IBM System/360

Thomas Watson Jr.'s $5 billion 'bet the company': more than the Manhattan Project cost, against IBM revenues of $3.2 billion. A family of compatible machines that establishes the 8-bit byte; its descendants still run banking systems today. Three years later, the USSR decides to clone it.

A joint Academy and State Committee session resolves to base the unified ES EVM computer series on the IBM System/360 architecture. Lebedev becomes the decision's fiercest opponent; only chairman Glushkov files a formal dissent at this meeting.

At the highest government level the USSR decides to copy the IBM System/360 as the ES EVM ('Ryad') instead of continuing its own BESM and Minsk lines, against the resistance of leading computer scientists. Babayan later calls it a cardinal error that 'destroyed' domestic innovation; scientists had to study outdated Western software and rewrite it from scratc