On 24/02/2021 10:18, Jethro_uk wrote:
On Tue, 23 Feb 2021 23:19:35 +0000, Theo wrote:

Martin Brown wrote:
I recall one particular week when Computer Weekly had two news reports.
IBM salesman of the year gets award for sale of 2000 PC ATs to Moscow
State University juxtaposed by some West German business man jailed for
3 years for exporting 200 Beebons to East Berlin. Apparently the
graphics on it were just slightly too good and they stamped on him.

There was a story that the US State Department prevented export of BBC
Micros to somewhere because they contained a US-built 6502 processor and
could something something munitions. Exporting the Apple II (same
6502 CPU) - no problem at all.

Weren't larger computers also never bought, but leased ?

I vaguely recall a story about a University trying to sell a PDP-11 only
to discover that DEC could (and did) prevent the sale.

Systime (Of Leeds fame, with an indoor fountain) fell foul of US export
retrictions and had a death fight with DEC themselves because their
machine were based on DEC VAX. There were rumours of PDP-11's being
exported as juke boxes.