There is a HUGE amount of work you have done. All that blueprints, floor plans, graphics... I wish you all the best to achieve your goals and museum, you have already collected so many information like nobody has ever done before. Preserving the history (good or bad) is important - thank you!!!
Many things I will add on Patreon. It is not about money or so, but there will be translations, scans, etc. which greatly will add to this video. Actually, one of our Patrons made his research and found patents which Yuditsky and Akushsky were talking about in their 1982 report!
That was just astonishing - a 45-bit long word, 1MFlop capable, multi-processor linked system *in the 60s* ??? What an amazing technical achievement. I am also really, really impressed by the technical archaeology carried out to reconstruct the system from the wreckage you show in the footage. The concept of the "Cassettes" as fixed memory modules (ROM) seems to be on par with core memory as a concept. A brilliant piece of detective work, congratulations! 🤓👍
Thank you! This machine is perhaps my 'sacred' thing in Zone's research, we spent there weeks around it. This is the thing: NOT mflops. RCS could not work with float point directly, therefore was a hardware conversion for such operations (notice - there is even a converter status on console). When it came to float points or just division, it was much slower. One of super big advantages of K340A was that given it operated with very small numbers, that A7 rack contained pre-calculated results, so it allowed to implement table ariphmetics which replaced calculations in many cases thus boosting the speed.
@@ChernobylFamily So, Look Up Tables and shifted, fixed decimal point calculations? That explains the long word length - I'm going to watch this again as I think I missed this. A superb piece of work, nonetheless!
@@RobSchofield seems so. But I'd like to be sure, so am trying to find a public book by Yuditsky and Akushsky from 1967 where they explain their rework of RCS which eventually was put into this machine. Seemingly it was published in a relatively small number of copies bit it might explain a lot.
@@ChernobylFamily If you do locate a copy, please do a follow up as that would be *really* interesting. I have a feeling I used a numerical method like this at University when I was studying electronics (a LONG time ago).
We, as HAM operators, weren't so happy with the woodpecker, it came so far, that all HAMs in the world were jamming the signal for three straight days. Which took it offline. So they got bombarded with jamming signals from all sides. The biggest event ever in the HAM community back in the day. We got even from the governments a yes, to use more power for this purpose, because they received so many complaints. I used a 9 element log per, at 38m height, with pure 1200w power, you can do the math in ERP radiation. And pushed as much harmonics as we could.
@AustinSteingrube gentlemen, forgive me my low level of education, but can you be so kind to give a bit more details to ensure I properly understand what the hell you all are talking about? Many thanks in advance. Alex from Ukraine, non-native English speaker. Edit: jokes apart, I just have a feeling I probably not completely correctly understand what ham station is.
It blows my mind how you guys could decipher the history of this system starting from some empty racks and old destroyed papers. Watching with interest every video you post but this has to be one of the best so far.
This is so interesting. I hate to say this but to a certain degree, old Soviet tech is (possibly) like alien tech. East and West solved same problems but in different ways. You are doing a fantastic job delving into this old tech. It needs to be preserved and cherished. An maybe, just maybe, might we all learn something.
@@daicekube Yeah, 45-bit words are certainly odd. Normally it would be in powers of two. I wonder how many of those are parity bits though, because those are often odd. Edit: looking at the 'ROM" trays at 13:03, it looks like there might be 3 rows of parity bits, bringing the total to 48. I don't know what the Cyrillic designations for those last three are. Ordinarily you'd have parity for error checking in RAM, not ROM, but maybe they served that function while testing the program? IDK.
@@BillAnt you will laugh, but there was a joke at actual Duga before 1986: "those bridges at the top are for soldiers with binoculars looking for a missile"
This is such unique content. Well done. It's mind blowing for me as a computer engineer. I was wondering how the Duga computer worked for many, many years. I remember Duga's noises on my father's HF receiver when I was a kid. I hope times will change for you all soon. So you'll be able to create the museum that many would like to visit. It's an unique site with history which is part of the collective memory of every European raised in the 80's. It's well worth preserving what's left.
People can barely drive as it is, and it's questionable if most should be allowed drive at all. Letting them have access to the z axis would be a disaster.
This is fascinating. I once worked with a guy at a company building custom crates for bulk oversized freight. Before he came to the US, Sergei worked as a mainframe computer engineer for the Soviet space program. I bet he was very familiar with this equipment.
@@ChernobylFamily - Ahh, I see. Very specific uses for each I suppose. Sergei was a nice guy who brought with him from his motherland absolutely no desire to work in his former profession. His dream was to open a neighborhood convenience store, haha!
What a fascinating system. It used atmospheric ducting to get radiation to the plasma from a rocket plume. Then that signal had to duct back to the receiving stations. What a control problem. You have to sense the atmospheric conditions to the target, then tune emissions to optimize signal to the target. The processing requirements at the receiver must have been more intense than the computing requirements for the transmitter. Were the receiver stations co located at this site? I imagine they'd be located elsewhere and separated. But regardless I would imagine the station would conduct all kinds of different emissions. Emissions to probe the atmosphere along the path to the target area in order to set emissions to actually scan for rocket plumes, then sense dopler and spectral information from the returns off the rocket plumes over the scan area. Do you plan on eventually going into the theory of detection, signal analysis, software requirements, and data products?
Chernobyl-2, featured in the video is a receiver only. Transmitter was in Chernihyv region at Lubech-1 town. Then, one more pair was at far east of USSR. Sure, we will cover that in the next episode.
Absolutely fascinating! I hope the war ends soon and work can be restarted. You're taking on an extremely challenging task, proper respect to you - I've considered you an equivalent of CuriousMarc on our side of the Iron Curtain, and it shows. The opportunity to talk with the original engineers and listen to their stories is priceless - go for it while you can, it's a race against the clock now. I'm glad you do it. Nice ferrite core shenanigans, haha!
There are works of Antonin Swoboda in English as he moved to the U.S. in late 60s., though Yuditsky and Akushsky very much enhanced his inventions. There should be many sources.
Woah, weird computer architecture, and also mind blowing that it was still in use during the 80's. It seems it was a super specialized signal processor. The manual bit programming in the constant plug boards is also crazy.
Wow ! Just wow ! The historic works of preservation covering what was one of the most highest levels of secrecy. I must say thank YOU , I have been anticipating for this drop for some time now . Bravo folks , bravo , words cannot describe my feeling right now . Y’all crushed , ya crushed it ! I am truly at a loss for words that appropriately describe my thoughts currently .
I remember hearing the Woodpecker on shortwave on an old Eddystone valve radio in the early eighties. I recently restored the very same radio after more than 40 years storage - it has outlived the woodpecker :)
Amazing! I've always been super curious about how the computing and signal processing behind the Douga radar (and other OTH radars of the time) worked. I was never able to find any details online. Thank you for this documentary!
