My Mother: Engineer, Programmer, and Analyst. Part 2

During her studies, she learned six programming languages: Assembler, Fortran, Focal, Pascal, C, Basic.

Her diploma was devoted to analyzing program texts in 10 different programming languages. She analyzed lines of code and explained how the lines were connected to each other (connections between operators). At work, she studied programming languages from documentation provided by the company. She completed an internship at a company involved in space telemetry, where she wrote in Assembler and processed data transmitted from spacecraft. Assembler was used to reduce the size of boot files and optimize signal processing. A 256 KB disk was considered huge.

She wrote application programs in Fortran (she and others wrote little in C at the time).

In 1986, in the USSR, programming for defense and space industry enterprises was predominantly done in Assembly and Fortran, rather than in C. The main reasons for this are as follows:

• Assembly language was the standard for low-level programming, essential for working directly with hardware, managing devices, and ensuring maximum efficiency and control. In systems where speed and precise control were critical, Assembly remained the gold standard.

• While C was available and used, it was much less prevalent than in western countries.

• In the 1980s, C had not yet gained wide acceptance in Soviet programming. This was largely because: сompilers and development tools based on C were less accessible or standard, internal standards and practices favored Assembly and Fortran. Many specialists’ expertise was oriented around these languages, and the hardware/software ecosystem was built around them.

• For defense and space projects, reliability and exact control over hardware were paramount. Assembly language provided such control, allowing optimization for specific hardware.

• Most engineers and programmers in the USSR learned Fortran in universities and research institutes.

• A substantial internal base of software and knowledge was built around these languages.

In the early 90s, funding for space and defense projects was cut sharply. There was no funding, no orders. Salaries were really low (people could barely survive on those salaries). The leading specialists of her office (developers, scientists and designers) decided to create the company ELVIS-PLUS. This company developed the world's first Wi-Fi module for laptops and developed a VPN for computers running Windows operating systems based on a hacked Microsoft network driver.

They also developed the first fax gateway in Russia and began providing Internet fax services. In 1993, ELVIS-PLUS became one of the first Internet providers in Russia. In 1994, the company introduced wireless Internet services for laptops.