Hello everyone,

I’m pleased to be able to let you know that SIGCIS is now hosting a free, downloadable version of Malinovsky, Boris Nikolaevich. 2010 (2nd ed.). Pioneers of Soviet Computing. Anne Fitzpatrick (ed.) and Emmanuel Aronie (trans.). An earlier version had been available online for purchase, but the new edition has a creative commons license and can be downloaded freely.

http://www.sigcis.org/?q=node/85

The book is a translation and heavily edited updating of a memoir and history by Boris Malinovsky,  major figure in Soviet computing research whose personal involvement with computing goes back to the MESM, the first computer built in continental Europe. Malinovsky later led the design of the Dnepr, the main Soviet industrial control computer and worked on a number of Soviet minicomputers. The book includes an insider account of debates around the Soviet shift to copy the IBM-360 system.

This is part of our new “Member Contributions” area. I am sending a separate call for contributions for this area – we expect it to function as something akin to a technical report series where unpublished conference papers, thesis work, etc. can be posted on behalf of our members.

Tom