Well, I believe it would be more correct to compare not with a pentium, but what was available in 1986. I believe here it is more complex, and very similar to the situation with SKALA of the ChNPP. It is not about computing, but processing of external connections. They could install mainframes based on ICs, after all they did, but still it was not the best solution due to latency. Speaking about transistors, I believe one of the reasons was that discrete transistors are far more stable in high radiation which could appear if what they have been detecting would have reach its destination.
Чому б не врятувати ті плати, які лишилися, щоб дійсно відновити хоча б декілька шаф. Годинник до речі не авіаційний, не АЧС-1, а 60ЧП, судячи по фото. Вони часто стояли на панелях різного наземного стаціонарного обладнання. Скоріше за все він не видавав ніяких імпульсів, цими годинниками розподіляли машинний час між групами зазвичай. Рятувати треба те, що все ж таки можна ще врятувати. Ви робите неймовірну роботу, дякую.
Дуже дякую за уточнення. Була чітка концепція що і як робити. В поточних умовах це реалізувати не можна з великої кількості причин, але ми повернемося до цього.
Duga radar is an extremely interesting device that was ahead of its time. The antenna itself is a monumet, which I hope will be preserved for posterity to marvel at. The computer is practically impossible to restore, but some kind of copy of it could be possible. The Duga radar transmitter has been disassembled and there doesn't seem to be much information to be found about it.
I am not sure if you watched up to the end, but making a model of it was/is the idea. Anyway, if we even imagine a chance to restore the machine 1:1, it'd require a serious cooling, and outcome is not really understandable - it is all about algorithms which are gone for good.
Damn! I hope @RingwayManchester gets to see these videos. He has made several videos about the duga/ woodpecker and the affects (effect?) it had on ham radio during the 70s and 80s. Your documentary was amazing.
Finally, someone covers this extraordinary computer! I gave up trying to find information on it 2 years ago, but my gut-feeling was spot on: It could deliver high performance (comparable to the IBM 7030), but for a fraction of the cost (2 M$ vs 14 M$). Thank you for providing some data to be more specific.
I've been a French radio Ham since the 80's, I remember the "Woodpecker" that polluted the HF bands , even in the Army, it was a problem for us radio operators because we couldn't intercept anything on certain parts of the HF spectrum! Today "Duga" is out of service and I'm still Ham Radio. There are other OVTH radars like "Kontayner" or "Voronesj" as well as the famous "Gadir" in Iran which works on 28 MHz band. Thanks for this video.
From what I've been hearing about the Duga radar is that the system broadcasted a strong signal at 10 MW. The signal produced a sharp, tapping sound and that disrupted legitimate radio broadcasts worldwide. This sound became known as the "Russian Woodpecker" by people living outside of the Soviet Union. Personally, I think it sounds like the whirling blades of a helicopter when you hear it from the ground. To combat this radio disruption, some radio receivers had what where called "Woodpecker Blankers" incorporated into their designs to filter out or block the noise generated by Duga's signal.
"It' never reached full operation" Ringway Manchester would like *very many* words. Duga was such a nuance for amateur radio in the 80s they named it the Russian Woodpecker. The UN asked the Soviets to turn it off. The Amateur radio community would blast it's signals *back at it* in an effort to make them turn it off. The thing very much ran and was a very big annoyance for a lot of people.
I meant, there is a difference between 'technically worked' and 'was on active duty'. It was in test and research stage, there was even a special research shift of officers there, but not all systems were in operation and the data from it was not used.
@@ChernobylFamily That sounds like we all have no idea how much more potential to be REALLY annoying this thing had up its sleeve. Maybe it gives you an impression that not only radio amateurs and shortwave listeners were suffering from the woodpecker, even when you just wired up audio equipment and be it just your own stereo, as long as the shield wasn't properly connected you sometimes could faintly hear a mix of Radio Moscow and the Woodpecker on top of the 50Hz-hum (here in Europe). At times the signal strength was incredible and overloaded our not so posh radios, so it could be heard even on frequencies it didn't actually transmit on. That "test phase" was certainly a 24/7 job for the station operators for years.
At @25:53 is a jarring reality I have realized for many years now.... the prioritization of expenses for war / aggression while turning a blind eye to the health and safety of the citizens. Sadly I see the same type of misplaced emphAsis repeating.... such as the recent CrowdStrike update causing Micosoft Windows computers to BSOD.... I heard the executive at CrowdStrike previously worked elsewhere, and a very similar mistake was made by that company. Back in the early 2000's, there was an accelerator technique built into Ethernet chips to compute the packet checksum on the NIC chip acting as a co-processor, relieving the CPU from having to generate those needed checksums. I am forgetting now which two vendors at different time periods had bugs in the NIC's checksum co-processor code... I know the second was Broadcom, but I forget now if it was 3Com or Intel that had the issue first.... suspecting 3Com.... as I do not remember a catastrophe defect in Intel's E100B driver ever. Anyway.... I have wondered which associate traveled through revolving doors between companies, and brought with the faulty packet checksum generator code. A few other similar patterns come to mind. Such examples a very annoying and aggravating to my mind!!! Good video, thank you.
I've always been interested in the lore of the Woodpecker and all cold war early warning radars craziness (which formed a basis for modern internet because of the high bandwidth communication requirements). I've always had sad feelings that all the stuff that were designed and happened in the exclusion zone on this enormous white elephant project of OTH radar was gone and forgotten. And now there's this incredible amount of research, retroengineering and straight archeology... The amount of work done to produce this incredible video is gigantic... I'm speechless.
quick chatGPT answer: The AN/FSQ-7, a Cold War-era computer developed as part of the U.S. Air Force's SAGE (Semi-Automatic Ground Environment) system, was one of the notable military computers that used 45-bit words. The AN/FSQ-7 was the largest computer ever built and was primarily used for air defense, processing radar data from various sources. While it was not explicitly designed for MIMO (Multiple-Input, Multiple-Output) radar, it handled input from many radar stations simultaneously, which is conceptually similar to how MIMO systems work by processing data from multiple antennas. SAGE integrated these radar inputs to track aircraft in real time and direct responses. Later Cold War-era military systems, especially with the development of phased array radars, evolved to more advanced computing systems capable of handling MIMO-like operations. The advanced radar systems of the era, such as the Aegis Combat System (which came later), used more sophisticated multi-channel processing techniques, although not necessarily with 45-bit word computers like the AN/FSQ-7. So it looks like Soviets somehow copied that system, and never even managed to get it running. gunkies.org/wiki/AN/FSQ-7 yep, timeline, size, tech and purpose matches perfectly.
@@piotrcurious1131Very interesting digout. It may be that hardware was very similar, but from what I understand key difference was software and radar. Russian system seemed to have been OTH-SW (with active woodpecker signal performing scan, just a theory) radar able to detect and scan surface of potential missile sites and see potential launches immidietly. US sage system seemed to be more about detecting threats already in the air at much later stage. US had it's own experiments with OTH-SW such as Cobra Mist, but they seemed to have been a failure. I've also read somewhere that Duga Could also be used for Long range communication in some capacity. Will have to try to check more...
