History of computer hardware in Eastern Bloc countries

Eastern Bloc manufacturers created copies of Western designs based on intelligence gathering and reverse engineering.

[4] In October 1962 the "Commission for Scientific Problems in Computing" (Комиссия Научные Вопросы Вычислительной Техники, КНВВТ) was founded in Warsaw and modelled after the International Federation for Information Processing.

[5][6] Computer design and production began to be coordinated between the Comecon countries in 1964, when the Edinaya Sistema mainframe (Unified System, ES, also known as RIAD) was introduced.

[11] The R-300 computer, released in 1969, demonstrated the technical and managerial skills of VEB Robotron, and established a leading role for East Germany in the joint development efforts.

[13] The availability of western computing hardware differed considerably between communist countries; in the early 1970s they were most common in Czechoslovakia, where a licensing agreement was signed with the French Groupe Bull.

[14] In 1983 the representatives of the national academies of sciences of the Comecon countries met in Sofia to discuss the development of a new generation of computer systems.

[15] In 1985 Ukrainian researchers managed to reverse-engineer the ZX Spectrum chip and built a hardware clone using readily available parts.

[16] Over 50 different versions of the Spectrum were created in Eastern Bloc countries over the next few years, including the Hobbit, Baltica, Pentagon, Scorpion, Leningrad, Didaktik (Czechoslovakia), Spectral (East Germany) and Cobra (Romania).

[20] ES EVM (ЕС ЭВМ, Единая система электронных вычислительных машин, meaning "Unified System of Electronic Computers") was a series of clones of IBM's System/360 and System/370 mainframes.

[21] Initially announced as a Soviet venture in 1967, in 1969 it became an international project, involving Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary and Poland.

[25] As in the case of ES EVM, the program began as a Soviet venture and in 1974 became an international project involving Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Cuba, East Germany, Hungary, Poland and Romania.