The computer code for Echo that Stan views is a combination of sample code from a chapter on concurrency in a book about Ada 95, and a MATLAB function from "MATLAB Simulations for Radar Systems Design".
Judging by the date of the issue of Rolling Stone seen in this episode, this takes place in April of 1982. While no major events occurred between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, this was the third year of the Soviet war in Afghanistan. April of that year also saw the British invasion of the Falkland islands in response to Argentina taking them over, and this was also while the war between Iran and Iraq was underway.
Echo was written in Ada which is programming language.