@@keaien or the whole woodpecker thing was mere decoy, like the main system was just direct copy, while they pretended they had some research progress to pull more money. Note that the system had to be interoperable and networked so it could not be much more different from western systems because Soviets had no own solutions, they were behind the West by decades, especially in the software context.
We are just very sad we did not make many quality videos when we could. Many shots were made by Michaela using GoPro, we never intended them to go public as they are technical; some higher quality were provided by our friends. We never thought it will be so hard to get there again.
СПКБ Дискрет (при факультете РТФ Одесского политеха) как смежники НИИДАР разрабатывали и вводили в эксплуатацию ЭВМ проводящую входную обработку сигналов, с быстрым преобразованием Фурье для вращения фазы сигналов. Что-то такое преподаватели рассказывали. К сожалению, все меньше людей, что там работали, остаются в живых.
Thank you! Heard some brief information of that device, which partly used K340A cells (but only some). If, by the chance you will have more details, it will be highly appreciated!
Thanks again for a wonderful episode. Once again another fascinating insight into the history of the exclusion zone. I really appreciate the time and effort you put into it researching these episodes. So sad to see the scrappers have done their damage in scavenging all the valuable parts (27:30 it appears that all the silver edge connectors on the PCB's have been removed/stolen 😞). Perhaps there are enough damaged boards left to reverse engineer at least one example of each type of board ? Are you allowed to collect any of these ? Maybe there are people who subscribe to this channel who may like to help out with this task in some way ?
Yes, all those are damaged. There is no need to reverse engineer them as their purpose and schematics is generally known and they are very very simple devices. No, all what is there must remain there; it can be moved within the location though so this is why the idea was to make everything right at Chernobyl-2.
While the powerplant had only one nuclear event, however devastating it was, Duga was created to detect and deture the threath of dozens of simultanious nuclear events. In that sense, the priorities given to financing one and the other actually make sense.
To be accurate, contamination after a reactor explosion and A-Bоmb are completely different in the scope of their long-term effects, isotope composition, etc. This is why in Hiroshima, people can live, and in Pripyat - never will be able.
You and your colleagues should be given funding to perform your restoration - museum plans. You shall also be given proper personnel records to come into contact with engineering personnel and restore one fully functional K340A block. Heck, your work should be at least legislatively protected and institute-government financed. YOU ARE CREATING HISTORY RIGHT HERE. A humble electrical and computer science engineer !!!!!!!!
That is what has been happening in 2021, we had many authorities involved and they had a great enthusiasm about our idea. The problem is only information, this was not a Ukrainian project, and there is no data on it in our archives. It is all in NIIDAR, which is in Moscow. Thank you!
@@ChernobylFamily Ahhhhhh if its in moscow under these conditions I don't think you will be able to gain access for at least 10 years, that's very sad. Whats the point of war... Lives lost and this kind of collaboration out of the question, I'm truly saddened by that.
I wonder how they went about modelling the ionosphere back then using remainder classes, maybe some papers on that research can still be found? Will you find out enough to simulate that wild machine? I'd also love to see up to what point in the processing they kept the received signal in the analog domain before digitizing them. There were probably some marvels of analog computing involved there, too. Great start of a very promising series, looking forward for more!
There are absolutely no papers on math, algorithms or logic behind, as that things were off limits and stored not in that place. I believe that information is russian NIIDAR, but those things we won't ever get. There is one thing, which still rases questions even (!) in community of developers of K340A: dеаth of Davlet Uiditsky at the age of 52 from a hearth attack on 1982. He never had any issues... that raises too many questions. From what we know from George: there was analog equipment and other narrow-purpose computation devices at metal-lined hall of 3rd floor; they partly used K340A cells, and that was 'packing' the signal. But he was in that hall only one single time and did not know anything more. Or did not want to say.
@@ChernobylFamilyand that's exactly why i think it's worthless to risk health trying to restore the junk left behind. Let's face it, soviets were FAR behind in research. That means they had nothing valuable. 99.9999% of their research was just a copy of some western project. Perhaps it would be easier to just find out what system they tried to imitate and study it instead, giving credits and recognition to ORIGINAL authors .
@piotrcurious1131 i am not defending them, but just to be historically accurate, Yuditsky amd Akushsky everywhere said - "our work is based on Swoboda and Valach's concepts which we developed further".
@@ChernobylFamily Well, I studied during communist times and probably from their perspective they really believed they study someone's genuine work. Ghostwriting cybernetics was important in 60's because official party line was against it. There were also other tricks to make cybernetics look like "copied from nature" etc. all bs. We are lucky it's all gone. The 45bit word looka like very specialised "bug" allowing two registers being used at once, probably needed by stolen software - that was also common. Perhaps it would be cool for you to finally visit USA and meet original designers, i bet you will find loads of surprising nostalgia 😂
Супер історія, переглянув на одному диханні, не зважаючи на те, що розумію лише субтитри ! Велика повага Вам !!! Є нові ферит-діодні модулі, та плати "УФУ" на германієвих транзисторах, наче з якоїсь ЄОМ. Якщо цікаво - нідішлю детальні фото, можливо іх можно якось ідентифікувати... Ще раз дякую, та знімаю шляпу !
I wouldn't normally watch a video primarily about computers, but this was fascinating. Thank you for going to the lengths you did to produce this. It's brilliant. ❤
Will you make a video about the entire high-frequency chain - from antennas to receivers/transmitters? I haven't found any information about this anywhere
@@ChernobylFamily While visiting the Duga system in 2015, I was looking for typical radio elements ...I couldn't find a single piece.Knowing CCCP radio technology, there was probably a lot of copper and silver, so they disappeared quickly :)
@@ChernobylFamilyAt one point there also had to be some parts that converted the analog domain signals to binary numbers. Would be super interesting to see how they solved in back in those days.
Frankly, I do not think it was harder than UNIVAC or BESM-6. All computers were that or another way similar. But, let's call it this way "organizational aspects" of the place where it was deployed indeed added.
I truly admire the immense effort and innovation that went into this groundbreaking project, especially considering the technological limitations and political challenges of the time.
My dad's Mothers Sisters Husband worked on some army base that had a data center so when they were upgrading they were trowing out the older machines and i remember she showed me the cabinet and it was the same blue color as the duka compiuter but it was the sice of a small soviet refrigeraton and its current use is not far of as it now holds jams.
Thankyou, that was very interesting, as a kid and ham radio operator in the late 70's / 80's I have listened and heard the Russian Woodpecker many times, even transmitted morse code dots at the same rate on its frequency as a little part of my electronic counter measure. It was at the time a HUGE radio signal probably many hundreds of KW's or power.
Very interesting to see, it looks like there is an extender board on the back of the door, which probably makes sense due to the constant maintenance at this time.
I listened to strong, broad woodpecker like short wave signals several times on our family cassette-radio in West Germany in the 80ies. They often went away after 30 minutes or 5 minutes. They were distinct from eastern jamming stations (noise or music, also broad and strong, but not as much), usually not on a used frequency, and I suspected a technical origin nearby. I remember asking myself, if the signal originated in one of the nearby hospitals, why it didn't appear every workday and more often. Now I know why.
