Nairi (computer)

The first Nairi (, ) computer was developed and launched into production in 1964, at the Yerevan Research Institute of Mathematical Machines (Yerevan, Armenia), and were chiefly designed by Rachya E. Hovsepyan. In 1965, a modified version called Nairi-M, and in 1967 versions called Nairi-S and Nairi-2, were developed. Nairi-3 and Nairi-3-1, which used integrated hybrid chips, were developed in 1970. These computers were used for a wide class of tasks in a variety of areas, including Mechanical Engineering and the Economics.
Nairi-3.
Of all the models of the Nairi computer systems, the micro-program control principles of the Nairi-1 were improved and expanded on the most in the Nairi-3 models. Through the advances in computer technology since the initial production year of 1964, it became possible for upwards of 128 thousand micro-instructions to be stored at one time. Not to mention the reduction in access times due to advances in the manufacture process of the components. This enabled for a Multilingual Computing structure, and time-sharing modes with simultaneous access of up to 64 terminals; which could all perform the functions of one computer.
The processing power of the Nairi-3 was considerably higher than competing systems due to multiple storage system improvements. Some of which includes the usage of a long-term form of read-only memory to store the computer's firmware, on a sampling cycle of 8 μs, while on other, similar systems, the firmware as well as external, foreign programs were stored on external storage devices, such as magnetic drums, the predecessor to modern day hard drives.
A feature of the proposed computer architecture for a model of the Nairi-3 computer systems was the use of a permanent, non-volatile memory cassette tape, the main functional block of the ROM device was the storage, which consisted of YAN-9 accumulator cells.