Reverse Engineering Russian Tech

[togor]

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/04/u...smid=share-url

Looks like the Russians are still using the PC/104 form factor, which came on the scene in the late 80's and was pretty much obsolete (in the Western view) by the early 2000s.

In a past job I had to reverse engineer a desktop projector so that my company (a startup) could use the guts of it in a different application involving wet chemistry and ultraviolet light. That meant tricking the chipset into thinking that it was still happily running in a desktop projector with fans, a color wheel, etc. Had to do that a few times. In my experience the Japanese approach to electronics was more "American" than the German.

I'm assuming somewhere in the DoD, some engineers have already copied the Russian designs, and are building boards with the same chips so that they can functionally evaluate how these systems work. I think that would be a lot of fun, actually.

[barretcreek]

Have read about Russian diplomats buying up specific consumer goods and toys to get the chips. Vacuum tube avionics which are immune to EMP.

Thanks for the post.

[togor]

Oh I could see X-boxes and PlayStations going home to Russia in Diplomatic packaging all the time.