One few little details about those times: official radio was broadcasting spectrum games at late night hours. You recorded the game and played it on computer.
On flea markets you could buy latest games on packs of around 30 on one cassette. Yugoslavia had no copyright laws and breaking software protections became national sport.
Computer magazines weren't full of reviews like today but rather full of electronics, software sources (that you have typed to your computer - I still remember that some genius started to add checksum at the end of endless DATA statements and give you a message that you have done an error in line x).
My first computer (c64) was smuggled from Austria under fathers car seat, at age of 12 I have written my first software (due to the large amounts of cheap games I got bored) and one of the coolest things to see were pirate intros packed with games. At 14 I was fully proficient with Amiga and Atari ST.
Those were different times, we didnt have 30 types of chocolate bars, zillions of different toys but we had a lot of imagination. Now, my country... the consumption has completely destroyed public morale, innovation and will to actually do something else than be pretty (boys included) and fit and well dressed at youth time, having latest phone and likes on your FB account. I had unique chance to see two very different parts of how society functions and I think we, as humans, are on wrong path.
The old abundance paradox. When you have everything you appreciate very little. We have had the same problem with the middle class here in the US for half a century, but our national culture had a strong focus on competition, winning, and money.
Those old values are fading for better or worse, and it will be interesting to see what happens next.
It is a trope that every generation thinks the next generation is worse
I also think you're looking at Yugoslavia with nostalgic rose colored glasses. I understand it because I grew up in communist Eastern Europe and I have similar feelings about life back then, but let's be clear, everything was fine as long as you charted the expected course and had no major aspirations. If you had any sort of ambition, political, or economic, or if your personality trait tended towards contrarianism, you had to leave. It was also clear that European communist nations were being left behind by ever faster developing west. Had there was no market transition, you still would have had to import western electronics because our nations were never going to meaningfully compete in that sphere. During the time of Galaksija computer, the West was going through a much larger and much more broad and egalitarian PC revolution, and was only 10 years removed from the web. We were never going to catch up. The political structures of our nations, because they were monolithic an inflexible, were corrupt by the 80s. In my country the collapse resulted in social upheaval and very painful economic transition. In your nation, it resulted in many years of civil war.
1. He was involved as a skeptic and wrote a well-received (among my friends at least) book debunking psychics and various kinds of nonsense. As a teenage boy in Serbia (in the late 90s?), I asked him to translate a portion of the book to English and put the translation on my website. He graciously allowed me to do so. Part of why I wanted to go through that massive effort was to convince an English-speaking girlfriend (whom I've met online!) that astrology is nonsense. You could say that relationship did not last long.
The book is now available as a free PDF on his website. [1] I don't know what happened to my website.
2. He moved to the US at 65 to work SV, and had some emotional things to say about the move. [2] It stuck with me.
That was an amazing lecture by Tomaz Solc. His contributions and work on recreating the Galaksija in a more modern, yet entirely authentic edition are nothing short of amazing.
Wayback has a site about a (2018) replica build of the Galaksija.[0] It includes links to multiple sites with a lot more technical details. One of them [1] has a schematic, parts-list, and board-layout diagram. (Software???)
There were a lot of DYI computer schemes in USSR in my childhood. Mostly because getting your hands onto a ready-made one outside workplaces and some very advanced schools was nearly impossible, but there were a bunch of schemes published in popular technical journals. From those, with luck, some access to electronic components (also not always easy but easier than getting the whole computer) and decent skills with a soldering iron, one could make a working computer. Output would go to the TV, and some had persistent storage using a cassette recorder. Since there was no internet, of course, if you want a game, or another program (but it usually would be a game), you have to copy it from your friends (and if you ask where the first friend got it - no idea... probably somebody got it from official developers or brought from overseas? but all games of that period I've seen were copied from friends).
My friend got a Galaksija (he did not build it himself, but got it from someone who did) and the gaming parties he organized when he got this computer was my first real encounter with computing. Prior to that I only read about computers in magazines.
One needs to understand that at that time it was hard to buy a regular home computer in Yugoslavia because of market specifics and some import restrictions (in order to encourage local production and improve the local economy).
Many smuggled computers in personal luggage. Sinclair's ZX Spectrum was particularly target of jokes because of the rubber buttons, so people said it to the customs officer (when caught) that it was a programmer for the laundry machine (due to the use of rubber).
Later I bought a Commodore 64 via a official channel through the Commodore representative in the country. I waited several months for the import approval and shipping.
This is a great story, but most of the anecdotes are very familiar to someone who has studied (or was there for) the early era of home computing in the West. The Altair, the Heathkit, etc. Bill Gates' infamous Open Letter To Hobbyists was written in that era:
This computer was designed the better part of a decade after Bill Gates's letter. The environment is really completely different - the personal computer revolution has already happened, these people are aware of it, etc. In fact, such computers were available but well outside the budget of many. So it's the story of making a PC from available parts, without hard currency and as cheap as possible - radically cheaper than the early US kits.
It seems that it took him a couple of decades to understand that piracy of his products may be good for the business: when visiting a university in the US in early 90s, he got asked what Microsoft is doing with the Chinese pirating their products left and right. Bill responded with 'let them get used to it and eventually we'll figure out how to charge for it'. I used to use pirated software all the time.fast forward some years and I'm paying for Photoshop, Acrobat,a whole bunch of Microsoft products and I'll most likely host my app on Azure.
ZX80 - Sinclair ZX80 which predates the Galaksija by 4 years and has a remarkably similar system design including using the Z80A to drive the video output."
As a kid, probably 12-13, I was a guest member of ETF Computer Club, Dejan Ristanovic and another friend would take me with them to the movies, I remember watching Graduate /w Dustin Hoffman with them. Unforgettable.
Probably main reason and inspiration that I became a programmer.
If he was born here in the US, he would be a billionaire. Exceptional talent and wonderful man.
This brings back many memories.. I owe my early amazement of being able to "tell machine what you want and it will obey" to guys like that. Here is another nice piece that puts more context on that era and creation of Galaxija [1]
BTW, Voja Antonic left Belgrade few years ago, now living in US.[2]
Has designed a replica system, with some minor mods to allow for newer easier-to-get logic chips, and better compatibility with newer Z80 CPUs. He offers up the whole design for download - so anyone should be able to build one. I've bookmarked it... I'm definitely interested in making one to add to my retro collection.
In the mid 80s, way for most to see a computer over there was to join a club, a school club (called "section") where you could try your hand at programming.
Often enough there wasn't any kind of a tape or disk device, so you had to type your program from a magazine, a printout, or handwritten notes. It took forever, and there were typos and glitches to resolve.
Once, I watched a guy painstakingly type a 200 line basic program. He stepped away for a minute to use the WC, and the joker who sat in his stead bird-pecked "new" and hit enter. That was the end of that evening.
The introduction in the article is historically accurate, compared to the countries behind the so called “iron curtain” that land was indeed different.
“Soviet-installed governments ruled the Eastern Bloc countries, with the exception of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, which retained its independence and changed its orientation away from the Soviet Union in the late 1940s to a progressively independent worldview.”
From the article:
“Along with Egypt, Ghana, India, and Indonesia, the country founded the “non-aligned movement,” a patchwork of developing nations aspiring to chart a decolonial “third option” of formal neutrality during the Cold War. This constituted one of the few genuine anti-authoritarian, anti-imperial international alliances of the twentieth century.”
That doesn’t mean that the leader wasn’t treated as the “unique and only.”
The author did a good job and hit the spirit of the times in the former state. The Spectrum and C-64 raised hundreds of IT pioneers in the 1980s. It all always started with pirated tapes but most after a year or two switched to writing code and trying to create their own software. Good times with the exception of politics.
[+] [-] stiray|5 years ago|reply
On flea markets you could buy latest games on packs of around 30 on one cassette. Yugoslavia had no copyright laws and breaking software protections became national sport.
Computer magazines weren't full of reviews like today but rather full of electronics, software sources (that you have typed to your computer - I still remember that some genius started to add checksum at the end of endless DATA statements and give you a message that you have done an error in line x).
My first computer (c64) was smuggled from Austria under fathers car seat, at age of 12 I have written my first software (due to the large amounts of cheap games I got bored) and one of the coolest things to see were pirate intros packed with games. At 14 I was fully proficient with Amiga and Atari ST.
Those were different times, we didnt have 30 types of chocolate bars, zillions of different toys but we had a lot of imagination. Now, my country... the consumption has completely destroyed public morale, innovation and will to actually do something else than be pretty (boys included) and fit and well dressed at youth time, having latest phone and likes on your FB account. I had unique chance to see two very different parts of how society functions and I think we, as humans, are on wrong path.
[+] [-] k__|5 years ago|reply
When I talk to people living in the balkans, I don't get the feeling that abundance in products is destroying their morale.
[+] [-] rpiguy|5 years ago|reply
Those old values are fading for better or worse, and it will be interesting to see what happens next.
[+] [-] macspoofing|5 years ago|reply
I also think you're looking at Yugoslavia with nostalgic rose colored glasses. I understand it because I grew up in communist Eastern Europe and I have similar feelings about life back then, but let's be clear, everything was fine as long as you charted the expected course and had no major aspirations. If you had any sort of ambition, political, or economic, or if your personality trait tended towards contrarianism, you had to leave. It was also clear that European communist nations were being left behind by ever faster developing west. Had there was no market transition, you still would have had to import western electronics because our nations were never going to meaningfully compete in that sphere. During the time of Galaksija computer, the West was going through a much larger and much more broad and egalitarian PC revolution, and was only 10 years removed from the web. We were never going to catch up. The political structures of our nations, because they were monolithic an inflexible, were corrupt by the 80s. In my country the collapse resulted in social upheaval and very painful economic transition. In your nation, it resulted in many years of civil war.
