10 ms·

The Galaksija computer was a craze in 1980s Yugoslavia

250 points by viburnum 6y ago

djur 6y ago
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: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Letter_to_Hobbyists 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 6y ago
  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.
  - djur 6y ago
    To me, the article would have been more informative and satisfying had it dwelled more on the unique elements you mention as opposed to the ways where it resembled the hobbyist PC era, like non-commercial distribution of programs in source form.
    - pvg 6y ago
      Yep, my initial impression of the article was that it didn't do a great job of contextualizing the story and was going to write a comment about that. Then promptly succumbed to someone's-wrong-on-the-internet reflex.
- cosmodisk 6y ago
  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.
- tpmx 6y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaksija_%28computer%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaksija_%28computer%29 "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."
tonymet 6y ago
Socialism's DIY computer : you build it , I take it
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
gotoeleven 6y ago
Most goods are DIY under socialism.
- nichos 6y ago
  Including food :)
Alekhine 6y ago
Wonderful article. I've often wondered if it was possible to have computer culture without a massive industry to support it.
- paleotrope 6y ago
  Did the Zilog Z80 require a massive industry to support it? That chip came out of engineers who left Intel.
  - kjs3 6y ago
    Nothing like the industry now, but the Z-80 and contemporary chips (8085, 6502, 680x) came from companies (Intel, MOS, Motorola) that were as massive as the industry was at the time. The 6502 (Apple, Atari) came out of engineers who left Motorola.
    - Lio 6y ago
      The original ARM chip came from engineers at Acorn seeing first hand how few people were involved in the creation of the 6502 they were using in the BBC Micro and deciding they could have a go at a RISC chip themselves. There's a lot to be said for having a go to see how far you can get.
- smsm42 6y ago
  You definitely need electronics industry at least. But designing the schemes and writing the software can be done by hobbyists up to some level.
frandroid 6y ago
A demoparty should take upon itself to setup a Galaksija demo competition...
- bane 6y ago
  This sounds like a Demosplash project.
okramcivokram 6y ago
There's a great talk about it that also has more technical details on CCC: The ultimate Galaksija talk [1] [1]: https://media.ccc.de/v/29c3-5178-en-the_ultimate_galaksija_talk_h264 https://media.ccc.de/v/29c3-5178-en-the_ultimate_galaksija_t...
- hrvach 6y ago
  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.
smsm42 6y ago
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).
- 082349872349872 6y ago
  The difficulty of getting transistors in the early 70's (to fix one's time machine): https://youtu.be/m3xVdxDWFWU?t=2700 https://youtu.be/m3xVdxDWFWU?t=2700 Do you remember if it was true that milspec had in general better tolerances than commercially sold components?
  - trhway 6y ago
    yes. The same components, just better binned, marked "VP" - "Voennaya Priemka" ("Military Acceptance"). Like a consumer binned resistor could be 10-15% off the target, VP - no more than 5%. Our main source of electronic components were military electronic hardware dumps around our Navy base :)
8bitsrule 6y ago
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???) [0]https://web.archive.org/web/20191226063832/http://oldcomputer.info/8bit/galaksija/index.htm https://web.archive.org/web/20191226063832/http://oldcompute... [1]https://web.archive.org/web/20191220081815/http://www.spetsialist-mx.ru/Galaksija/ https://web.archive.org/web/20191220081815/http://www.spetsi...
desireco42 6y ago
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.
pp19dd 6y ago
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.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
slim 6y ago
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 ?
- robin_reala 6y ago
  BBC did something similar with its BBC Micro: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_Micro_expansion_unit#Teletext_adapter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_Micro_expansion_unit#Telet...
  - Lio 6y ago
    Also with the Basicode broadcasts too. I remember the BBC broadcasting these and then us running them on our BBC B at home. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BASICODE https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BASICODE
- royjacobs 6y ago
  This happened in The Netherlands as well. Here's [0] a mostly English language link to the history of the Basicode system as used in the radio program Hobbyscoop. [0] https://www.hobbyscoop.nl/the-history-of-basicode/ https://www.hobbyscoop.nl/the-history-of-basicode/
  - the-dude 6y ago
    I was a listener and recorder and loaded some of those programs into my Acorn Electron.
- rbanffy 6y ago
  São Paulo's state university in Brazil had one such program where they broadcast software for, IIRC, MSX computers.
- ajuc 6y ago
