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.<p>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.<p>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).<p>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.<p>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.
A few aphorisms about Voja Antonić:<p>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.<p>The book is now available as a free PDF on his website. [1] I don't know what happened to my website.<p>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.<p>(Both links are in Serbian.)<p>[1]: <a href="http://www.voja.rs/dpdl.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.voja.rs/dpdl.htm</a><p>[2]: <a href="https://noizz.rs/intervju/voja-antonic-za-noizz-o-odlasku-u-ameriku-dobio-sam-uslove-o-kojima-sam-sanjao/hpbd25t" rel="nofollow">https://noizz.rs/intervju/voja-antonic-za-noizz-o-odlasku-u-...</a>
There's a great talk about it that also has more technical details on CCC: The ultimate Galaksija talk [1]<p>[1]: <a href="https://media.ccc.de/v/29c3-5178-en-the_ultimate_galaksija_talk_h264" rel="nofollow">https://media.ccc.de/v/29c3-5178-en-the_ultimate_galaksija_t...</a>
Wayback has a site about a (2018) replica build of the Galaksija.[0] It includes links to multiple sites with a <i>lot more</i> technical details. One of them [1] has a schematic, parts-list, and board-layout diagram. (Software???)<p>[0]<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20191226063832/http://oldcomputer.info/8bit/galaksija/index.htm" rel="nofollow">https://web.archive.org/web/20191226063832/http://oldcompute...</a><p>[1]<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20191220081815/http://www.spetsialist-mx.ru/Galaksija/" rel="nofollow">https://web.archive.org/web/20191220081815/http://www.spetsi...</a>
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).
<i>Antonić’s microcomputer contained only 4K bytes of program memory—a veritable drop-in-the-bucket compared to any laptop today.</i><p>Standard laptop RAM = 8GB? So 2,000,000 “drops” of 4KB.<p>Standard bucket = 12l? So 120,000 100µL drops.<p>So considerably smaller than a drop in a bucket.
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.<p>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).<p>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).<p>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:<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Letter_to_Hobbyists" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Letter_to_Hobbyists</a><p>The article treats a lot of this stuff as more unique (and, it seems, ideologically inspired) than it was.
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]<p>BTW, Voja Antonic left Belgrade few years ago, now living in US.[2]<p>[1] <a href="https://www.usgamer.net/articles/the-story-of-yugoslavias-diy-computer-revolution" rel="nofollow">https://www.usgamer.net/articles/the-story-of-yugoslavias-di...</a><p>[2] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voja_Antoni%C4%87" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voja_Antoni%C4%87</a>
I started on "paper computer" [1].
Real hardware was crazy expensive, even ABC technical magazine was difficult to get.<p><a href="https://cs.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pap%C3%ADrov%C3%BD_po%C4%8D%C3%ADta%C4%8D_CGS" rel="nofollow">https://cs.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pap%C3%ADrov%C3%BD_po%C4%8D%...</a>
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.<p>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.<p>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.
Slight tangent, but not sure if you ever saw this article about the Cobra: <a href="https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/11/the-underground-story-of-cobra-the-1980s-illicit-handmade-computer" rel="nofollow">https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/11/the-underground-stor...</a>
Off topic, but ha, this funny. "Tito" and "anti-authoritarian" in the same paragraph, just LOLz. The intro is a bit off, politically.<p>On a less off-topic note, checkout Bulgaria's wildly successful clone of the Apple II in 1979: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pravetz_computers" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pravetz_computers</a>
There is also the FPGA version if anyone is interested - <a href="https://github.com/hrvach/Galaksija_MiSTer" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/hrvach/Galaksija_MiSTer</a>
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.
There's also a number of issues of the Magazine on archive.org<p><a href="https://archive.org/search.php?query=Galaksija" rel="nofollow">https://archive.org/search.php?query=Galaksija</a>
those geniuses broadcast computer programs via airwaves during a radio show. listeners would record it on cassette and play the program on computer. anybody else did that ?
I was once on a seminar where Voja Antonić was presenting, it was in 2011, the guy is still working on computers. He gave awesome lecture on that semninar.
as someone who has never been super interested in hardware or the "hacker" mantra, reading about this DIY basic computer makes me really interested in the space all of the sudden. like modern day equivalents like the raspberry pi exist and have never really interested me, but something about 4k memory really changes something