PAU L WILLIAMSON
Former computer engineer Paul Williamson recalls his adventures behind the Iron Curtain – including run-ins with the KGB
Former computer engineer and guest columnist Paul recalls his adventures behind the Iron Curtain – including run-ins with the KGB.
The world was very different in 1960, even more so in the small Yorkshire village I called home. Most people had never heard of computers and thought electronics was something to do with “valves” in radios and televisions. Books on computing didn’t exist in our village until the library placed a special order for me, aged 11.
When my two books appeared, they detailed the workings of ENIAC and EDSAC, with photos showing boffins in white coats tinkering with electronic racks of equipment. I read with interest about such things as mercury delay lines used for memory, thermionic valves in logic gates and other magical components. Right then, it dawned on me that I may not be clever enough to live in this never-never land.
But I wasn’t going to give up easily. After I’d finished school, I applied for a position as technical writer at the English Electric Computer factory manufacturing large mainframes south of Manchester. It had recently merged with ICL, another mainframe manufacturer. At the interview, I was asked about my communication skills, which, in retrospect, was a reference to my abilities as a writer but at the time I thought was about my background. I waxed lyrical about technical stuff and was, amazingly, offered a job working on the machines (“computer” wasn’t a term much used in the industry at the time).
So I came to be one of those boffins… except they weren’t called boffins and they didn’t wear white coats. They were just engineers who wore suits. Still, I had arrived – not just in the industry, but in the early 1970s, in my early 20s and working on a new leading edge “front-end” communications processor.
By this time, although the Cold
War was still in the news, the West had developed a softer approach. The US couldn’t, or wouldn’t, sell computing equipment to the Eastern Bloc, but the UK could – and my company had the further advantage of being IBM-compatible. This was a great opportunity: the growing need for real-time access to information meant demand worldwide for communications was exploding.
When I was offered the chance to move into the support team that covered other countries, especially those behind the Iron Curtain, I eagerly took it. I was always looking for variety and to gain a little hubris!
My first visit was to Budapest in the early 1970s. It didn’t take long for me to make my first cultural mistake. During my introductions to the local engineers, I didn’t realise that they put the family name first and given name last, and also used “engineer” as a title in the same way as Mr or Mrs. After being greeted with bemused looks for the first day, one of the on-site engineers tactfully explained that I’d been using the wrong names.
I was there to train the local engineers, which meant showing them how to deal with common faults. However, I didn’t have the luxury of separate computers to train them on: I used the customer’s operational machine as a training system. This was usually at the end of the day when the remote communications weren’t being used and batch work was being processed instead. There was always the risk that I or one of the students would cause a real fault. Fortunately, this was infrequent and always out of operational time. I replicated faults using a piece of electrician’s tape to open-circuit a gate, or a “frig” link to ground it, but occasionally the last student to find it would leave it on!
There were other crucial life lessons too, the main one being to listen to others who have gone before you and take their advice – which I never did and still don’t. More practically, I soon learnt that their drinks machines only dispensed espresso coffee and in egg cup-sized plastic cups, half of which was the grounds. About two slurps and it was gone; after a couple of servings, I’d be in zombie land.
One of the distinct perks of my job was that I had time to be a tourist. Although Budapest was a beautiful place, it was sobering to see the austerity and bullet holes – especially in the colossal, neo-Gothic parliament building – from the revolution in
1956. There were lovely sights, but many of them, such as stations, were forbidden to photograph. I recall travelling up a large hill in a chair lift to visit a railway, having a fondness for them, and was astonished to find a full-sized railway entirely staffed by children. It was wonderful to see their uniforms and them carrying out all of the procedures. As it was winter,
“There was always the risk that I or one of my students would cause a real fault”
the carriages were heated by coalburning stoves.
Saved by the biscuits
Another of my jobs was in Katowice in southern Poland and I decided it would be fun to drive there. In the middle of winter. All of my colleagues advised against it, with warnings of visa issues at borders, driving through East Germany, overzealous police and no road lighting at night. Yet I was young and invincible – of course I’d be alright and, anyway, I could bring back more goodies by road than I could by air.
Outside Berlin, I stopped by the road and made a cup of coffee on the camping stove. After a few minutes, a car pulled up and I noticed a camera fixed to the dashboard. It turned out to be an unmarked East German police car and I realised with horror that I wasn’t on the designated route. I didn’t speak any German, but understood their question – kaput?
– from schoolboy comics. I shook my head and they started going through my documents. I offered them a coffee, hoping it might show goodwill. They declined. After a lengthy discussion between themselves and suspicious glances at me, I suddenly remembered I had chocolate biscuits and offered them. They accepted and allowed me to drive on. Saved!
The southern regions of Poland were heavily industrial, with lots of steam locomotives and coal mining. The people were delightful: very hard-working and family-oriented. But the machine I had to fix filled me with dismay. It wasn’t just a fault: it had been dropped during shipping and its whole rack-side had dislodged, tearing through a wiring loom. Even worse, there were no tools to rewire it. I had to trace the broken circuits, solder the ends back together and use Sellotape – yes, Sellotape – to insulate them. It somehow worked.
On the way back to East Germany, I drove over a humpback bridge and dropped around two feet onto a subsided road, causing some problem with the rear brakes, which squealed every time I applied them. The next day, I was pulled over by the Polish police. Not for the squealing, but it seems I passed a stationary tram, which was forbidden. He imposed a fine for an extortionate amount. However, the policeman expressed an interest in my car cassette tapes and gestured me to play one. It was just a collection of stuff recorded from the radio. He was delighted and indicated he would like the tape. I didn’t refuse.
The fine was gone, he shook my hand, got out and stopped all the traffic for me to pull out, before waving a friendly goodbye.
To Russia with logic diagrams
My next job was even further afield: teaching in the USSR. Business trips to Russia at that time were usually confined to air travel, but I claimed to have a fear of flying and was given a visa to travel by train. We reached the PolishRussian border at Brest around midnight, where the train was taken into a long hangar. The railway gauge in Russia is different from Poland and the West and I assumed that we’d need to change trains, but no: a gang of men appeared and, using screw jacks, lifted the whole train, including us passengers, off the bogie wheels and took them away. Another was set brought in, the train lowered, and we were on our way. The process took about an hour overall.
As soon as I stepped onto the platform in Moscow, two men wearing the obligatory trench coats addressed me by name (how did they know what I looked like? I hadn’t supplied a photo) and asked me to accompany them, in a black sedan, to the hotel. The following morning, I was told my car was waiting outside, complete with driver, and was mine to use as I wished during my stay. Not too shabby.
For the next few weeks, I worked at a site transliterated as the Ministry of Foreign Trade. This was a grand Stalinist-style building so it obviously was important. However, I wasn’t allowed to visit any other part of the building, including the canteen, and was accompanied at all times. The plus side was being brought free meals at lunchtime and having my first taste of caviar… which the Russians didn’t d seem to rate very much.
It was mandatory to use an interpreter and I had a lady supplied by the KGB, who would ensure nothing untoward was being put across. Naturally, I had to pause every few sentences for it to be translated, but I noticed that if I said a lengthy technical piece it would be translated into quite a short sentence. All became clear when the interpreter left the room for a break and the students asked if I could teach them a few swear words – they could all understand English. So the KGB lady’s translation was effectively: “Are you happy with what he just said?” I suppose logic diagrams are the same in any language.
Despite the austere surroundings, people were very friendly. Sometimes, too friendly. While it’s always nice for people to check that you’re well, I found it irritating being phoned in the small hours of the morning several times a week by the KGB. They never spoke but were just checking I was in the room.
Still, I had a great time in Moscow and was fascinated that the Soviet right to a job manifested itself in curious ways: for example, my hotel had automatic lifts operated by push buttons. However, the lifts had operators – two for each lift – just to press the buttons. Sometimes they would both ride in the lift and one would press even floors and the other odd floors!
Another totally alien thing was zero inflation, so much so that every article you bought had the price moulded ulded into the design because it never changed: what cost two roubles oubles then had cost two roubles ten years before and would cost two roubles ten years in the future. It engendered a feeling of stability, and perhaps there’s a salient lesson there for modern tech companies too…
“I had to trace the broken circuits and use Sellotape – yes, Sellotape – to insulate them”