  "Radiokomputer" in Polish Radio 4 did this in 80s and early 90s. First they would speak about the software (usually a game or utility tools), then they would emit the code. There was no copyright till 1992 (and in practice till late 00s), so people just recorded that, copied, and then sold or exchanged on open-air markets. BTW that's how CD Projekt (creators of Witcher and Cyberpunk games) started - 2 school friends selling pirated games - but they were a little older so they got their games by paper-mailing people in the west and not from radio :) I remember in early 90s exchanging cassettes by mail was the way to go for C64 hobbyst in Poland. People advertised on teletext or in computer press and then sent each other several cassettes with software and empty cassettes to be returned with new stuff. Often they added their small demo program with personal stuff at the beginning of the cassette - it was some random sid music, bouncing balls and scrolling text with greetings and sometimes insults towards Atari hobbysts :) Piracy was the rule for at least the next decade despite the law change. Nobody I knew at school had original software till 00s.
robin_reala 6y ago
Antonić’s microcomputer contained only 4K bytes of program memory—a veritable drop-in-the-bucket compared to any laptop today. 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.
msolujic 6y ago
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] [1] https://www.usgamer.net/articles/the-story-of-yugoslavias-diy-computer-revolution https://www.usgamer.net/articles/the-story-of-yugoslavias-di... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voja_Antoni%C4%87 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voja_Antoni%C4%87
- Jaruzel 6y ago
  I've just done a bit of googling and this guy https://www.tablix.org/~avian/blog/articles/galaksija/ 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.
  - msolujic 6y ago
    Nice find. I'll try to get parts and assemble it for myself as well. Maybe engage my kid into magic of computer science as a side effect ;)
nem_pet 6y ago
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.
jd115 6y ago
Off topic, but ha, this funny. "Tito" and "anti-authoritarian" in the same paragraph, just LOLz. The intro is a bit off, politically. 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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pravetz_computers
- acqq 6y ago
  The introduction in the article is historically accurate, compared to the countries behind the so called “iron curtain” that land was indeed different. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Curtain 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.”
  - disabled 6y ago
    Correct. Croatian-American here who has family that emigrated from former Yugoslavia. While Yugoslavia was east of the iron curtain, it was never actually behind the iron curtain. It was never an eastern soviet bloc state, and it was never a part of the USSR. This whole page deserves a read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cominform#Expulsion_of_Yugoslavia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cominform#Expulsion_of_Yugosla... There were inherent flaws in the soviet system from the beginning, that would ultimately be Achilles heels. For example, the Yugoslavian passport allowed you to effectively travel freely (without visas, usually) back and forth on both sides of the iron curtain. Also, while Americans refer to Yugoslavia's government system as communism, it was technically socialism. Yes, it was effectively a form of communism, and Tito was recognized as "benevolent dictator", but there were differences compared to the soviet bloc states. I am not excusing the horrors and the suffering that went on in Yugoslavia or the soviet bloc states either. It should be noted that the US would give funds to Yugoslavia to stir up conflict east of the iron curtain. The Yugoslavian system was no more economically successful than the soviet bloc states. It was inherently flawed. There are also wild stories that come out of the Balkans too: After Tito refused to align with the soviet bloc, Stalin ultimately tried to assassinate Tito 22 times (that we know of). Tito sends Stalin a letter and tells him to stop sending people to Yugoslavia to assassinate him. Because if Stalin does it again, Tito will personally send an assassin to Moscow to kill him (Stalin), and it will only take 1 try.
hrvach 6y ago
There is also the FPGA version if anyone is interested - https://github.com/hrvach/Galaksija_MiSTer https://github.com/hrvach/Galaksija_MiSTer
bgeeek 6y ago
Slight tangent, but not sure if you ever saw this article about the Cobra: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/11/the-underground-story-of-cobra-the-1980s-illicit-handmade-computer https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/11/the-underground-stor...
mouldysammich 6y ago
I'd really like a kit of some sort to build one of these. It seems like it could be a fun project to play around with.
jankotek 6y ago
I started on "paper computer" [1]. Real hardware was crazy expensive, even ABC technical magazine was difficult to get. https://cs.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pap%C3%ADrov%C3%BD_po%C4%8D%C3%ADta%C4%8D_CGS https://cs.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pap%C3%ADrov%C3%BD_po%C4%8D%...
- m4rtink 6y ago
  WOW, that's very cool & clever way to turn a piece of paper + a human into an actual (if a little rudimentary) computer! :)
ausbah 6y ago
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
stiray 6y ago
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.
- macspoofing 6y ago
  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.
qpiox 6y ago
