Apparently, in an effort to gain market share in the Soviet block (Which cloned ND products like there was no tomorrow anyway) without falling foul of COCOM rules, they neutered a few 32-bit NORDs and duly exported them east.
Presumably the COCOM regulations of the time said 'No 32 bit exports!'...
I came across it (again) reading some physics history.
Edit, TLDR style, here's part of what dang says:
> You're misinterpreting that guideline, and I'm afraid HN might be missing out on some great submissions as a result! It's not limited to what good hackers would find interesting for hacker-related reasons. It's simply: what good hackers would find interesting.
But not release ready still. I'm busy working on the FUSE filesystem implementation at the moment.
There's another very good ND-100 emulator out there (runs executables like mine), it's on Github.
EDIT: Not sure why this comment is getting downvoted. I'm just interested in why people find the article interesting and/or if there was some recent news which made Norsk Data relevant again…