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USSR Rotor Fialka M-125-3 PL → Russian M-125 →
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M-125-3M
Russia/Soviet Union
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Russian variant of the M-125-3 Fialka
The M-125-3M was the original Russian version of the
enhanced Fialka cipher machine,
on which all country-specific M-125-3xx
machines were based.
It was used throughout the USSR
during the Cold War, from the early 1960s
until the collapse of the
Soviet Union in 1992.
The machine was used by the military, the police, the
KGB and probably
by other intelligence services as well.
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The machine is the successor to the letters only
M-125
and is suitable for the Russian language only, as it has no support
for Latin. It features 30 characters of the Cyrillic alphabet plus
numbers and punctuation marks (lacking on the M-125).
The image shows an original Russian M-125-3 Fialka, as it was
rediscovered in a large Russian city in 2017.
It had previously been used by the KGB and had been given to a high ranking
KGB official on his retirement. Surprisingly, it was found with the
original Russian cipher wheels intact,
which enabled us to recover the wiring.
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Each key on the keyboard
holds two characters. The lower one is always
a character of the Cyrillic alphabet, whilst the upper one provides a selection
of numbers, punctunation marks and special characters. The machine has three
modes of operations – hence the additional '3' in the model number – (1) letters only,
(2) numbers only and (3) mixed mode (i.e. all characters). In mixed mode (3),
the left and right keys of the middle row are used as letters-shift
and figures-shift.
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During the Cold War, the M-125
and M-125-3 were used by all countries of the
Soviet Union (USSR),
using the Russian language for all secure communication.
For the non-Soviet countries of the Warsaw Pact,
such as Poland, East-Germany (DDR), Hungary and Czechoslovakia,
country-specific
bi-lingual variants of the M-125-3
were made, identified by a suffix to this
number, for example M-125-3MR2 for the Polish variant.
The Russian machine shown here, should be regarded as the original Fialka on which the
country-specific bi-lingual machines are based.
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At the end of the Cold War,
the Russians ordered the destruction of
all variants of the M-125 and M-125-3 machines, which took place in the late 1990s
and early 2000s. Some machines (notably the Polish and Czech versions)
escaped demolition and have since found their
way to collectors.
For a long time it was assumed that all original Russian Fialka
machines had been destroyed, until a machine surfaced in 2012 in Riga (Latvia),
as part of the private collection of former KGB officer Igor Ristolainen [1].
Unfortunately, the original cipher wheels were missing from that machine.
With the discovery of another one in late 2017, we finally got our hands
on an original Russian Fialka M-125-3 with the
original Russian cipher wheels.
This has enabled us to trace the wiring of the wheels,
which is given below.
The Russian cipher wheels do not have a 1K-prefix
to their serial number, as was originally assumed.
Instead, the numbers on the wheels are prefixed by 68.
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The keyboard of the Russian M-125-3M is different from the keyboards of
the other M-125-3xx versions.
Rather than square key tops, the keyboard has
rounded keys, similar to the ones on the
keyboard of the older M-125.
The reason for this is that only two rows of characters were needed
for this Russian-only version of the enhanced Fialka.
The characters on the upper row are green.
The outer two keys of the middle row have a special function.
When used in Mixed Mode (Text Mode lever set to С), the leftmost key
(ЦФ) is used to switch to Numbers, similar to the (1...)-key
on the Polish Fialka.
The rightmost key (БК) is used to return to Letters,
similar to the (A...)-key.
When used in Letters-only mode (Text Mode lever set to Б),
the leftmost key on the middle row produces the letter Ф,
whilst the rightmost key produces the letter Ж.
In this mode, the machine is backwards compatible with the earlier
M-125 and all other
machines with a Russian print head.
When used in Numbers-only mode (Text Mode lever at the rear set to Ц
and the 30 ↔ 10 lever at the left bottom set to 10),
only the keys that have numbers on them can be used. All other keys
are mechanically blocked in this mode. The numbered keys are
highlighted in the drawing above, but unlike
the country-specific M-125-3 variants,
the keys on the Russian version are all white.
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Label
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Russian
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Phonetic
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English
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ЦФ
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Цифры
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Cifry
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Numbers
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БК
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Буквы
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Bukvy
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Letters
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A three-position lever in the large red circular 'blob' to the right of the
drum, is used to select the required mode of operation. It is called the
MODE selector and is used to select between Coding, Decoding and Plain Text.
Furthermore, a vertical lever at the rear right (just behind the printer)
is used to select the desired TEXT MODE. It has three possible settings and
allows selection between Letter Mode, Number Mode and Mixed Mode.
The settings are explained in the following table:
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Label
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Russian
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Phonetic
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English
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О
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Открытый Текст
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Otkrytyj Tekst
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Plain text
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З
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ЗашифроватЬ
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Zashifrovat
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Cipher
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Р
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РасшифровыватЬ
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Rasshifrovyvat'
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Decipher
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Б
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Буквы
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Bukvy
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Letters
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С
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Смшанные
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Smjeshannyje
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Mixed
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Ц
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Цифры
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Cifry
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Numbers
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ПФ
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Перфорация
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Perforacija
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Punch 1
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ПЧ
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Печатание
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Pechatanije
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Print
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The lower two entries in the above table are the settings of the
Print/Punch control lever, that is located to the right of the MODE selector
and is part of the same red 'blob'.
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Please note that the ПФ settings of the Print/Punch selector,
is affected by the 2-position rotary switch at the bottom
of the machine. When set to БКЛ (ON) the printer is activated.
When set to ОТКЛ (OFF) the printer is disabled.