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.
- deagle50 6y ago
  I'll have to ask my dad where my Commodore 64 came from in mid 80s Sarajevo.
celerity 6y ago
A few aphorisms about Voja Antonić: 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 http://www.voja.rs/dpdl.htm [2]: https://noizz.rs/intervju/voja-antonic-za-noizz-o-odlasku-u-ameriku-dobio-sam-uslove-o-kojima-sam-sanjao/hpbd25t https://noizz.rs/intervju/voja-antonic-za-noizz-o-odlasku-u-...
- black_puppydog 6y ago
  Too bad, I'd have loved to read this astrology debunking. And to forward it to a friend or two :P You sure you don't still have a copy of it somewhere? 0:-)
  - dragandj 6y ago
    You can use the famous Carl Sagan book The Demon Haunting World instead. Voja's book was inspired by it and covers the same topics in similar manner.
    - kencausey 6y ago
      Slight correction: _The Demon-Haunted World_, Sagan, 1995.
  - acqq 6y ago
    Luckily we have today online translate services. I've copied the first 2 pages from the "Astrology" chapter from the linked PDF of the book to give you an idea how the automatic translation looks like: "In order to understand astrology well, it is necessary to know it from the very roots. It originated in ancient Babylon, around 1000 BC, although some historians claim that astrology was conceived by the Sumerians, a whole millennium earlier. The precondition for the existence of large cities was well-developed agriculture, and this required knowledge of a precise calendar, as agricultural who had to know when to start sowing and how to adapt all agricultural work to the seasons. Establishing an accurate calendar is not it was possible without a good knowledge of mathematics and constant astronomy observations, and these jobs were most suitable for priests (the picture shows a stone on which is a record of the movement of the Moon, found in Mesopotamia). Thus the first astronomers were clergy, and it is logical that celestial bodies, which they discovered, were named after the then Babylonian gods. We we still use those names, actually theirs Roman translations: Mars instead of Nergal, Venus instead of Ishtar, Jupiter instead of Marduk and so on further. Here we come to the first paradox which is an integral part of astrology: although the names of the gods were assigned to the planets in the random order in which they were discovered, the meaning and the significance that each particular planet carries with it bears is firmly attached to the role of the god by whom it is got its name, and it has remained unchanged to this day. For example, Nergal (Mars) is the god of war, so the summers that began with a stronger the radiance of the planet Nergal in the sky was immediately women as particularly suitable for military campaigns, and the springs in which the splendor of Ishtar (Venus, the goddess of love) was emphasized, were destined to be concluded marriages. Same as for the planets, and for the stellar constellations the rule was that people born in a certain sign of the zodiac were attributed traits derived from the name of the sign. In the Babylonians, the number of characters that consisted of constellations initially changing between 6 and 18, but stabilized at about 600 BC 12. Soon the first horoscopes appeared: the oldest known dates from April 29, 410 BC. By the way, the division of the zodiac into 12 signs is not even today valid worldwide - Chinese and Indian horoscopes have 28, and Toltec cultures (in Central America) 20 characters. However, he respects all these horoscopes is the principle that the characteristics of people born in someone character directly depends on the name of that character. The oldest surviving critique of astrology was written by Cicero in 44 BC new era. His philosophical skepticism could not relate human characteristics to astronomical parameters at birth. He states that he would it would be more logical to establish the influence of meteorological conditions on the child at the time of birth, but not to notice any connection there either. The Greeks learned about astrology when they conquered Babylon in the fourth century BC, and the Romans took it from the Greeks. Before the end of the twelfth century ideas were taken over by northern Europe, so astrology soon entered the then school system. Around the seventeenth century, the sudden rise of science (primarily astronomy) caused the expulsion of astrology from European universities, so thus we come to another great paradox: its “golden age” astrology not experienced during the Middle Ages, when people were deeply religious and knowledge was transmitted mainly orally, but only since 1930, when British astrologer Naylor (R. H. Naylor) received an entertaining column in the daily newspaper in which he introduces an innovation: the horoscope! The interest of the audience in reading the fate was such that in record time all the papers got theirs horoscopes, and astrology experts sprouted like mushrooms afterwards rain. Today, for example, 96% of people in Europe know in which sign they were born, and only 34% know their blood type."
bane 6y ago
There's also a number of issues of the Magazine on archive.org https://archive.org/search.php?query=Galaksija https://archive.org/search.php?query=Galaksija
- mirkules 6y ago
  Wow thanks for digging that up. My dad was a “regular contributor” so it’s really cool to see his work. Računari also, IIRC.
Churdy 6y ago
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.

250 points by viburnum 6y ago

djur 6y ago

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: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Letter_to_Hobbyists 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 6y ago
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.
- djur 6y ago
  To me, the article would have been more informative and satisfying had it dwelled more on the unique elements you mention as opposed to the ways where it resembled the hobbyist PC era, like non-commercial distribution of programs in source form.
  - pvg 6y ago
    Yep, my initial impression of the article was that it didn't do a great job of contextualizing the story and was going to write a comment about that. Then promptly succumbed to someone's-wrong-on-the-internet reflex.
cosmodisk 6y ago
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.
tpmx 6y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaksija_%28computer%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaksija_%28computer%29 "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."

tonymet 6y ago

Socialism's DIY computer : you build it , I take it

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

gotoeleven 6y ago

Most goods are DIY under socialism.

nichos 6y ago
Including food :)

Alekhine 6y ago

Wonderful article. I've often wondered if it was possible to have computer culture without a massive industry to support it.

paleotrope 6y ago
Did the Zilog Z80 require a massive industry to support it? That chip came out of engineers who left Intel.
- kjs3 6y ago
  Nothing like the industry now, but the Z-80 and contemporary chips (8085, 6502, 680x) came from companies (Intel, MOS, Motorola) that were as massive as the industry was at the time. The 6502 (Apple, Atari) came out of engineers who left Motorola.
  - Lio 6y ago
    The original ARM chip came from engineers at Acorn seeing first hand how few people were involved in the creation of the 6502 they were using in the BBC Micro and deciding they could have a go at a RISC chip themselves. There's a lot to be said for having a go to see how far you can get.
smsm42 6y ago
You definitely need electronics industry at least. But designing the schemes and writing the software can be done by hobbyists up to some level.

frandroid 6y ago

A demoparty should take upon itself to setup a Galaksija demo competition...

bane 6y ago
This sounds like a Demosplash project.

okramcivokram 6y ago

There's a great talk about it that also has more technical details on CCC: The ultimate Galaksija talk [1] [1]: https://media.ccc.de/v/29c3-5178-en-the_ultimate_galaksija_talk_h264 https://media.ccc.de/v/29c3-5178-en-the_ultimate_galaksija_t...

hrvach 6y ago
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.

smsm42 6y ago

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).

082349872349872 6y ago
The difficulty of getting transistors in the early 70's (to fix one's time machine): https://youtu.be/m3xVdxDWFWU?t=2700 https://youtu.be/m3xVdxDWFWU?t=2700 Do you remember if it was true that milspec had in general better tolerances than commercially sold components?
- trhway 6y ago
  yes. The same components, just better binned, marked "VP" - "Voennaya Priemka" ("Military Acceptance"). Like a consumer binned resistor could be 10-15% off the target, VP - no more than 5%. Our main source of electronic components were military electronic hardware dumps around our Navy base :)

8bitsrule 6y ago

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???) [0]https://web.archive.org/web/20191226063832/http://oldcomputer.info/8bit/galaksija/index.htm https://web.archive.org/web/20191226063832/http://oldcompute... [1]https://web.archive.org/web/20191220081815/http://www.spetsialist-mx.ru/Galaksija/ https://web.archive.org/web/20191220081815/http://www.spetsi...

desireco42 6y ago

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.

pp19dd 6y ago

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.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

slim 6y ago

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 ?

robin_reala 6y ago
BBC did something similar with its BBC Micro: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_Micro_expansion_unit#Teletext_adapter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_Micro_expansion_unit#Telet...
- Lio 6y ago
  Also with the Basicode broadcasts too. I remember the BBC broadcasting these and then us running them on our BBC B at home. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BASICODE https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BASICODE
royjacobs 6y ago
This happened in The Netherlands as well. Here's [0] a mostly English language link to the history of the Basicode system as used in the radio program Hobbyscoop. [0] https://www.hobbyscoop.nl/the-history-of-basicode/ https://www.hobbyscoop.nl/the-history-of-basicode/
- the-dude 6y ago
  I was a listener and recorder and loaded some of those programs into my Acorn Electron.
rbanffy 6y ago
São Paulo's state university in Brazil had one such program where they broadcast software for, IIRC, MSX computers.
ajuc 6y ago
"Radiokomputer" in Polish Radio 4 did this in 80s and early 90s. First they would speak about the software (usually a game or utility tools), then they would emit the code. There was no copyright till 1992 (and in practice till late 00s), so people just recorded that, copied, and then sold or exchanged on open-air markets. BTW that's how CD Projekt (creators of Witcher and Cyberpunk games) started - 2 school friends selling pirated games - but they were a little older so they got their games by paper-mailing people in the west and not from radio :) I remember in early 90s exchanging cassettes by mail was the way to go for C64 hobbyst in Poland. People advertised on teletext or in computer press and then sent each other several cassettes with software and empty cassettes to be returned with new stuff. Often they added their small demo program with personal stuff at the beginning of the cassette - it was some random sid music, bouncing balls and scrolling text with greetings and sometimes insults towards Atari hobbysts :) Piracy was the rule for at least the next decade despite the law change. Nobody I knew at school had original software till 00s.

