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Ask HN: How many iPhones match the total USSR computing power in 1970? 1985?

2 pointsby brandeluneover 9 years ago

1 comment

dalkeover 9 years ago
<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;CDC_7600" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;CDC_7600</a> could handle 10-36 MFLOPS in 1970, which is about an iPhone 4.<p>The Elbrus 2, which was the first Soviet supercomputer, didn&#x27;t come until 1977. Earlier systems, like the BESM, were mainframes - designed more for data handling than compute power. It looks like 355 BESM-6:s were made, ending in 1987. There were also Minsk mainframes.<p>There were also clones of US hardware, like the ES EVM clone of the IBM 360 (production didn&#x27;t start until 1972), and PDP-11&#x2F;VAX clones. Those were after 1970.<p>I&#x27;ll use 50 BESM-6:s as my shot-in-the-dark estimate. Those seemed to be 1 megaflop (see <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;BESM" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;BESM</a> ), so the USSR could probably do about 50 MFLOPS in 1970.<p>Or no more than three iPhones.<p>For 1985 it&#x27;s much harder to even guess. Is it even reasonable to include the aggregate sum of the microcomputers of that era? Not if you want to simulate an H-bomb. Only you can answer that.
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