Day of information science — on December 4

On December 4, 1948 — day of registration of copyright certificate No. 10475 — the first Soviet patent for an automatic digital computer granted by the State committee of Council of Ministers of the USSR on implementation of the advanced equipment in the national economy of the member correspondent of Academy of Sciences of the USSR the Dr.Sci.Tech. to Isaak Semyonovich Brook and the engineer Bachir Iskanderovich Rameev.

According to^[1], history of the Soviet computers originates in the 1930th to the state program of general electrification, it is possible to call doctor Brook fairly one of their first creators.

Isaak Semyonovich Brook (1902 — 1974) was born in Minsk in poor family of the small employee. In 1925 defended the thesis at department electricians K.A. Kruga in the Moscow highest technical school and at first worked for the Circle at its All-Union Electrotechnical Institute (AUEI) — the head research center for power industry, and in 1935 passed into Power institute (ENIN) of Academy of Sciences of the USSR, having organized laboratory of networks of power supply there.

Development of power industry required the huge volume of scientific computations, and in 1935 Brook does the first computer 'electric table of alternating current' — the analog device for modeling and calculation of networks of power supply (it is stored in the Moscow Polytechnical Museum).

Having successfully defended the doctoral dissertation in 1936, he was engaged in huge mechanical integrator of differential equations to the 6th order. Such monsters developed in England and the USA, but … the era of mechanical calculations ended. However, its work was successful, and Brook was elected in Academy of Sciences.

During war except power he was engaged in aviation arms, and soon after the victory its laboratory made already electronic analog machine EDA integrating differential equations to the 20th order. However it were 'half measures', and the post-war progress in science required effective automation of calculations.

At that time electronic computers already began to appear in the West: 10 in the USA and on one in England and France — everything for the military purposes therefore their technical descriptions were not published. Not all were electronic computers, the majority became on electromechanical relays, and the American ENIAKA (ENIAC) though had 28,000 electron radio tubes, but there was no memory device, in it not binary, but decimal arithmetics more likely it was applied there was an integrator.

(I.e. corresponding to a concept the electronic computer) EDSAC (Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Computer) created by Morris Wilks (1913 — 2010) and his colleagues at the Cambridge university (Great Britain) in 1949 was the first almost used computer with the program stored in memory.

And the very first electric computer (relay Z-3) software-controlled and memory was made by Conrad Tsuze in 1941 in Berlin, but in 1945 the machine died.

Generally, the idea of the electronic computer soared in air, but Brook with the scientific baggage and laboratory remained alone. Its 'the scientific twin' the academician of AN of Ukraine (the Moscow professor) Sergey Alekseyevich Lebedev, the pet of MVTU and VEI who began in 1948 in Kiev theoretical seminars on development of MESM — one of two first Soviet computers was the only comparable scientist. But, as well as in the West, work on a computer was coded and designers about each other knew nothing.

Interesting parallelism is traced in destinies[1] Brook and Lebedev's^[2]. Birthdays at them have for the beginning of November, 1902, at both the same alma mater, MVTU of Bauman. In 1948 they created the first projects of digital computers, in the 1951st started the country's first computers. The destiny disposed so, as they died, as well as were born, in one year — Lebedev and Brook died in the 1974th.

It is easy to provide Brook's joy when in May, 1948 he was called by the chief of the Moscow central research institute 108 (a radar-location and communication) the academician and the admiral Axel Ivanovich Berg (the founder of electronic industry of the USSR) and recommended the talented designer Bachir Rameev. Rameev, listening to radio Air Force on the self-made receiver, learned about the ENIAC electronic machine in the USA, became interested and told Berg — the head, intelligent and very attentive to youth.

Bachir Iskandarovich Rameev was born in 1918 in the town of Baymak. His grandfather Zakir Ramiyev, the gold industry entrepreneur and the Tatar poet, was a member of the Russian State Duma, mother — the descendant of an old noble family of Dashkov. The father is a mining engineer Iskandar Rameev, in 1914 graduated Gornaya from academy in Germany in Freiberg (where in 1739 M.V. Lomonosov studied), successfully worked, but in 1938 was repressed and died.

Bachir still the school student sent to Moscow to tender radio-controlled model of the armored train going on rails, shooting from the gun and putting a smoke screen. Wrote about it newspapers and magazines (Izvestia, Komsomolskaya Pravda, 'Ogonek'), and in 1935 admitted to authoritative All-Union society of inventors.

However in the 1938th it was expelled from Moscow Power Engineering Institute as 'son of the enemy of the people', and further all life, in any conditions he was engaged in self-education. Hardly got a job on Bashradio where itself studied radio engineering and interdisciplinary sciences. Thanks to it and talent of the inventor in 1939 it was taken the technician in the Moscow central research institute of communication.

Without having got in 1941 to army because of weak sight, Rameev went the volunteer to a signal battalion at Ministry of Communications of the USSR. There designed the original cryptographic device, and in the 1943rd participated in liberation of Kiev in group of VHF communication.

In 1944 under the State resolution on demobilization of specialists for recovery of the national economy it returned to Moscow and came to central research institute No. 108 to A.I. Berg. As the experienced radio fan quickly understood the main electronic circuits: triggers, multivibrators, delay circuits, registers, counters, decoders that very much helped then with work on computers.

Still was fond of atomic physics: invented the device for acceleration of the charged particles, received the copyright certificate and the invitation of the academician Leypunsky to work in Atomic Center in Obninsk, but personnel department refused.

Impulsive Brook reacted to Berg's call as the flashed gunpowder: in May, 1948 enlisted Rameev the design engineer in laboratory of ENIN electrical systems and seated in the office (nobody cancelled privacy). In three months, in August, 1948 they submitted the USSR's first 'Automatic Digital Electronic Machine' project with the description of a schematic circuit of a computer and arithmetic transactions in a binary system, and on December 4, 1948 received the copyright certificate.

Brook and Rameev implemented the principle of storage of the managing program in memory. The program registered on a punched tape and was entered into the machine, results of calculations were issued on other tape and the acquired information was again entered from it into the machine for the following cycle. The possibility of processing of commands in the arithmetic device of the machine was created that corresponds to Janos von Neumann's principle (in the USSR — S.A. Lebedeva). In the similar way also Conrad Tsuze followed, but then in general nobody knew about it.

The detailed project of creation of computer laboratory at the Moscow Institute of exact mechanics and ADP equipment (ITMIVT) — the parent scientific organization on information science was attached to the patent.

Rameev remembered:' … implementation of the project requires special design bureau — special design bureau. I worked two weeks in Lenin library, studied literature on design of industrial enterprises and plants. As a result (our) document … was born'.

Despite an age difference and academic statuses authors worked almost like equal colleagues. Their courses of life are very not similar, but led common interests, ability to feel "science pulse' and huge creative activity to a stage invention.

For a year of joint work they submitted 50 applications for inventions; some even returned to them — in the State Committee on inventions there were not enough specialists experts in this new industry.

Of course, not all were made 50 in 1948 — designers 'made out' the collected ideas of previous years. It is the certificate that 'stage' patent No. 10475 not an accidental invention, but a part of process of formation of a computer in the USSR.

And the term 'information science' appeared in 14 years from the moment of issue of the first patent for a computer, it was offered by the Soviet scientist Alexander Harkevich^[3]. It represents consolidation of words "information" and "automatic equipment".'

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