robin_reala 6y ago

Antonić’s microcomputer contained only 4K bytes of program memory—a veritable drop-in-the-bucket compared to any laptop today. 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.

msolujic 6y ago

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] [1] https://www.usgamer.net/articles/the-story-of-yugoslavias-diy-computer-revolution https://www.usgamer.net/articles/the-story-of-yugoslavias-di... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voja_Antoni%C4%87 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voja_Antoni%C4%87

Jaruzel 6y ago
I've just done a bit of googling and this guy https://www.tablix.org/~avian/blog/articles/galaksija/ 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.
- msolujic 6y ago
  Nice find. I'll try to get parts and assemble it for myself as well. Maybe engage my kid into magic of computer science as a side effect ;)

nem_pet 6y ago

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.

jd115 6y ago

Off topic, but ha, this funny. "Tito" and "anti-authoritarian" in the same paragraph, just LOLz. The intro is a bit off, politically. 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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pravetz_computers

acqq 6y ago
The introduction in the article is historically accurate, compared to the countries behind the so called “iron curtain” that land was indeed different. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Curtain 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.”
- disabled 6y ago
  Correct. Croatian-American here who has family that emigrated from former Yugoslavia. While Yugoslavia was east of the iron curtain, it was never actually behind the iron curtain. It was never an eastern soviet bloc state, and it was never a part of the USSR. This whole page deserves a read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cominform#Expulsion_of_Yugoslavia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cominform#Expulsion_of_Yugosla... There were inherent flaws in the soviet system from the beginning, that would ultimately be Achilles heels. For example, the Yugoslavian passport allowed you to effectively travel freely (without visas, usually) back and forth on both sides of the iron curtain. Also, while Americans refer to Yugoslavia's government system as communism, it was technically socialism. Yes, it was effectively a form of communism, and Tito was recognized as "benevolent dictator", but there were differences compared to the soviet bloc states. I am not excusing the horrors and the suffering that went on in Yugoslavia or the soviet bloc states either. It should be noted that the US would give funds to Yugoslavia to stir up conflict east of the iron curtain. The Yugoslavian system was no more economically successful than the soviet bloc states. It was inherently flawed. There are also wild stories that come out of the Balkans too: After Tito refused to align with the soviet bloc, Stalin ultimately tried to assassinate Tito 22 times (that we know of). Tito sends Stalin a letter and tells him to stop sending people to Yugoslavia to assassinate him. Because if Stalin does it again, Tito will personally send an assassin to Moscow to kill him (Stalin), and it will only take 1 try.

hrvach 6y ago

There is also the FPGA version if anyone is interested - https://github.com/hrvach/Galaksija_MiSTer https://github.com/hrvach/Galaksija_MiSTer

bgeeek 6y ago

Slight tangent, but not sure if you ever saw this article about the Cobra: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/11/the-underground-story-of-cobra-the-1980s-illicit-handmade-computer https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/11/the-underground-stor...

mouldysammich 6y ago

I'd really like a kit of some sort to build one of these. It seems like it could be a fun project to play around with.

jankotek 6y ago

I started on "paper computer" [1]. Real hardware was crazy expensive, even ABC technical magazine was difficult to get. https://cs.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pap%C3%ADrov%C3%BD_po%C4%8D%C3%ADta%C4%8D_CGS https://cs.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pap%C3%ADrov%C3%BD_po%C4%8D%...

m4rtink 6y ago
WOW, that's very cool & clever way to turn a piece of paper + a human into an actual (if a little rudimentary) computer! :)

ausbah 6y ago

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

stiray 6y ago

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.

macspoofing 6y ago
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.

qpiox 6y ago

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.

deagle50 6y ago
I'll have to ask my dad where my Commodore 64 came from in mid 80s Sarajevo.

