The post is written in collaboration with the JINR Museum of Science and Technology.

The quote in the heading is about a computer! Do you think it is about a novel smartphone of a popular brand? Not at all. About the “Aldan-3”, a fictitious computer from Strugatsky brothers’ novel “Monday starts on Saturday” (1964—1965).

Maybe, a prototype of the legendary “Aldan-3” was the “Rasdan-3” computer which filled up a huge machinery hall, with a console on a big table and information input through punched cards and tapes (we’ve already told you about them earlier). Quite an advanced device for its time!

Later, computers grew more compact and powerful. However, the machines from the 1980-90s still make today’s users of smartphones and notebooks wonder about their capacity and dimensions.

Some of the machines of this kind are stored at the JINR Museum of Science and Technology. At present, it is closed to visitors, but in March, an exhibition “The 20th Century. Everyday Life of a Researcher” will be opened there, a joint project of the JINR Museum and the Dzhelepov Laboratory of Nuclear Problems.

The exhibition is a follow-up to the online project of the DLNP website column with the same name. It will allow showcasing within themed exhibits not only the rich collection of the JINR Museum but also some items from the Museum-Study of Bruno Pontecorvo. The latter are beyond the reach of non-JINR-employees, and this exhibition will give all those interested a chance to have a look at them.

Photos of museum items are from the JINR Museum of Science and Technology and the JINR Photo Archive: Experimental Department of Nuclear Spectroscopy and Radiochemistry. A. Inoyatov (Tomsk State University) is processing experimental data from the electrostatic beta-spectrometer using a MERA 60-30 computer.