Thank you! Well, it has probably too many technical details, but I am afraid it is not really possible to explain it better than dig into the hardware :)
You're doing really awesome work! This place is important to the entire world: I was born in March of 87 and the people there literally gave their lives to save mine on the other side of the world -- the zone should be protected and preserved at all costs
absolutely precise and great work! When I first saw the duga computer mainframe and other control panesl I started to wonder how it looked like in its operating days... Sadly I don't have an opportunity to see it in person, but as soon as it is possible, I'll plan a visit to it. Great work!
@@ChernobylFamily 😊 but, man! Regarding Duga, I would definetly loooove to visit that museum you guys envisioned. It must have been a sight to behold when it was operational. Fingers crossed, you make it a reality at some timebinnthe future! Cheers!
This is important for people to remember in the future! Your work is incredible and very important. Thank you to you and all of the people involved in saving all of this old tech. One of the most insightful sentences I've ever heard spoken was when you said, and I'm paraphrasing here, how incredible amounts of the money were funneled into the Duga projects, but the nuclear power plant that needed work to insure it's safety was basically run on a shoestring budget. Funny how the power plant made the Duga project irrelevant. And all the money spent on both basically was completely wasted. How the government wastes money, resources, and most importantly, people's lives! No wonder why the USSR was doomed to be thrown on the ash heap of history. The CCP, as well as Putin's regime, will be there soon enough. If the USA doesn't put a stop to where we've been heading, it'll be there too. God bless Ukraine!
Ok, but could it have played Doom?
Of course, it _literally_ could.
NO, USSR, electronics was so outdated that you needed to have 10 computers like this for Doom
@@hafangneige322 _Tetris_
IDDQD
@@whitemonkey7932 IDKFA
There is a HUGE amount of work you have done. All that blueprints, floor plans, graphics... I wish you all the best to achieve your goals and museum, you have already collected so many information like nobody has ever done before. Preserving the history (good or bad) is important - thank you!!!
In fact, we needed to shorten the presentation to half otherwise video would be an hour long... many more things we will add to newer episodes.
@@ChernobylFamily You could make it 4 hours long and I'll watch the whole thing 5 times over. 🙂
Many things I will add on Patreon. It is not about money or so, but there will be translations, scans, etc. which greatly will add to this video. Actually, one of our Patrons made his research and found patents which Yuditsky and Akushsky were talking about in their 1982 report!
That was just astonishing - a 45-bit long word, 1MFlop capable, multi-processor linked system *in the 60s* ??? What an amazing technical achievement.
I am also really, really impressed by the technical archaeology carried out to reconstruct the system from the wreckage you show in the footage. The concept of the "Cassettes" as fixed memory modules (ROM) seems to be on par with core memory as a concept.
A brilliant piece of detective work, congratulations! 🤓👍
Thank you! This machine is perhaps my 'sacred' thing in Zone's research, we spent there weeks around it.
This is the thing: NOT mflops. RCS could not work with float point directly, therefore was a hardware conversion for such operations (notice - there is even a converter status on console). When it came to float points or just division, it was much slower.
One of super big advantages of K340A was that given it operated with very small numbers, that A7 rack contained pre-calculated results, so it allowed to implement table ariphmetics which replaced calculations in many cases thus boosting the speed.
@@ChernobylFamily So, Look Up Tables and shifted, fixed decimal point calculations? That explains the long word length - I'm going to watch this again as I think I missed this. A superb piece of work, nonetheless!
@@RobSchofield seems so. But I'd like to be sure, so am trying to find a public book by Yuditsky and Akushsky from 1967 where they explain their rework of RCS which eventually was put into this machine. Seemingly it was published in a relatively small number of copies bit it might explain a lot.
@@ChernobylFamily If you do locate a copy, please do a follow up as that would be *really* interesting. I have a feeling I used a numerical method like this at University when I was studying electronics (a LONG time ago).
@@RobSchofield deal!
We, as HAM operators, weren't so happy with the woodpecker, it came so far, that all HAMs in the world were jamming the signal for three straight days. Which took it offline. So they got bombarded with jamming signals from all sides. The biggest event ever in the HAM community back in the day. We got even from the governments a yes, to use more power for this purpose, because they received so many complaints. I used a 9 element log per, at 38m height, with pure 1200w power, you can do the math in ERP radiation. And pushed as much harmonics as we could.
Good job! Love these stories!
Minor thing: “ham” isn’t an acronym and shouldn’t be capitalized ;)
@AustinSteingrube gentlemen, forgive me my low level of education, but can you be so kind to give a bit more details to ensure I properly understand what the hell you all are talking about? Many thanks in advance. Alex from Ukraine, non-native English speaker.
Edit: jokes apart, I just have a feeling I probably not completely correctly understand what ham station is.
@ChernobylFamily radioamateur station. It's often called "ham" because some morse keys was strapped to the thigh, aka a ham.
@@TheErilaz TIL. I had always assumed it was short for Hobby AMateur radio.
It blows my mind how you guys could decipher the history of this system starting from some empty racks and old destroyed papers. Watching with interest every video you post but this has to be one of the best so far.
Thank you! In fact we decyphered even more, but decided to keep the video in some acceptable length limit..)
@@ChernobylFamily domtou study computer science?
@@ChernobylFamilyyou mentioned Czechoslovakua I know some old people who work s on Czechoslovkia machines
This is so interesting. I hate to say this but to a certain degree, old Soviet tech is (possibly) like alien tech. East and West solved same problems but in different ways. You are doing a fantastic job delving into this old tech. It needs to be preserved and cherished. An maybe, just maybe, might we all learn something.
Thank you! We will do our best. Though, if we take U.S., there are also some interesting examples. Take SAGE, for instance.
At the end of the day, it's all just chasing ones and zeros around.
@@BlackEpyon haha! 🤣
@@BlackEpyon It is, but still fascinating are the many ways you do it.
@@daicekube Yeah, 45-bit words are certainly odd. Normally it would be in powers of two. I wonder how many of those are parity bits though, because those are often odd.
Edit: looking at the 'ROM" trays at 13:03, it looks like there might be 3 rows of parity bits, bringing the total to 48. I don't know what the Cyrillic designations for those last three are. Ordinarily you'd have parity for error checking in RAM, not ROM, but maybe they served that function while testing the program? IDK.
Fantastic Video. We have learned more than ever before from you. Thanks a million for all of your hard work. All my Best from the US, Jim
Thank you! More to come, this subject is very big.
@@ChernobylFamilyit's near Saint Petersburg now. Triple the size too.
In Soviet Russia, these were just props. In the other room, babushkas were using Abacus calculators for the real work. hehe jk
@@BillAnt you will laugh, but there was a joke at actual Duga before 1986: "those bridges at the top are for soldiers with binoculars looking for a missile"
This is such unique content. Well done. It's mind blowing for me as a computer engineer. I was wondering how the Duga computer worked for many, many years. I remember Duga's noises on my father's HF receiver when I was a kid. I hope times will change for you all soon. So you'll be able to create the museum that many would like to visit. It's an unique site with history which is part of the collective memory of every European raised in the 80's. It's well worth preserving what's left.