celerity 6y ago

A few aphorisms about Voja Antonić: 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 http://www.voja.rs/dpdl.htm [2]: https://noizz.rs/intervju/voja-antonic-za-noizz-o-odlasku-u-ameriku-dobio-sam-uslove-o-kojima-sam-sanjao/hpbd25t https://noizz.rs/intervju/voja-antonic-za-noizz-o-odlasku-u-...

black_puppydog 6y ago
Too bad, I'd have loved to read this astrology debunking. And to forward it to a friend or two :P You sure you don't still have a copy of it somewhere? 0:-)
- dragandj 6y ago
  You can use the famous Carl Sagan book The Demon Haunting World instead. Voja's book was inspired by it and covers the same topics in similar manner.
  - kencausey 6y ago
    Slight correction: _The Demon-Haunted World_, Sagan, 1995.
- acqq 6y ago
  Luckily we have today online translate services. I've copied the first 2 pages from the "Astrology" chapter from the linked PDF of the book to give you an idea how the automatic translation looks like: "In order to understand astrology well, it is necessary to know it from the very roots. It originated in ancient Babylon, around 1000 BC, although some historians claim that astrology was conceived by the Sumerians, a whole millennium earlier. The precondition for the existence of large cities was well-developed agriculture, and this required knowledge of a precise calendar, as agricultural who had to know when to start sowing and how to adapt all agricultural work to the seasons. Establishing an accurate calendar is not it was possible without a good knowledge of mathematics and constant astronomy observations, and these jobs were most suitable for priests (the picture shows a stone on which is a record of the movement of the Moon, found in Mesopotamia). Thus the first astronomers were clergy, and it is logical that celestial bodies, which they discovered, were named after the then Babylonian gods. We we still use those names, actually theirs Roman translations: Mars instead of Nergal, Venus instead of Ishtar, Jupiter instead of Marduk and so on further. Here we come to the first paradox which is an integral part of astrology: although the names of the gods were assigned to the planets in the random order in which they were discovered, the meaning and the significance that each particular planet carries with it bears is firmly attached to the role of the god by whom it is got its name, and it has remained unchanged to this day. For example, Nergal (Mars) is the god of war, so the summers that began with a stronger the radiance of the planet Nergal in the sky was immediately women as particularly suitable for military campaigns, and the springs in which the splendor of Ishtar (Venus, the goddess of love) was emphasized, were destined to be concluded marriages. Same as for the planets, and for the stellar constellations the rule was that people born in a certain sign of the zodiac were attributed traits derived from the name of the sign. In the Babylonians, the number of characters that consisted of constellations initially changing between 6 and 18, but stabilized at about 600 BC 12. Soon the first horoscopes appeared: the oldest known dates from April 29, 410 BC. By the way, the division of the zodiac into 12 signs is not even today valid worldwide - Chinese and Indian horoscopes have 28, and Toltec cultures (in Central America) 20 characters. However, he respects all these horoscopes is the principle that the characteristics of people born in someone character directly depends on the name of that character. The oldest surviving critique of astrology was written by Cicero in 44 BC new era. His philosophical skepticism could not relate human characteristics to astronomical parameters at birth. He states that he would it would be more logical to establish the influence of meteorological conditions on the child at the time of birth, but not to notice any connection there either. The Greeks learned about astrology when they conquered Babylon in the fourth century BC, and the Romans took it from the Greeks. Before the end of the twelfth century ideas were taken over by northern Europe, so astrology soon entered the then school system. Around the seventeenth century, the sudden rise of science (primarily astronomy) caused the expulsion of astrology from European universities, so thus we come to another great paradox: its “golden age” astrology not experienced during the Middle Ages, when people were deeply religious and knowledge was transmitted mainly orally, but only since 1930, when British astrologer Naylor (R. H. Naylor) received an entertaining column in the daily newspaper in which he introduces an innovation: the horoscope! The interest of the audience in reading the fate was such that in record time all the papers got theirs horoscopes, and astrology experts sprouted like mushrooms afterwards rain. Today, for example, 96% of people in Europe know in which sign they were born, and only 34% know their blood type."

bane 6y ago

There's also a number of issues of the Magazine on archive.org https://archive.org/search.php?query=Galaksija https://archive.org/search.php?query=Galaksija

mirkules 6y ago
Wow thanks for digging that up. My dad was a “regular contributor” so it’s really cool to see his work. Računari also, IIRC.

Churdy 6y ago

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.