M-40 Computer

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1. Special-purpose M-40 computer.
2. Chief designer: S. A. Lebedev, academician; deputy chief designer: V. S. Burtsev.

   Development engineers: V. S. Chunayev, V. I. Ryzhov, Yu. N. Sinelnikov, V. F. Petrov, A. G. Laut, Yu. V. Nikitin, V. M. Sokolov, V. P. Razroyev, Yu. S. Averin, B. A. Babayan, M. F. Velikovsky, V. Ya. Gorshtein, O. K. Gushchin, A. S. Krylov, L. F. Krylova, A. F. Krupsky, S. E. Kazansky, S. G. Karabutov, E. A. Krivosheyev, P. I. Kozulin, V. I. Marakhovsky, E. M. Nesterov, E. M. Orlov, V. M. Pivnenko, Yu. Kh. Sakhin, I. K. Khaylov.

3. Designing organization: Institute of Precise Mechanics and Computer Engineering (ITMiVT) of the USSR Academy of Science.
4. Completion of development: 1956.
5. Description: the computer functions in conjunction with an exchange processor providing the connection with system subscribers and time storing equipment. It has an interrupt system. For the first time operation execution is combined with data exchange. A multiplexor exchange channel is available. The machine operates in a closed loop as a control unit. Connecting to remote objects through radio-relay full-duplex channels is possible. For the first time ferrite-transistor cells are used in low-frequency devices.
6. Element base: vacuum tubes, ferrite cores, transistors and solid-state diodes.
7. Specifications:
   • Computation speed - up to 40,000 operations per second.
   • RAM - ferrite core with 4,096 words capacity.
   • Cycle duration - 6 ms.
   • Representation of numbers - fixed point. Word length - 36 bits.
   • External memory - magnetic drum with 6,000 words capacity.
8. Field of application: controlling a long-distance tracking and precise homing radar systems and antimissile guidance to ballistic missiles. In March 1961, the computer was used in a test when for the first time in the world a ballistic missile warhead was destroyed with a fragmentation warhead of an antimissile. The team of leading development engineers of the machine, among them S. A. Lebedev and V. S. Burtsev, got the Lenin prize.