Cross-posted with the Official Google Blog Orthodox calendar , December 25 is just an ordinary day. Little known to most, however, it’s also a day that marks the anniversary of a key development in European computer history. Sergey Lebedev ’s pioneering MESM project . MESM, a Russian abbreviation for “Small Electronic Calculating Machine,” is regarded as the earliest, fully operational electronic computer in the Soviet Union—and indeed continental Europe. Turn on captions for the English translation. Alan Turing ,” Sergey Lebedev had been thinking about computing as far back as the 1930’s, until interrupted by war. In 1946 he was made director of Kyiv’s Institute of Electrical Engineering. Soon after, stories of “electronic brains” in the West began to circulate and his interest in computing revived. Sergey Lebedev*
Feofania , on the outskirts of Kyiv. just 20 people —the team was extraordinarily committed. They worked in shifts 24 hours a day, and many lived in rooms above the laboratory. (You can listen to a lively account of this time in programme 3 of the BBC’s ”Electronic brains” series.)MESM and team members in 1951. From left to right: Lev Dashevsky, Zoya Zorina-Rapota, Lidiya Abalyshnikova, Tamara Petsukh, Evgeniy Dedeshko
*All photos thanks to ukrainiancomputing.org . Posted by Marina Tarasova, Communications Associate, Ukraine
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