«Mobile» was an informational bulletin, one of the primary sources of information about Moscow's computer market in the early 1990s. The publication launched in 1990, at a time when private computer trading was booming in Russia. Its core idea was to gather all the relevant information for computer-market participants into a single publication.
«Mobile» was a collection of A4-format price lists, a finger thick (by 1996 it had swollen to three volumes), published once a week. Originally it was organized by the principle of «seller and their goods,» and all the information fit onto 8-12 pages. In its early days, an ordinary word processor was enough to put the bulletin together.
«Mobile» had one important quirk — you couldn't buy it. It was only handed out to firms that placed their own price lists in it. So every eager buyer had to race around to firms they knew in Moscow, begging for last week's old issue of «Mobile.»
«Mobile» quickly became an indispensable reference for anyone in the computer and components trade. It was hard to find a computer firm that didn't have the distinctive orange volume of «Mobile» lying around. The journal needed no advertising — word of mouth did the job. There's even a known case from 1991 of someone selling the editorial office's contact phone number for 50 rubles.
At first «Mobile» covered only computers and components, but over time information about other kinds of equipment began appearing too. Later, alongside the main computer issue, separate themed collections began to be published.
By 1993, when the events depicted in the novel take place, «Mobile» was already the recognized leader among computer-market information publications. It had become a genuine guide for wholesale and retail buyers of computer equipment, letting them compare prices and selection across different companies.