What an engaging read. Thank you so much for this book - it's a thoroughly engrossing insight into something that was so important, and so obscure, for everyone in the second half of the 20th century. I've read through it once, but now need to do so again. There's a lot to digest. I found this site when I was trying to research the history of the Soviet semiconductor industry, trying to answer the question of how good it actually was and why it didn't have as much influence on space and military techology as happened in the US. That still seems vastly under-researched... Thanks again. I'm going to keep coming back to this book, I'm sure! -- Rupert Goodwins, Technology Editor, ZDNet UK

The book is full of wonderful stories, and for me the best show how technology can, indeed, follow alternate trajectories when the conditions allow. American computing technology was not directly transferred to the Soviet Union in the 1950s and 1960s, as it was to other countries in Europe and Asia. Yet the Soviets developed computers, based on designs they conceived of and executed themselves. --Paul Ceruzzi, Curator of Aerospace Computing and Electronics, Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum