ES EVM (ЕС ЭВМ) was a Soviet clone of IBM's System/360.

First works on the cloning began in 1968; production started in 1972.

The IBM/360 technology was not legally available to the Soviet Union due to the CoCom's restrictions. No relations have been maintained with IBM, so the cloning has been done often using stolen information. Much of the IBM software also have been (illegally) copied.

The common operating system was OS ES, a clone of OS/360.

Formally, the computers and software were "developed" in Moscow, Scientific-Research Center for Electronic Computer Machinery (НИЦЭВТ), in Yerevan, and later in Minsk, Belarus, at the Scientific-Research Institute of Electronic Computer Machines (НИИ ЭВМ). The electronics was based on ECL-type design.

They were manufactures in Minsk, at Minsk Production Group for Computing Machinery (Минское производственное объединение вычислительной техники (МПО ВТ))

The ES EVM computers have been produced also in other countries of the Eastern bloc: Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Czechoslovakia and GDR.

The ES EVM hardware was generally less advanced than that of IBM.

The last ES EVM computers have been produced in 1995.

The total number of produced ES EVM was more than 15,000.

Today some of the Russian institutes that have worked on ES EVM are cooperating with IBM to continue legacy support for both original IBM mainfraimes and ES EVM systems.

Einheitliches System Elektronischer Rechenmaschinen (German for: standardized system of electronic computers) was a treaty between the members of Comecon signed on December 23 1968 covering the development of a standardized computing system.

ESER was also the name for computers developed by this standard. Typically ESER Computers where named ЕС (which is cyrillic for "ES") followed by a four digit number (Example: EC 1834 an IBM PC XT compatible made by Robotron).

See also

• List of Soviet computer systems
• History of computer hardware in communist countries

External links

• technical data of some ESER computers by Robotron
• technical data of some ESER computers by Videoton
• some photos of a ESER Mainframe
• PDF! On Page 6 is an Overview of different ESER Mainframes in German
• Overview of different ESER Computers in Russian (with pictures)