# In 1974 Gomselmash Opened a Computing Centre with a Minsk-32 Computer

- URL: https://syn.by/en/history/events/gomselmash-opened-computing-centre-minsk-32/
- Published: 2026-11-11T10:20:55+00:00
- Updated: 2026-11-11T14:20:03+00:00
- Section: Events
- Language: en
- RU edition: https://syn.by/ru/istoriya/sobytiya/gomselmash-otkryli-vychislitelnyy-tsentr.md
- BE edition: https://syn.by/historya/padzei/homsielmash-adkryli-vylichalny-centar.md

> The machine cost about 100000 roubles when the average salary in the USSR was about 141 roubles, and eight years earlier seven boiler houses in Homel's Novabelitsa district had been linked into a single network.

![](https://syn.by/wp-content/uploads/2026/11/illustration-6977-1024x585.webp)

In the summer of 1974 Gomselmash held a ceremonial opening of an information and computing centre. The plant was founded in 1930 and produces agricultural machinery. Most likely, the centre was equipped with a Minsk-32 computer.

The Minsk-32 model appeared in 1968. Its [main memory reached 65536 words](https://gomel.media/2026/11/10/13812.html), expandable fourfold. In the maximum configuration the machine had 0.5 megabytes of non-volatile ferrite-core memory.

Up to 136 external devices could be connected to the computer. The technical documentation ran to 8000 pages, and the machine consumed about 15 kilowatts of electricity.

The computer cost about 100000 roubles. The average monthly salary in the USSR in 1974 was about 141 roubles.

In total 2889 units of the Minsk-32 were built. By 1976 machines of this type accounted for more than 70% of the country's fleet of factory computers.

As early as 1966, a system began to be introduced in Homel's Novabelitsa district that joined seven heating boiler houses into a single network with a central dispatch hub. The first facilities were connected on Ilyich Street (buildings 55, 51, 41, 32, 26 and 14) and on Repin Street (building 1). Economists calculated that over a year the system helped save 7000 roubles.

At Homel factories in the 1970s, time was synchronised by master clock stations that stood in separate rooms, as a rule at the telephone exchange.

Radio began broadcasting in Homel in 1926. In 1950 an amateur television centre was set up in the Railway Workers' House of Culture, and in the same year a television centre appeared.

In the 50s receiving a signal from Minsk was technically impossible, so the centre picked up programmes from Kyiv.