Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site dciem.UUCP Path: utzoo!dciem!mmt From: mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor) Newsgroups: net.politics,eunet.politics Subject: Re: Nuclear arms race Message-ID: <698@dciem.UUCP> Date: Thu, 9-Feb-84 19:22:21 EST Article-I.D.: dciem.698 Posted: Thu Feb 9 19:22:21 1984 Date-Received: Fri, 10-Feb-84 03:49:22 EST References: <5678@mcvax.UUCP> Organization: D.C.I.E.M., Toronto, Canada Lines: 33 ================ OK, I have a proposal: - right now the USA will stop their policy of not delivering computers to the SU; - they will offer say 50 VAXen for installation on their universities and highschools; - an equal number of autodiallers will come with those machines (perhaps the European electronics industry may drop in here); - Bell Labs will provide them with Unix(tm), including uucp AND news; - as for other European countries, mcvax will act as the gateway between the SU net and the USA net. After all, isn't it by virtue of computers that this whole network exists? And drop you silly arguments that they will use them only for military puposes. Or are you so naive to believe that they can't make weapons/ missile control systems of their own? -- Piet Beertema ================ They clearly CAN make their own computers, but apparently they didn't start making them very enthusiastically or particularly well until the US started prohibiting computer export to the East Bloc. According to an article in Physics Today by someone who regularly went on a Russian exchange program, they used to use mainly DEC equipment, but after the embargo started, the Russian equipment quickly became much better and much more in quantity. What the embargo has done is to encourage the Russian (not East German) computer industry to come up to date. Is this the result that was intended? -- Martin Taylor {allegra,linus,ihnp4,uw-beaver,floyd,ubc-vision}!utzoo!dciem!mmt