We'll do our best..! Thank you!
Thank you @@ChernobylFamily
Imagine if the whole world worked together back then, I think we would have had flying cars 40 years ago.
Well said.
As a bicycle driver and aviation enthusiast, I find the thought of flying cars terrifying and no amount of tech can change that.
@@fonesrphunny7242 Maybe Bicycle drivers need to start looking Left, Right, Up and Down from now on.
People can barely drive as it is, and it's questionable if most should be allowed drive at all. Letting them have access to the z axis would be a disaster.
@@jonmcentire If we had access to the 4th and 5th dimension, there would be enough space for us all.
This is fascinating. I once worked with a guy at a company building custom crates for bulk oversized freight. Before he came to the US, Sergei worked as a mainframe computer engineer for the Soviet space program. I bet he was very familiar with this equipment.
Space guys had own machines, those (we are sure) did not intersect with this, but these were no less interesting.
@@ChernobylFamily - Ahh, I see. Very specific uses for each I suppose. Sergei was a nice guy who brought with him from his motherland absolutely no desire to work in his former profession. His dream was to open a neighborhood convenience store, haha!
@@wes11bravo VERY understandable, to be honest.
Tremendous respect for your work!🇫🇮
Thank you!
What a fascinating system. It used atmospheric ducting to get radiation to the plasma from a rocket plume. Then that signal had to duct back to the receiving stations. What a control problem. You have to sense the atmospheric conditions to the target, then tune emissions to optimize signal to the target. The processing requirements at the receiver must have been more intense than the computing requirements for the transmitter. Were the receiver stations co located at this site? I imagine they'd be located elsewhere and separated. But regardless I would imagine the station would conduct all kinds of different emissions. Emissions to probe the atmosphere along the path to the target area in order to set emissions to actually scan for rocket plumes, then sense dopler and spectral information from the returns off the rocket plumes over the scan area. Do you plan on eventually going into the theory of detection, signal analysis, software requirements, and data products?
Chernobyl-2, featured in the video is a receiver only. Transmitter was in Chernihyv region at Lubech-1 town. Then, one more pair was at far east of USSR. Sure, we will cover that in the next episode.
Have never been so excited to watch a documentary about anything
We are really happy you liked!
Good luck with the project! History deserves to be remembered and preserved for future generations.
Thank you!
Absolutely fascinating! I hope the war ends soon and work can be restarted. You're taking on an extremely challenging task, proper respect to you - I've considered you an equivalent of CuriousMarc on our side of the Iron Curtain, and it shows.
The opportunity to talk with the original engineers and listen to their stories is priceless - go for it while you can, it's a race against the clock now. I'm glad you do it. Nice ferrite core shenanigans, haha!
I'm always glad when one creator I enjoy enjoys a channel that I like too. You're both rad af!
That's computer history at its best, wow! (And the rest of the evening I try to find out more about the RCS.)
There are works of Antonin Swoboda in English as he moved to the U.S. in late 60s., though Yuditsky and Akushsky very much enhanced his inventions. There should be many sources.
Доброго вечора, чудове відео!!! Дякуємо вам,з нетерпінням чекатимемо наступних відео👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍
Все буде..)
Woah, weird computer architecture, and also mind blowing that it was still in use during the 80's. It seems it was a super specialized signal processor. The manual bit programming in the constant plug boards is also crazy.
It very much reminds me SKALA we talked about last year. Very narrow purpose, very special hardware..
Wow ! Just wow ! The historic works of preservation covering what was one of the most highest levels of secrecy. I must say thank YOU , I have been anticipating for this drop for some time now . Bravo folks , bravo , words cannot describe my feeling right now . Y’all crushed , ya crushed it ! I am truly at a loss for words that appropriately describe my thoughts currently .
Thank you! Well, if we won't be able to preserve the machine, we'll built its miniature copy :)
I remember hearing the Woodpecker on shortwave on an old Eddystone valve radio in the early eighties. I recently restored the very same radio after more than 40 years storage - it has outlived the woodpecker :)
Thank you for sharing!
@@ChernobylFamilythank you for your great videos too!
Amazing! I've always been super curious about how the computing and signal processing behind the Douga radar (and other OTH radars of the time) worked. I was never able to find any details online.
Thank you for this documentary!
This is just a part. There were so many systems that it will take a few more videos for sure.
Only details are in the CIA official archives page. "Krug probe"
Krug is a very interesting thing, not that easy as it looks...
@@ChernobylFamily yes yes.. Very very specialized knowledge. The CAI doesn't like people talking about it..
I toured Duga a few years ago. We were not allowed to climb the tower. That was about the only safety measure that we had to abide by.
Did that antenna once... well, a questionable experience.:)
Impressive radar system, saw it on bionerd channel a couple of years ago. Hope to visit it in thé future. Praying for peace in your country.
We will have a detailed episode about radar and Chernobyl-2 as well!
I stayed up til 1am to catch this ❤
Thaaaaank you!
@@ChernobylFamily your work is fascinating, please never stop! Thanks again for another great video ❤️
A Pentium is more powerful than K340A. It is so fascinating, how people use to work with discrete transistors before ICs revolution. Great video !!
Well, I believe it would be more correct to compare not with a pentium, but what was available in 1986. I believe here it is more complex, and very similar to the situation with SKALA of the ChNPP. It is not about computing, but processing of external connections. They could install mainframes based on ICs, after all they did, but still it was not the best solution due to latency. Speaking about transistors, I believe one of the reasons was that discrete transistors are far more stable in high radiation which could appear if what they have been detecting would have reach its destination.
Fascinating video. But I have a question: was someone responsible for winding up the real-time clock?
Absolutely sure it is the person mentioned at a small orange sign above.
Thanks for the quality content!
Thank you!
Чому б не врятувати ті плати, які лишилися, щоб дійсно відновити хоча б декілька шаф. Годинник до речі не авіаційний, не АЧС-1, а 60ЧП, судячи по фото. Вони часто стояли на панелях різного наземного стаціонарного обладнання. Скоріше за все він не видавав ніяких імпульсів, цими годинниками розподіляли машинний час між групами зазвичай. Рятувати треба те, що все ж таки можна ще врятувати. Ви робите неймовірну роботу, дякую.
Дуже дякую за уточнення.
Була чітка концепція що і як робити. В поточних умовах це реалізувати не можна з великої кількості причин, але ми повернемося до цього.
Duga radar is an extremely interesting device that was ahead of its time. The antenna itself is a monumet, which I hope will be preserved for posterity to marvel at. The computer is practically impossible to restore, but some kind of copy of it could be possible. The Duga radar transmitter has been disassembled and there doesn't seem to be much information to be found about it.
