During a business trip to Moscow in 1954, I visited the special construction bureau SKB-245 of the Machine and Instrument Building Ministry. In those days, it was one of the most well known organizations that developed computers. Since the purpose of my visit was to learn about the latest projects, I was able to see the big room where the Ural-1 computer was being assembled and got to meet the leader of the project, Bashir Rameev.
I had heard of him before and knew that he was one of the designers of the new Strela computer. He was young and handsome, of medium height and slim build; he wore glasses. He was a quiet person and spoke with very little emotion. As I stood next to him, I realized that even though we were roughly the same age, his life and professional experiences had been much more profound than mine.
That was the beginning of our acquaintance. In later years, when Rameev worked in the city of Penza near the Ural Mountains' region, I saw him occasionally at national computer conferences where specialists gathered from all over the Soviet Union.
From what I remember, Rameev's name was not on the list of esteemed conference speakers. Fortunately, this didn't diminish his prestige because he managed the highly reputable Penza scientific school, which was renowned for its huge creative output in the development and manufacturing of general-purpose computers. In those days, one out of every two computers in the country was made in Penza. While Lebedev and his Moscow group worked on development and manufacturing of supercomputers, provincial Penza developed and mass-produced "ordinary," all-purpose computers.
Over the years, I came to know the extraordinary, very modest and talented Rameev very well.
Rameev avoided contact with journalists and newspaper reporters and in fact, tried to eliminate all publicity about his work; very few articles about him or his work were ever published. That is why only a few specialists knew that Rameev and Brook developed the Soviet digital electronic computer M-1 and received an invention certificate for its common bus, or that Rameev had been Deputy Senior Constructor of the Strela, the first mass-produced computer. He was also the first to develop the principle of hardware and software compatibility, implementing it in the family of computers designed under his management. Like Lebedev, Rameev devoted his life to computer development, and the results of his work are comparable to the best foreign achievements of that time. Because he was a "son of an enemy of the people" he was dismissed from his institute in 1938 and was not able to receive a higher education. Nevertheless, owing to his extraordinary talent, he became Chief Constructor of the Ural series of universal computers, which were named in memory of the place where he grew up.
In one of the newspapers issued at the Penza Institute where Rameev worked, some of his colleagues complained about their manager's introversion, quoting him: "It is easier for me to make a new computer than to stand at a podium and give a speech!"
Indeed, he hardly ever spoke at conferences or large meetings; but the results of his research always showed up in technical reports, operational documentation for manufacturing computers, in computers themselves, and through the accomplishments of organizations that used the Ural computers in the 1960s and 1970s.
Because of his efforts, Penza became the cradle of rigorous scientific training in the field of universal digital machines. At the end of the 1960s, when the third generation computers were in their planning stage, Rameev had every reason to count on the Penza school taking the leading role in the process and spent a great deal of time on the preparations.
Like Lebedev, Rameev was a proponent of developing genuine Soviet computers. At the same time, he and his supporters were counting on a close partnership with European firms, which were looking for an alliance with the Soviet Union in hopes of eliminating the American monopoly in the computer market.
However, the scientifically sound proposals by Lebedev, Rameev, and Glushkov – the most authoritative Soviet computer scientists of the period – were ignored by the Soviet Union's elite political leaders, who resolved to copy the IBM-360. Because he disagreed with this decision, Rameev was removed from the game like a superfluous pawn, despite the fact that his career was blossoming. By the age of 44, he had trained a remarkable team of technicians and designers who in turn had created dozens of universal and specialized computers, plus more than a hundred peripheral devices.
The results of the Soviet government's decision were deplorable and moreover, tragic. Although still in their formal life cycle, by the 1980s most of the 13,000 manufactured ES models no longer operated; the ones still working produced diminished economic returns and didn't recoup their original investment. Such was the sad reality of living under a dictatorial administration and Rameev publicly condemned their resolution.
While writing this book I visited Mikhail M. Botvinnik,[1] an old friend of Rameev's. I wanted to hear his opinion of Rameev as a person and friend.
I was pleasantly surprise by Botvinnik's youthful appearance because he was already in his eighties when we met. He told me of his first meeting with Bashir Rameev during a trip to Penza, noting that a deep friendship developed between them. "Gentle, kind, modest and extremely honest," that is how Botvinnik described Rameev. "At the same time, he was incredibly talented, possessing a unique combination of technical savvy and practicality. Even though the beginning of his life was difficult because of the arrest of his father in 1933, it did not detract from his dignity, love of people, and desire to serve our nation."
Computers evolve; the new generation quickly surpasses the old one. This allowed Rameev to design first, second and third generation computers. At one time, his designs comprised the majority of universal computer stock in the Soviet Union. Today, a few of them remain only in museums. Political administrators halted the development of the Ural computers, because the battle between the opposing parties was unfavorably stacked in favor of the bureaucrats. But it was a Pyrrhic victory that brought no glory to the Soviet government.
[1] Translators Note: Mikhail Botvinnik, born in 1911, was a world chess champion from 1948–1963, and a Doctor of Technical Sciences.