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Transport box
wanted item
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Fialka machines were distributed and stored, inside a large grey wooden
transport box, or crate, that carried the model and serial number
of the machine on its top lid.
The image on the right shows the original Fialka transport box of the
M-125-3M with serial number 98-39321,
as held in the collection of the
KGB Spy Museum
[2].
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The image on the right shows the print head that was used with the
Russian M-125-3M variant. It contains two rows of characters
in order to support the Mixed Mode of the enhanced Fialka.
The lower ring contains the 30 Cyrillic letters of the Russian alphabet
that are supported by this machine, whilst the upper ring holds the
numbers and punctuation marks. This Russian-only print head was
identical for all M-125-3 variants,
so that messages could be exchanged between
the various Warsaw Pact countries.
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Each Fialka machine came with two full sets of 10 cipher wheels each:
a standard set and a spare one. The standard set had black lettering
with the letter that represents the wheel's ID in red. The spare wheel
set had red lettering.
The image on the right shows the cipher wheels with black lettering,
as they were found with the machine. They are of the PROTON-2 type,
and have removable wiring cores.
The spare wheels are currently
missing from the set. The wiring of each wheel and the positions
of the advance blocking pins, are specified in the table below.
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Russian wheel wiring
68-series
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For a long time, the wiring of the original Russian cipher wheels
was unknown, as none had ever turned up on the surplus market, and
no technical documentation has so far been submitted to the public
domain. In 2017, Marc Simons and Paul Reuvers of the Crypto Museum
were the first to recover and publish the wiring of the Russian
wheels, that have a 68-prefix. It is believed that these wheels
were also used in other countries of the Soviet Union (USSR),
such as Ukraine [3].
In this table, each row represents a wheel, whilst each column
represents a single contact on a wheel. At the top of the table are
the entry contacts which are at the right side of the wheel
(i.e. the side with the spring-loaded contacts). The table itself
shows the output contacts (i.e. the left side of the wheel).
The positions of the Advance Blocking Pins are marked in red.
At the far right is the total number of Advance Blocking Pins for
each wheel.
➤ All known wheel wirings
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The Russian M-125-3M was supplied with the same accessories as
the other M-125-3 variants, except for the spare print heads.
As the M-125-3M was a Russian-only machine, the only print head that was
used was the Mixed Mode Russian version which was present inside the machine.
As a result, the axle that holds the test reflector inside the metal dust
cover, has no room for additional print heads.
Click any of the thumbnails below for additional information.
➤ Overview of the accessories
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When testing a Russian Fialka, either as a real machine or as a simulation,
the following table might be useful when checking the wheel stepping mechanism.
Put all wheels in their default setting (i.e. ring set to 'A', matching
core with side '1' up with the mark set to 'A') and place them in the machine
in the default order: АБВГДЕЖЗИК. Now lower the ruler and set the wheels
to AAAAAAAAAA (just above the ruler).
Next, type 20 random characters on the keyboard and compare the position
of the wheels after each step with the following table:
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Wheel
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А
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Б
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В
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Г
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Д
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Е
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Ж
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З
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И
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К
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Step
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1
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2
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3
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4
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5
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6
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7
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8
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9
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10
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0
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А
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А
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А
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А
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А
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А
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А
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А
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А
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А
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1
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Б
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Й
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Б
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А
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Б
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А
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Б
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А
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Б
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А
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2
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Б
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Я
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Б
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Й
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Б
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А
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В
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А
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В
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А
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3
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Б
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Ю
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Б
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Й
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Б
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А
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Г
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А
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Г
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А
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4
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Б
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Ь
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Б
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Й
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Б
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А
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Г
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А
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Д
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А
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5
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Б
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Ы
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Б
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Й
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Б
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А
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Г
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А
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Е
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А
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6
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Б
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Щ
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Б
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Й
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В
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А
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Д
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А
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Ж
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А
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7
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Б
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Ш
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Б
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Й
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В
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А
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Е
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А
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З
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А
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8
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Б
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Ч
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Б
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Я
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В
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Й
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Е
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А
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И
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А
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9
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Б
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Ц
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Б
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Ю
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В
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Й
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Е
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А
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К
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А
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10
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Б
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Х
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Б
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Ю
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В
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Й
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Ж
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А
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Л
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А
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11
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Б
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Ф
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В
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Ю
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Г
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Й
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З
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А
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М
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А
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12
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Б
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У
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В
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Ь
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Г
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Й
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З
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А
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Н
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А
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13
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Б
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Т
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В
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Ь
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Г
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Й
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И
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А
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О
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А
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14
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Б
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С
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Г
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Ь
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Д
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Й
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К
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А
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П
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А
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15
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Б
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Р
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Д
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Ь
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Е
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Й
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Л
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А
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Р
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А
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16
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Б
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П
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Д
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Ь
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Е
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Й
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М
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А
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С
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А
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17
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Б
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О
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Д
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Ы
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Е
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Й
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М
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А
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Т
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А
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18
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Б
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Н
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Д
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Ы
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Е
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Й
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М
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А
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У
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А
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19
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Б
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М
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Д
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Ы
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Е
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Й
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М
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А
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Ф
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А
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20
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Б
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Л
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Д
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Ы
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Е
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Й
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М
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А
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Х
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А
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The M-125-3 was based on the earlier M-125,
which did not support a mixed character set.
Although the keyboard of most of the older M-125 machines has two
characters on each key top, a Cryrillic one and a Latin one,
the Russian-only M-125
has no support for Latin and had just one letter
on each key top. The image below shows the layout of the Russian M-125.
➤ More information
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© Crypto Museum. Created: Sunday 06 July 2014. Last changed: Monday, 05 June 2023 - 09:39 CET.
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