I am not sure if you watched up to the end, but making a model of it was/is the idea. Anyway, if we even imagine a chance to restore the machine 1:1, it'd require a serious cooling, and outcome is not really understandable - it is all about algorithms which are gone for good.
@@ChernobylFamily It would be really great if the model worked like the original system and we could learn new things from it :)
and also the power supply for it would need to be quite substantial...maybe stick to an emulator@@ChernobylFamily
@@SimonBauer7 around 25KW.
@@leopiipponen7693 i'd love to see that console blinking. In a hardware. Even if it'd be wrong imitation.
Great video! Keep the great job!
More to come, much more to come!
Fascinating! Дуже дякую!
Damn! I hope @RingwayManchester gets to see these videos. He has made several videos about the duga/ woodpecker and the affects (effect?) it had on ham radio during the 70s and 80s. Your documentary was amazing.
Thank you!
One doesn't realize how huge the cage antennas on the radar are until you see someone climbing on them. The entire structure is so massive.
@@RobertCraft-re5sf yes.
Duga always fascinated me, wish I could visit it
Let's hope that one day it will work out!
yes i would like to visit it once the current issues are resolved in favour of ukraine
same
We happily will guide you, guys
@@eliotmansfield I absolutely agree with you! Slava Ukraini!
This is so fascinating, to get a peek behind the curtain of the Cold War.
Thank you for making this possible.
And more to come. It is a very hige subject.
@@ChernobylFamily *it is a complex project 👍
@@ChernobylFamily Looking forward to other content, these really are very fascinating and interesting.
@@emilschw8924 sorry for typos and so, i am in a shaking car and tired as hell :)
@@ChernobylFamily No problem, do take care and safe travels!
Metal structures are a real conservation challenge. I wonder if the giant antenna could be saved and preserved?
Legally, it is a registered landmark with a protected status. In fact structurally it is still quite ok based on an inspection made a few years ago.
@@ChernobylFamily That's good to hear!
Great videos again!
Thank you!
Finally, someone covers this extraordinary computer! I gave up trying to find information on it 2 years ago, but my gut-feeling was spot on: It could deliver high performance (comparable to the IBM 7030), but for a fraction of the cost (2 M$ vs 14 M$). Thank you for providing some data to be more specific.
Glad I could help!
Finally a in depth vid about the stuff behind the DUGA radar!
Thank you! The first of a few...)
Great video. So good to see you do this to resurrect these mainframes. Love your videos, thank you for sharing.
Thank you!
Amazingly interesting, one of the best and most interesting videos I’ve seen on RUclips. Thanks for the dedicated work.
Good luck with everything.
Thank you very much!
What an astonishing amount you have all put into this research. Thanks so much Alex.
Thank you. This... thing is perhaps a personal matter for me. More to come.
Computers from Soviet always fascinated me.
Thanks for the videos ^^
Glad you liked!
I've been a French radio Ham since the 80's, I remember the "Woodpecker" that polluted the HF bands , even in the Army, it was a problem for us radio operators because we couldn't intercept anything on certain parts of the HF spectrum! Today "Duga" is out of service and I'm still Ham Radio. There are other OVTH radars like "Kontayner" or "Voronesj" as well as the famous "Gadir" in Iran which works on 28 MHz band. Thanks for this video.
Glad you liked!
Wow, amazing video and story. Such a shame to loose these machines.
From what I've been hearing about the Duga radar is that the system broadcasted a strong signal at 10 MW. The signal produced a sharp, tapping sound and that disrupted legitimate radio broadcasts worldwide. This sound became known as the "Russian Woodpecker" by people living outside of the Soviet Union. Personally, I think it sounds like the whirling blades of a helicopter when you hear it from the ground. To combat this radio disruption, some radio receivers had what where called "Woodpecker Blankers" incorporated into their designs to filter out or block the noise generated by Duga's signal.
I am very much interested in those 'blankers'. I heard many times about them, but never saw any concrete details.
Thanks for uploading this !
We are happy you liked!
"It' never reached full operation"
Ringway Manchester would like *very many* words.
Duga was such a nuance for amateur radio in the 80s they named it the Russian Woodpecker. The UN asked the Soviets to turn it off. The Amateur radio community would blast it's signals *back at it* in an effort to make them turn it off.
The thing very much ran and was a very big annoyance for a lot of people.
I meant, there is a difference between 'technically worked' and 'was on active duty'. It was in test and research stage, there was even a special research shift of officers there, but not all systems were in operation and the data from it was not used.
@@ChernobylFamily That sounds like we all have no idea how much more potential to be REALLY annoying this thing had up its sleeve. Maybe it gives you an impression that not only radio amateurs and shortwave listeners were suffering from the woodpecker, even when you just wired up audio equipment and be it just your own stereo, as long as the shield wasn't properly connected you sometimes could faintly hear a mix of Radio Moscow and the Woodpecker on top of the 50Hz-hum (here in Europe). At times the signal strength was incredible and overloaded our not so posh radios, so it could be heard even on frequencies it didn't actually transmit on. That "test phase" was certainly a 24/7 job for the station operators for years.
Thanks for your work
Thank you for watching and support!
At @25:53 is a jarring reality I have realized for many years now.... the prioritization of expenses for war / aggression while turning a blind eye to the health and safety of the citizens. Sadly I see the same type of misplaced emphAsis repeating.... such as the recent CrowdStrike update causing Micosoft Windows computers to BSOD.... I heard the executive at CrowdStrike previously worked elsewhere, and a very similar mistake was made by that company. Back in the early 2000's, there was an accelerator technique built into Ethernet chips to compute the packet checksum on the NIC chip acting as a co-processor, relieving the CPU from having to generate those needed checksums. I am forgetting now which two vendors at different time periods had bugs in the NIC's checksum co-processor code... I know the second was Broadcom, but I forget now if it was 3Com or Intel that had the issue first.... suspecting 3Com.... as I do not remember a catastrophe defect in Intel's E100B driver ever. Anyway.... I have wondered which associate traveled through revolving doors between companies, and brought with the faulty packet checksum generator code. A few other similar patterns come to mind. Such examples a very annoying and aggravating to my mind!!! Good video, thank you.
Thank you for sharing!
I've always been interested in the lore of the Woodpecker and all cold war early warning radars craziness (which formed a basis for modern internet because of the high bandwidth communication requirements).
I've always had sad feelings that all the stuff that were designed and happened in the exclusion zone on this enormous white elephant project of OTH radar was gone and forgotten.
And now there's this incredible amount of research, retroengineering and straight archeology...
The amount of work done to produce this incredible video is gigantic... I'm speechless.
Well, it took us some time...)
45-bit word size...I did a bit of reading and the only other machine I could find which had that word size was the Almaz.
...yes. It was also designed by Lukin, Yuditsky and Akushsky.
quick chatGPT answer:
The AN/FSQ-7, a Cold War-era computer developed as part of the U.S. Air Force's SAGE (Semi-Automatic Ground Environment) system, was one of the notable military computers that used 45-bit words. The AN/FSQ-7 was the largest computer ever built and was primarily used for air defense, processing radar data from various sources.