[+] [-] celerity|5 years ago|reply
1. He was involved as a skeptic and wrote a well-received (among my friends at least) book debunking psychics and various kinds of nonsense. As a teenage boy in Serbia (in the late 90s?), I asked him to translate a portion of the book to English and put the translation on my website. He graciously allowed me to do so. Part of why I wanted to go through that massive effort was to convince an English-speaking girlfriend (whom I've met online!) that astrology is nonsense. You could say that relationship did not last long.
The book is now available as a free PDF on his website. [1] I don't know what happened to my website.
2. He moved to the US at 65 to work SV, and had some emotional things to say about the move. [2] It stuck with me.
(Both links are in Serbian.)
[1]: http://www.voja.rs/dpdl.htm
[2]: https://noizz.rs/intervju/voja-antonic-za-noizz-o-odlasku-u-...
[+] [-] black_puppydog|5 years ago|reply
You sure you don't still have a copy of it somewhere? 0:-)
[+] [-] okramcivokram|5 years ago|reply
[1]: https://media.ccc.de/v/29c3-5178-en-the_ultimate_galaksija_t...
[+] [-] hrvach|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 8bitsrule|5 years ago|reply
[0]https://web.archive.org/web/20191226063832/http://oldcompute...
[1]https://web.archive.org/web/20191220081815/http://www.spetsi...
[+] [-] smsm42|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 082349872349872|5 years ago|reply
Do you remember if it was true that milspec had in general better tolerances than commercially sold components?
[+] [-] robin_reala|5 years ago|reply
Standard laptop RAM = 8GB? So 2,000,000 “drops” of 4KB.
Standard bucket = 12l? So 120,000 100µL drops.
So considerably smaller than a drop in a bucket.
[+] [-] qpiox|5 years ago|reply
One needs to understand that at that time it was hard to buy a regular home computer in Yugoslavia because of market specifics and some import restrictions (in order to encourage local production and improve the local economy).
Many smuggled computers in personal luggage. Sinclair's ZX Spectrum was particularly target of jokes because of the rubber buttons, so people said it to the customs officer (when caught) that it was a programmer for the laundry machine (due to the use of rubber).
Later I bought a Commodore 64 via a official channel through the Commodore representative in the country. I waited several months for the import approval and shipping.
[+] [-] deagle50|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] djur|5 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Letter_to_Hobbyists
The article treats a lot of this stuff as more unique (and, it seems, ideologically inspired) than it was.
[+] [-] pvg|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cosmodisk|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tpmx|5 years ago|reply
"See also
ZX80 - Sinclair ZX80 which predates the Galaksija by 4 years and has a remarkably similar system design including using the Z80A to drive the video output."
[+] [-] desireco42|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] msolujic|5 years ago|reply
BTW, Voja Antonic left Belgrade few years ago, now living in US.[2]
[1] https://www.usgamer.net/articles/the-story-of-yugoslavias-di...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voja_Antoni%C4%87
[+] [-] Jaruzel|5 years ago|reply
https://www.tablix.org/~avian/blog/articles/galaksija/
Has designed a replica system, with some minor mods to allow for newer easier-to-get logic chips, and better compatibility with newer Z80 CPUs. He offers up the whole design for download - so anyone should be able to build one. I've bookmarked it... I'm definitely interested in making one to add to my retro collection.
[+] [-] jankotek|5 years ago|reply
https://cs.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pap%C3%ADrov%C3%BD_po%C4%8D%...
[+] [-] m4rtink|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _i6ns|5 years ago|reply
Often enough there wasn't any kind of a tape or disk device, so you had to type your program from a magazine, a printout, or handwritten notes. It took forever, and there were typos and glitches to resolve.
Once, I watched a guy painstakingly type a 200 line basic program. He stepped away for a minute to use the WC, and the joker who sat in his stead bird-pecked "new" and hit enter. That was the end of that evening.
[+] [-] frandroid|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bane|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Alekhine|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] paleotrope|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bgeeek|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jd115|5 years ago|reply
On a less off-topic note, checkout Bulgaria's wildly successful clone of the Apple II in 1979: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pravetz_computers
[+] [-] qpiox|5 years ago|reply
Just a simple comparison to western democraties. In a typical democracy the parties list candidates and you vote for them.
Here candidates for representatives were proposed by interested members of the public on larger gatherings, by simple shouting someones name.
[+] [-] acqq|5 years ago|reply
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Curtain
“Soviet-installed governments ruled the Eastern Bloc countries, with the exception of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, which retained its independence and changed its orientation away from the Soviet Union in the late 1940s to a progressively independent worldview.”
From the article:
“Along with Egypt, Ghana, India, and Indonesia, the country founded the “non-aligned movement,” a patchwork of developing nations aspiring to chart a decolonial “third option” of formal neutrality during the Cold War. This constituted one of the few genuine anti-authoritarian, anti-imperial international alliances of the twentieth century.”
That doesn’t mean that the leader wasn’t treated as the “unique and only.”
[+] [-] hrvach|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mouldysammich|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Churdy|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bane|5 years ago|reply
https://archive.org/search.php?query=Galaksija
[+] [-] mirkules|5 years ago|reply