Some of the people mentioned in the book were my lecturers in Moscow State University. All great people, but sometimes courses like 'Computer architecture' left me with a mixed feeling. They used all these old architectures like BESM-6 as examples. It was great to know how it all started, but I felt like I am not getting enough knowledge about actual modern architectures, and I went through couple of electives to make up for it.<p>Note to the translator and readers: please do not use Russian patronymic names in the translation. It is common for Russians to address each other with name and patronymic (a sign of respect). But patronymics confuse non-Russians. For example the book refers to Sergei Lebedev (or Sergei Alexeevich Lebedev if we use patronymic) as 'Sergei Alexeevich' many times over and over, and to non-Russians 'Alexeevich' sounds like a family name.
If you're interested in this area, I highly recommend Francis Spufford's book "Red Plenty". It's a fictionalised account of some of this history (Lebedev is a character, for example). Its main focus is the interaction between Soviet computer science, economics and political idealism.<p>Here's one review: <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/bookreviews/7956346/Red-Plenty-by-Francis-Spufford-review.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/bookreviews/7956346...</a>