While it was not explicitly designed for MIMO (Multiple-Input, Multiple-Output) radar, it handled input from many radar stations simultaneously, which is conceptually similar to how MIMO systems work by processing data from multiple antennas. SAGE integrated these radar inputs to track aircraft in real time and direct responses.
Later Cold War-era military systems, especially with the development of phased array radars, evolved to more advanced computing systems capable of handling MIMO-like operations. The advanced radar systems of the era, such as the Aegis Combat System (which came later), used more sophisticated multi-channel processing techniques, although not necessarily with 45-bit word computers like the AN/FSQ-7.
So it looks like Soviets somehow copied that system, and never even managed to get it running.
gunkies.org/wiki/AN/FSQ-7
yep, timeline, size, tech and purpose matches perfectly.
@@piotrcurious1131Very interesting digout. It may be that hardware was very similar, but from what I understand key difference was software and radar. Russian system seemed to have been OTH-SW (with active woodpecker signal performing scan, just a theory) radar able to detect and scan surface of potential missile sites and see potential launches immidietly. US sage system seemed to be more about detecting threats already in the air at much later stage. US had it's own experiments with OTH-SW such as Cobra Mist, but they seemed to have been a failure. I've also read somewhere that Duga Could also be used for Long range communication in some capacity. Will have to try to check more...
@@keaien or the whole woodpecker thing was mere decoy, like the main system was just direct copy, while they pretended they had some research progress to pull more money. Note that the system had to be interoperable and networked so it could not be much more different from western systems because Soviets had no own solutions, they were behind the West by decades, especially in the software context.
So Chernobyl-Duga is the Soviet era upscaled version of an IBM power supply blowing up the computer?
No.
It's a joke sir
@@dustinandtarynwolfe5540 i know :))
Ever since I learned about the “woodpecker” signal of the CCCP OTH radar, the 2 duga sites have been very interesting to me. Thanks for sharing!
More, much more to come! Thank you!
Thanks for educating us on the WW history of computers.
I always enjoy your videos and cant wait for the next one. Perhaps one day, the invaders will be pushed out to allow this museum to take shape.
We are just very sad we did not make many quality videos when we could. Many shots were made by Michaela using GoPro, we never intended them to go public as they are technical; some higher quality were provided by our friends. We never thought it will be so hard to get there again.
СПКБ Дискрет (при факультете РТФ Одесского политеха) как смежники НИИДАР разрабатывали и вводили в эксплуатацию ЭВМ проводящую входную обработку сигналов, с быстрым преобразованием Фурье для вращения фазы сигналов.
Что-то такое преподаватели рассказывали.
К сожалению, все меньше людей, что там работали, остаются в живых.
Thank you! Heard some brief information of that device, which partly used K340A cells (but only some). If, by the chance you will have more details, it will be highly appreciated!
Amazing video. As usual. Thanks a lot.
Thank you so much!
Its so interisting to see thanks for the video
Thank you! Much more to come!
Thanks again for a wonderful episode. Once again another fascinating insight into the history of the exclusion zone. I really appreciate the time and effort you put into it researching these episodes. So sad to see the scrappers have done their damage in scavenging all the valuable parts (27:30 it appears that all the silver edge connectors on the PCB's have been removed/stolen 😞). Perhaps there are enough damaged boards left to reverse engineer at least one example of each type of board ? Are you allowed to collect any of these ? Maybe there are people who subscribe to this channel who may like to help out with this task in some way ?
Yes, all those are damaged. There is no need to reverse engineer them as their purpose and schematics is generally known and they are very very simple devices. No, all what is there must remain there; it can be moved within the location though so this is why the idea was to make everything right at Chernobyl-2.
Wauv. You just dig up so much interesting history from the past and present it in a very funny and interesting way. Thanks
Thank youcfor watching!
Wow,, 😮
Cheers from Sweden,, ☕🥰🍰
Thank you!
@@ChernobylFamily 💖💖💖
While the powerplant had only one nuclear event, however devastating it was, Duga was created to detect and deture the threath of dozens of simultanious nuclear events. In that sense, the priorities given to financing one and the other actually make sense.
To be accurate, contamination after a reactor explosion and A-Bоmb are completely different in the scope of their long-term effects, isotope composition, etc. This is why in Hiroshima, people can live, and in Pripyat - never will be able.
You and your colleagues should be given funding to perform your restoration - museum plans.
You shall also be given proper personnel records to come into contact with engineering personnel and restore one fully functional K340A block.
Heck, your work should be at least legislatively protected and institute-government financed.
YOU ARE CREATING HISTORY RIGHT HERE.
A humble electrical and computer science engineer !!!!!!!!
That is what has been happening in 2021, we had many authorities involved and they had a great enthusiasm about our idea. The problem is only information, this was not a Ukrainian project, and there is no data on it in our archives. It is all in NIIDAR, which is in Moscow.
Thank you!
@@ChernobylFamily Ahhhhhh if its in moscow under these conditions I don't think you will be able to gain access for at least 10 years, that's very sad. Whats the point of war... Lives lost and this kind of collaboration out of the question, I'm truly saddened by that.
I wonder how they went about modelling the ionosphere back then using remainder classes, maybe some papers on that research can still be found? Will you find out enough to simulate that wild machine?
I'd also love to see up to what point in the processing they kept the received signal in the analog domain before digitizing them. There were probably some marvels of analog computing involved there, too.
Great start of a very promising series, looking forward for more!
There are absolutely no papers on math, algorithms or logic behind, as that things were off limits and stored not in that place. I believe that information is russian NIIDAR, but those things we won't ever get. There is one thing, which still rases questions even (!) in community of developers of K340A: dеаth of Davlet Uiditsky at the age of 52 from a hearth attack on 1982. He never had any issues... that raises too many questions.
From what we know from George: there was analog equipment and other narrow-purpose computation devices at metal-lined hall of 3rd floor; they partly used K340A cells, and that was 'packing' the signal. But he was in that hall only one single time and did not know anything more. Or did not want to say.
@@ChernobylFamilyand that's exactly why i think it's worthless to risk health trying to restore the junk left behind. Let's face it, soviets were FAR behind in research. That means they had nothing valuable. 99.9999% of their research was just a copy of some western project. Perhaps it would be easier to just find out what system they tried to imitate and study it instead, giving credits and recognition to ORIGINAL authors .
@piotrcurious1131 i am not defending them, but just to be historically accurate, Yuditsky amd Akushsky everywhere said - "our work is based on Swoboda and Valach's concepts which we developed further".
@@ChernobylFamily Well, I studied during communist times and probably from their perspective they really believed they study someone's genuine work. Ghostwriting cybernetics was important in 60's because official party line was against it. There were also other tricks to make cybernetics look like "copied from nature" etc. all bs. We are lucky it's all gone. The 45bit word looka like very specialised "bug" allowing two registers being used at once, probably needed by stolen software - that was also common. Perhaps it would be cool for you to finally visit USA and meet original designers, i bet you will find loads of surprising nostalgia 😂
@piotrcurious1131 heheh deal then!
