was a huge task on its own and it would require a massive team to support it. Still, it was an amazing and useful experience to get deeper into different architectures of available CPUs and design principles of existing operating systems. It really expanded our knowledge of computers and allowed us to see existing, new and 'so-called new' technologies from a very different point of view.

It should be mentioned here that apart from upgrading Sportsters into Couriers, SysOp of 2:5030/131 mentioned above created the RTS-386 system, that allowed a multiuser access with inexpensive terminals to a single PC AT 386. Every user would have a fully functional workplace in a Windows environment with graphics.

Sprint and Internet (Sprint and Internet)

One day my FidoNet friend sent me a message that he has access to the CompuServe network. Getting into CompuServe in St.Petersburg was similar to crossing the country border illegally. You were required to use the modem to call a well known phone number known only to the limited group of people. I still remember that phone number ending with '92' and can quote it at any time. The connection would require a symbol sequence to be typed in, then the login itself, the password and provide the details of a bank card. None of us had our own bank cards and the card details we were using came from a very dodgy source.

When the connection procedure was completed you could use a special DOS client application that allowed access to CompuServe features. The connection was very expensive and the time had to be used efficiently. I was downloading the new issues of Dr. Dobbs magazine and browsing Usenet groups.

Very soon the card details and logins were expired but we had a good taste of the network. Also, we have found that the phone number we used was a regional X.25 Sprint network access point. This network was used by large companies and banks to communicate with each other. While having direct access to a very powerful network we never had a slightest idea how to abuse it — it was just beyond of our interests. Some other people were trying to run a fraud using this system and quickly became a part of criminal chronicles in the news.

We did not have any good description of what we can do while connected to the network but few issues of Phrack magazine hinted us that typing in numbers and keywords would eventually connect us with other remote computers. We were never successful in connecting to really interesting places or rarely had access rights to do anything at the remote computer. All in all it was an amazing experience to connect to American bank mainframe and chat to another stranger who got there the same way as you are, it was quite an adventure.

I will need to explain a bit more there. Most of those unauthorized or backdoor connections were made because of curiosity or examination of technical and security flaws, or just to show the skill level. There was no monetary gain involved at all. You could not even name yourself a hacker as it was something on par of calling yourself to be the smartest person in front of others.

The word «hacker» itself had no negative attitude and just indicated a skilled and dedicated person who did something just out of curiosity, for the sake of the process itself, not necessarily limited to the IT industry.

Of course, the FBI would chase those down disregarding if hackers were doing their activities for profit or not which was known since C64 episodes from the 80s. Still, those cases were rare in the West and literally non-existent in Russia. The local law enforcement had no legislation on that matter or even understanding what is supposed to be good and what is not.

I discovered the fully-featured Internet in a very specific environment. A friend of mine invited me to his workplace one evening in 1993. He was working in a company in 'New Holland' which had a legitimate Internet connection. While his personal workspace had no direct Internet connection it was possible to connect to the other computer at the office floor via LAN. That other computer was configured to connect to the Internet via dialup to KIAE Moscow. Needless to say we were not paying for those phone calls.

Our first Internet experience at KIAE was Lynx — a text-only web browser. Also, we were quickly able to find how to start an IRC client which immediately asked us for a nickname. We needed to act fast and my second and much shorter nickname was generated there — «frog». It would be fair to say that our first Internet experience was very similar with Sprint experiments rather than modern Internet usage. Shortly after a number of local Internet providers appeared and there was no need to continue using those cumbersome and semi-legal ways to get to the Internet.

I saw my first web browser capable of displaying images and graphics in the office of Internet Service Provider 'Kaja' located in one of the basements close to the 'Rossiya' hotel.

The Internet was taking over — the dial up connection was easy to get for doing a job for someone or by sharing someone's login. All of that brought me to a brief introduction to Unix…

Education system and research institutes started to develop their own networks. The subsidiary of Steklov Mathematical Institute used a grant to install Sun Classic running Solaris 2.0 and dedicated line Internet connection. We could use this system thanks to FidoNet friends but it was not as convenient as using the dial-up at home and we made to share this connection. We knew nothing about Unix but still managed to rebuild SunOS pppd to run on Solaris. In moments of desperation I also had tried to code on Sun Classic using Sparc assembler.

Palmtops (Palmtops)

The mobile devices came from the West and became popular in Russia around 1997. The first devices were pretty basic — the smartphones like Nokia 2110, 3110, 6210 or Siemens ME45. They had a limited set of features — phone calls, a simplistic notebook, and calendar. The numeric keyboard was limiting the amount of text could be typed in too. The mobile computers similar to Apple Newton were very expensive and hard to find. The things changed for the better with the introduction of PalmPilot by US Robotics. It was an inexpensive pocket-sized computer with a stylus designed primarily to make notes.

In a brief period of time few of my friends bought PalmPilots. I bought mine too. All of us had plenty of questions about software development and hardware accessories. We started an informal 'The club of mobile device owners' and had weekly meetings in the 'Kronverk' company office close to the Tekhnologichesky Institut subway station. This particular company was famous for hosting a large FidoNet node — 2:5030/2 and the Sysop of that node was elected twice as network coordinator.

The news about our club spread quickly. At that time there were no other clubs like ours and we saw more people coming with other mobile devices — PocketPC, Palm, Newton, Psion and other more exotic models. Our club was active for several years with weekly meetings at the History of Arts Institute. The active part of the club ceased to exist when all information and software became easy to get online. Nevertheless, people were coming to discuss general IT tops or just to have a good time in the company of friends.

Technology-driven clubs and societies either transformed into commercial projects or disappeared altogether as a result of widespread adoption of Internet, mobile devices and generally better access to information altogether.

The skilled IT jobs started to be paid well. People famous for doing projects of high complexity started to enjoy a proper compensation for their efforts. Money was set to become a decisive factor of choosing what to do in IT. Low level development survives in a limited number of applications and everything else becomes much less a creative process but rather an industrial scale routine job. Everyone has a computer or smartphone connected to the Internet these days — it requires no extraordinary skills to get information today. The only limits you can do online are usually the ones set by the legal system. It was all expected to see, but also it makes everything about computers to feel so ordinary. By removing those perils and challenges of early computers and networks we have lost that odd romantic feel about it.

I am curious what would be the next Big Thing, the technological breakthrough that will rival the arrival of computers and global networks?

Peter SobolevPeter Sobolev

March, 2017

St.Petersburg, Russia

frog@enlight.ru

(English version published in May, 2020)

翻译自: https://habr.com/en/post/502022/

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