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The Ukrainian Personal Computers that Rebooted the USSR

  • The National Museum of Computing Block H, Bletchley Park Bletchley, England, MK3 6GX United Kingdom (map)

About the event:

As the Cold War entered its twilight decades, a revolution in personal computing started to sweep the east - and the country feeding the USSR’s appetite was Ukraine.

Join Mykola "Nick" Shcherbyna as he takes us beyond the IBM PC compatibles sanctioned by Big Blue during the 1980s and 1990s to revisit the USSR’s first ZX Spectrum clone, tackles the shipping mistake responsible for the birth of Soviet DIY computers, and discusses unofficial Intel processors.

Why did Ukraine – the birthplace of Europe’s first modern, digital computer decades before with the valve-based MEOM – take the digital lead at this time and what happened next? And what did Britain’s army of bedroom coders hacking at their BBC Micros and Spectrums have in common with their Ukrainian counterparts? Find out in this talk.

About the speaker

Mykola Shcherbyna is the co-founder and head of the Museum of Computer Technology in Lviv, Ukraine. A consultant with more than 25 years’ experience in embedded systems and cybersecurity, Mykola is also a lecturer in the cybersecurity department at the Faculty of Applied Mathematics and Informatics at Lviv University.

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