Супер історія, переглянув на одному диханні, не зважаючи на те, що розумію лише субтитри !
Велика повага Вам !!!
Є нові ферит-діодні модулі, та плати "УФУ" на германієвих транзисторах, наче з якоїсь ЄОМ.
Якщо цікаво - нідішлю детальні фото, можливо іх можно якось ідентифікувати...
Ще раз дякую, та знімаю шляпу !
Дякуємо! Киньте фото на chornobylfamily@gmail.com - глянемо!
You got me with the magic words: DUGA RADAR
Glad you liked!
I wouldn't normally watch a video primarily about computers, but this was fascinating.
Thank you for going to the lengths you did to produce this.
It's brilliant. ❤
Thank you! This is the first of a few episodes about Duga. In meantime, check our other documentaries.
I was there just few months before war. Finally I get more info about DUGA site. Great video. Thank you
Glad to help!
Will you make a video about the entire high-frequency chain - from antennas to receivers/transmitters? I haven't found any information about this anywhere
There is little known about it. Though what we indeed will do is a more detailed look at structures and what is in them.
@@ChernobylFamily While visiting the Duga system in 2015, I was looking for typical radio elements ...I couldn't find a single piece.Knowing CCCP radio technology, there was probably a lot of copper and silver, so they disappeared quickly :)
@@ChernobylFamilyAt one point there also had to be some parts that converted the analog domain signals to binary numbers. Would be super interesting to see how they solved in back in those days.
Excellent work! 👏👏👏👏👏
Thank you!
very nice documentary !
Slava ukraini from Morocco !
Thank you so much!
I'm glad they never got the Brain Scorcher operational
What a beast of a machine! Would imagine it would be painful to work on!
Frankly, I do not think it was harder than UNIVAC or BESM-6. All computers were that or another way similar. But, let's call it this way "organizational aspects" of the place where it was deployed indeed added.
I truly admire the immense effort and innovation that went into this groundbreaking project, especially considering the technological limitations and political challenges of the time.
Sad, that it was not for a good purpose.
My dad's Mothers Sisters Husband worked on some army base that had a data center so when they were upgrading they were trowing out the older machines and i remember she showed me the cabinet and it was the same blue color as the duka compiuter but it was the sice of a small soviet refrigeraton and its current use is not far of as it now holds jams.
What a very interesting video. Thank you
Glad you liked!
@@ChernobylFamilyyour videos are so interesting. I love old computers/technology
Thanks for the video and interesting story, Alexander!
You are welcome! More to come
Amazing work, please keep them coming!
Happily! Just making those takes a few weeks, but a continuation will come!
Thankyou, that was very interesting, as a kid and ham radio operator in the late 70's / 80's I have listened and heard the Russian Woodpecker many times, even transmitted morse code dots at the same rate on its frequency as a little part of my electronic counter measure.
It was at the time a HUGE radio signal probably many hundreds of KW's or power.
Thank you very much for sharing!
Very interesting to see, it looks like there is an extender board on the back of the door, which probably makes sense due to the constant maintenance at this time.
Absolutely correct. And moreover, each rack had a power output for a soldering iron and so, partially visible near left door.
Elegancki materiał, super wykonana robota
Thank you!
I listened to strong, broad woodpecker like short wave signals several times on our family cassette-radio in West Germany in the 80ies. They often went away after 30 minutes or 5 minutes. They were distinct from eastern jamming stations (noise or music, also broad and strong, but not as much), usually not on a used frequency, and I suspected a technical origin nearby.
I remember asking myself, if the signal originated in one of the nearby hospitals, why it didn't appear every workday and more often. Now I know why.
Thank you for this story!
unique excellent work!
The first part...)
I'm only 3 minutes in, and this is already one of the most interesting videos I've come across in years!
Thank you! Well, it has probably too many technical details, but I am afraid it is not really possible to explain it better than dig into the hardware :)
What state are the towers in? I guess that one day they will fall, probably in a storm.
Bigger one is stable. The second one is damaged, but so far main structure is ok.
The amount of done work is huge. Thanks a lot for done work
Glad you liked!
At 25:41 you can listen the best historical synthesis!
Greetings from Buenos Aires - Argentina
Thank you, dear friend!
InCrEdIbLe!! THANK YOU for taking on this project and assembling this superb documentary.
Thank you for watching!
this is the kind of content I long for
Thank you! Check our other documentaries!
@@ChernobylFamily hell yeah keep em coming
Fantastic video as always! It would be fun to write a simulator for this, even if I understand correctly there is not much software left
More specific, no software left at all, so we believe we can make only blinkenlights. But even this for such a hardware is a good result, IMHO:)
I enjoy the old metal caninets that are so close to tanker desks in style and function.
You're doing really awesome work! This place is important to the entire world: I was born in March of 87 and the people there literally gave their lives to save mine on the other side of the world -- the zone should be protected and preserved at all costs
Antenna now is legally a protected landmark
absolutely precise and great work! When I first saw the duga computer mainframe and other control panesl I started to wonder how it looked like in its operating days... Sadly I don't have an opportunity to see it in person, but as soon as it is possible, I'll plan a visit to it. Great work!
Thank you! Well, let us know if it will work - maybe we will be able to go together.
@@ChernobylFamily That would be more than awesome! I wonder if there are still electrical stuff lying around to be investigated / documented.
@@MrEdwinHubble of course
You should make a video with @RingwayManchester, I'm sure he'd love to talk with you about it.
We are welcome to any collabs, but we cannot travel, i guess you understand why...((
Thank you for your contribution to the preservation of history and for bringing it to us.
Thank you for coming! We will continue this work - stay tuned!
You look like my Claude. He's the most adorable guinea pig... Nice clip, btw!
BHAHAHHAAA
@@ChernobylFamily 😊 but, man! Regarding Duga, I would definetly loooove to visit that museum you guys envisioned. It must have been a sight to behold when it was operational. Fingers crossed, you make it a reality at some timebinnthe future! Cheers!
Simply amazing. Thanks for sharing. You are the best 🙂
Thank you!)))
This is important for people to remember in the future! Your work is incredible and very important. Thank you to you and all of the people involved in saving all of this old tech. One of the most insightful sentences I've ever heard spoken was when you said, and I'm paraphrasing here, how incredible amounts of the money were funneled into the Duga projects, but the nuclear power plant that needed work to insure it's safety was basically run on a shoestring budget. Funny how the power plant made the Duga project irrelevant. And all the money spent on both basically was completely wasted. How the government wastes money, resources, and most importantly, people's lives! No wonder why the USSR was doomed to be thrown on the ash heap of history. The CCP, as well as Putin's regime, will be there soon enough. If the USA doesn't put a stop to where we've been heading, it'll be there too. God bless Ukraine!
Thank you for this.
Awesome! I realy hope there will be a museum on the site one day!