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Re: DEC and The Americans

Cross-posted to 2 groups.

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William Pechter wrote:
> In article <PM00052A523B95B608@aca4109b.ipt.aol.com>,
> jmfbahciv  <See.above@aol.com> wrote:
>>Charles Richmond wrote:
>>> "jmfbahciv" <See.above@aol.com> wrote in message
>>> news:PM00052A3CF4346EF5@aca46c41.ipt.aol.com...
>>>> Michael Black wrote:
>>>>> On Mon, 25 Jan 2016, RS Wood wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Anyone here familiar with that TV series, The Americans?[1]  If you're
>>>>>> not,
>>>> I
>>>>>> can recommend it - it's pretty well done drama, set in about 1982
>>>> Washington
>>>>>> DC, where undercover KGB agents and the FBI are facing off.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Thought I'd mention it because every scene shot within the Russian
>>>>>> embassy
>>>> to
>>>>>> the USA (ie, the USSR's building in Washington DC) features a lot of
>>>>>> prominent shots of DEC VT100 terminals gracing everyone's desks.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> At first I thought, typical Hollywood - they chose DEC because the
>>>> terminals
>>>>>> look a bit more dated than the more modern PCs sitting on the desks of
>>>>>> the
>>>>>> FBI, but poking around a bit [2], it might be accurate: the VT100
>>>>>> reigned
>>>>>> from about 1978 to 1982, so that would correspond with the show.
>>>>>>
>>>>> But could the Soviets buy DEC computers?
>>>>
>>>
>>> One way the Soviets bought modern computers is to have a third-party in
some
>>> other country, like Germany or France, to buy the U.S. computer.  The
>>> computer would be transferred to the USSR in secret.  So the Soviets could
>>> *not* legally buy advanced US computers, but they could buy them through
>>> back-alley deals.
>>
>>They tried that but the VAX was intercepted, IIRC, in Germany.
>>
>>/BAH
>
> Yup...  let's see where it was... September 10, 1984 Computerworld.
>
> Page 4 -- DEC fined 1.5 million following export investigation (this was
> for a VAX 11/782 shipped via a German Company (Deutsche Integrated Time).
>
> The owner of DIT (Richard Mueller) had been involved in the 1970's in two
> export violation cases.
>
> The VAX 11/782 was such a crock we should've let them have it.

<grin>  Some people in Marlboro had a similar opinion.

> IIRC -- I had to move memory between the main cpu and attached processor
> so they could back up the beast at RCA's Semiconductor in Sommerville NJ...
>
> A flawed design hack which was master/slave and lousy. Software support
sucked.

Yea, well, the OS people at the time had biases which would keep the
OS from making that hardware work.

> They would've been better run as separate 11/780s... Probably put the
> Soviet computer program back a few years...
>
> https://goo.gl/7G86LH

I wonder why DEC got fined.  The story I heard was that DIT was
about a third or maybe fourth party so that the Feds wouldn't
be able to track the sale.

/BAH

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DEC and The Americans RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> - 2016-01-25 17:26 +0300
  Re: DEC and The Americans Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca> - 2016-01-25 10:58 -0500
    Re: DEC and The Americans Dan Espen <despen@verizon.net> - 2016-01-25 11:47 -0500
    Re: DEC and The Americans John Levine <johnl@iecc.com> - 2016-01-25 16:47 +0000
      Re: DEC and The Americans Stan Barr <plan.b@bluesomatic.org> - 2016-01-25 17:41 +0000
        Re: DEC and The Americans mm0fmf <none@mailinator.com> - 2016-01-25 19:25 +0000
        Re: DEC and The Americans Walter Banks <walter@bytecraft.com> - 2016-01-25 16:15 -0500
      Re: DEC and The Americans Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca> - 2016-01-25 13:17 -0500
        Re: DEC and The Americans Stan Barr <plan.b@bluesomatic.org> - 2016-01-26 08:20 +0000
          Re: DEC and The Americans mausg@mail.com - 2016-01-26 11:32 +0000
          Re: DEC and The Americans "Charles Richmond" <numerist@aquaporin4.com> - 2016-01-26 17:23 -0600
        Re: DEC and The Americans Eric Pozharski <whynot@pozharski.name> - 2016-01-26 19:08 +0200
        Re: DEC and The Americans "Charles Richmond" <numerist@aquaporin4.com> - 2016-01-26 17:20 -0600
          Re: DEC and The Americans scott@alfter.diespammersdie.us (Scott Alfter) - 2016-01-27 19:40 +0000
        Re: DEC and The Americans Yeechang Lee <ylee@columbia.edu> - 2016-01-27 22:40 -0800
      Re: DEC and The Americans Eric Pozharski <whynot@pozharski.name> - 2016-01-26 21:16 +0200
        Re: DEC and The Americans "Jack Myers" <jmyers@n6wuz.net> - 2016-01-28 10:07 -0800
    Re: DEC and The Americans "jack" <jkl8976@nospam.com> - 2016-01-26 05:48 +1100
    Re: DEC and The Americans jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> - 2016-01-26 13:56 +0000
      Re: DEC and The Americans "Charles Richmond" <numerist@aquaporin4.com> - 2016-01-26 17:43 -0600
        Re: DEC and The Americans jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> - 2016-01-27 15:42 +0000
          Re: DEC and The Americans pechter@pechter.dyndns.org (William Pechter) - 2016-02-03 00:36 +0000
            Re: DEC and The Americans jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> - 2016-02-03 14:25 +0000
  Re: DEC and The Americans Rich <rich@example.invalid> - 2016-01-25 17:27 +0000
    Re: DEC and The Americans Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> - 2016-01-25 11:18 -0800
  Re: DEC and The Americans "jack" <jkl8976@nospam.com> - 2016-01-26 05:40 +1100
  Re: DEC and The Americans "J. Clarke" <j.clarke.873638@gmail.com> - 2016-01-25 19:12 -0500
    Re: DEC and The Americans RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> - 2016-01-26 14:22 +0000
      Re: DEC and The Americans Morten Reistad <first@last.name.invalid> - 2016-01-26 16:20 +0100
        Re: DEC and The Americans Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> - 2016-01-26 11:36 -0500
        Re: DEC and The Americans "J. Clarke" <j.clarke.873638@gmail.com> - 2016-01-26 18:37 -0500
          Re: DEC and The Americans Roger Blake <rogblake@iname.invalid> - 2016-01-27 03:58 +0000
            Re: DEC and The Americans Ahem A Rivet's Shot <steveo@eircom.net> - 2016-01-27 06:16 +0000
            Re: DEC and The Americans jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> - 2016-01-27 15:42 +0000
            Re: DEC and The Americans Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> - 2016-01-27 18:14 +0000
      Re: DEC and The Americans "J. Clarke" <j.clarke.873638@gmail.com> - 2016-01-26 18:34 -0500
  Re: DEC and The Americans bleep@compy.0-0 (Colonel Bleep) - 2016-01-30 07:07 +0000
    Re: DEC and The Americans "J. Clarke" <j.clarke.873638@gmail.com> - 2016-01-30 09:43 -0500
      Re: DEC and The Americans Marek Novotny <marek.novotny@marspolar.com> - 2016-01-30 09:02 -0800
    Re: DEC and The Americans Alfred Falk <falk@arc.ab.ca> - 2016-01-30 20:36 +0000

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