High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The history of computing hardware in the former Soviet Bloc is somewhat different from that of the Western world. As a result of the CoCom embargo, computers could not be imported in a large scale from capitalist countries. All computer hardware produced in the socialist countries was either designed locally or derived or copied from Western models by the intelligence agencies, tacitly studied, and reproduced. This redevelopment led to some incompatibilities with IEC and IEEE standards, such as Integrated circuit pins on 2.5 mm (0.098 in) spacing instead of 2.54 mm (0.100 in) spacing. This made Soviet chips unsalable on the world market outside the Comecon, and made test machinery more expensive.