From Strela computer:
Strela computer (Russian: ЭВМ Стрела, arrow) was the first mainframe computer manufactured serially in the Soviet Union, beginning in 1953.
This first-generation computer had 6200 vacuum tubes and 60,000 semiconductor diodes.
Strela's speed was 2000 operations per second. Its floating-point arithmetic was based on 43-bit floating point words, with a signed 35-bit mantissa and a signed 6-bit exponent. Operative Williams tube memory (RAM) was 2048 words. It also had read-only semiconductor diode memory for programs. Data input was from punched cards or magnetic tape. Data output was to magnetic tape, punched cards or wide printer. The last version of Strela used a 4096-word magnetic drum, rotating at 6000 rpm.
While Yuri Bazilevsky was officially Strela's chief designer, Bashir Rameyev, who developed the project prior to Bazilevsky's appointment, could be considered its main inventor. Strela was constructed at the Special Design Bureau 245 (Argon R&D Institute since 1986) in Moscow.
Topwar.ru's Unique and forgotten: the birth of the Soviet missile defense system. BESM against Strela includes the two images below. The second caption suggests that the computer was
...designed to function during a nuclear winter...
I can't imagine that only the bobbin was so designed. But just in case I've added the second bit to the title:
Question: In what ways was the Soviet STRELA computer "designed to function during a nuclear winter"? Or at least parts of it?
"Strela" in all its splendor, 3 paired blocks with aisles between them, arranged in the shape of the letter U, and a central console. This is not the whole computer; about the same volume was occupied by storage devices, generators, air conditioning systems and other auxiliary parts.
Monstrous bobbin "Strela", the one designed to function during a nuclear winter (photo from the collection of the Polytechnic Museum in Moscow).
Potentially helpful:
- Not Strela-2: Strela-1, the First Soviet Computer: Political Success and Technological Failure
- links to the IEEE Annals of the History of Computing July-September 2006 paper by Hiroshi Ichikawa, Hiroshima University: PDF
- Russian Virtual Computer Museum's Strela Computer