The First All-Russian Olympiad for Schoolchildren in Programming (Informatics) 1989

Dedicated to the memory of Ilya Zhiltsov

After meeting the guys from the Mytishchi school of programmers in the Yandex camp, I wondered how the first programming competitions were held.
To begin with, I wrote a post about the first All-Union Olympiad, then I began to search for information about the first All-Russian Olympiad and this search led me to one of the winners (second place) of this Olympiad - Daniel Aliyevsky ( http://algart.net ), he willingly shared with me personal photos, your memories and diary entries (will be in the next publication).

1988, April 13–20 in Sverdlovsk, the First All-Union Olympiad for schoolchildren in programming (computer science)
1989, March 21–25 in Krasnoyarsk, the First All-Russian Olympiad for schoolchildren in programming (computer science)
1989, May 15-20, in Bulgaria, in the town of Pravets, the First International School Olympiad for Programming (Informatics)


(from the personal archive of Daniel Aliyevsky, award)

I quote the texts of the tasks of the First All-Russian School Olympiad in programming. They can be solved by themselves or given to Padawan students. (At the end of the publication, Daniel told how they studied computer science / programming in those years)


The I All-Russian Olympiad of schoolchildren in computer science, which was the republican stage of the All-Union Olympiad, was held from March 21 to March 25, 1989 in Krasnoyarsk. It was attended by 143 students from all regions of Russia. The organizers of the Olympiad were the Krasnoyarsk University, the Krasnoyarsk Pedagogical Institute, the Computing Center of the Siberian Branch of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (Krasnoyarsk) and the Main Directorate of Public Education of the Krasnoyarsk Regional Executive Committee. The jury was headed by corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences Yu.I. Shokin.

When checking the work, each task was first evaluated independently from others from 0 to 5 points. The criteria for evaluating the tasks of the theoretical tour were traditional; when evaluating the tasks of the practical tour, the highest score was set if an effective program was created that gives the correct result; 4 points were given to someone whose program was less effective, but also gave the correct result; 3 points were set for an ineffective correct program, giving an incomplete result; 2 points were given for the correct program in the absence of a result; 1 point was received by those who, with the correct algorithm, made mistakes in the program; a zero score was set if the algorithm was incorrect. After checking all the tasks of the jury, the difficulty factor was displayed. The overall assessment of the work was equal to the sum of the products of the assessments for the problem by the corresponding difficulty factors.

Theoretical tour

March 22, 4 tasks were proposed, 4 hours were allotted for their solution. In all tasks it was required to compose an algorithm and write it in some algorithmic language.

Practical tour

On March 24, a practical tour took place, on which it was proposed to solve two problems using a personal computer within four hours. The participants were provided with personal computers such as "Yamaha", "Corvette" and "VK-0010" ("BK-0010"?). BASIC was declared the official language of the practical tour. Participants were not allowed to use their diskettes.





Participant Results

The winner of the first All-Russian Olympiad in computer science for students was V. Belevtsev, a tenth grader in secondary school No. 36 in Obninsk, Moscow Region, who scored 120 points out of 175 possible. The second place was taken by D. Aliyevsky, the tenth grader of secondary school No. 36 of Sverdlovsk, and the third place was taken by M. Plakin, the tenth grader of secondary school No. 3 of Kirov, who scored 114 and 112 points, respectively. According to the results of the Olympiad, a team of the RSFSR was formed to participate in the All-Union Olympiad, which included 22 students who showed the best results, as well as the prize-winner of last year's All-Union Olympiad in Informatics Ilya Zhiltsov, a student of secondary school No. 37 of Sverdlovsk.

PS

- Daniel, how you "became a programmer" at school and how it learned / taught in those days?
- We had a circle of programmers led by Radiy Kadushnikov at the UPI UPI (there was a class of “Robotrons-1715”). A great person and my friend since those times. After the circle, we began to program with him on the IBM PC XT at the Institute of Chemistry, where he was listed by someone; it was a very “cool” computer, which seemed to cost 50,000 Soviet rubles (several Zhiguli cars). Almost immediately after leaving school, all of us turned into a SIAMS company, which still lives on, in which I was a co-founder and for which I work to this day: siams.comIn addition, I have an older brother, a graduate of the VMK Moscow State University, who brought his programming experience on large machines; he also taught me a lot, and for several years at the end and right after school, he and I developed utilities for DOS together. He is also a co-founder and permanent employee of SIAMS.
Ilya, however, studied elsewhere. And he did not join our company, despite our invitations - he chose the more difficult path of pure mathematics, for which I did not have the abilities.

(in the next publication I will give the text of Daniel’s memoirs about how the Olympiad was held)
From the diary of the winner of the first All-Russian Programming Olympiad for schoolchildren in 1989