Debugging Behind the Iron Curtain (2010)
Bit flips in RAM due to radioactive meat passing by as proven by measuring with equipment obtained from the military with the help of a few shots of vodka - it doesn't get any more Soviet than this. But, to flip a bit in a memory device from the 80s, when transistors were huge compared to today?.. I'd love to ask Sergei some questions!
Maybe a dumb question, but what kind of programming languages and operating systems were used at that time in the Soviet Union? Were c and unix a thing there as well?
Sergey lied to you (and likely also to the immigration officer). All cattle in that area was shot and buried, all contaminated equipment was abandoned, even the stuff that could be cleaned up. A chip with such coarse lithography would need to be _in_ Chernobyl to experience any bit flips.
I’ve seen it posted here once or twice before, but it always brings a smile to my face.
duplicate of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16628877
don’t post this glory crap here
I once interned in a clean room, and the equivalent story was random bad batches of wafers over months traced to one of the teams going out for super greasy pizza for lunch every week.