First series-produced Soviet computer
Rameev is conscripted into the army as a radar specialist; when freed, he goes to SKB-245 (future home of the Strela) instead of returning. Bruk 'loses his only collaborator' and the joint project remains on paper. Yet in 1962 Bruk, with Lebedev and Berg, will still recommend Rameev for a doctorate without defense.
Minister P. I. Parshin takes personal responsibility for the son of an 'enemy of the people' and brings Rameev to the new SKB-245 for work of 'special state importance'. His design becomes the basis of the Strela, the first Soviet series-produced computer; as deputy chief designer he pushes through vacuum tubes over slow relays.
His diploma work on the control block, with the projects of fellow trainees including Vsevolod Burtsev, formed the BESM draft design, defended in April 1951 at the same time as the rival Strela's.
A commission under Keldysh approves both Lebedev's BESM and the rival Strela of SKB-245. The defense-priority Strela gets the scarce potentialoscope memory tubes; the 'scientific' BESM must make do with slower mercury delay lines for years.
Lebedev's BESM-1 at the Moscow ITMVT becomes operational (1952/53), reaching about 8,000-10,000 operations per second after a memory upgrade, near parity with the West at the very top. Institute rivalry had initially forced it onto slow mercury delay-line memory while the faster CRT tubes went to the Strela team.
The Strela ('Arrow'), completed at the end of 1953 by the team around Bashir Rameev and Isaak Bruk, becomes the first Soviet electronic computer built in series: about 6,000 tubes, roughly 2,000 operations per second, some 7 units built.
Bruk put the fresh graduate in charge of the M-2 in spring 1952; by December all cabinets were switched on. At 2,000 operations per second it matched the Strela and early BESM, and it ran round-the-clock for fifteen years.
The BESM is approved for operation. At roughly 7,000-8,000 operations per second it is the fastest computer in Europe at completion, yet the weaker, less reliable Strela goes into serial production first.
The Strela collective receives the Stalin Prize 1st class. The asymmetry of honors is telling: chief designer Bazilevsky gets the Hero of Socialist Labor title, while Rameev, who did much of the real design work, heads the prize list but gets no title. Seven Strela machines are built; one computes Sputnik's orbit.