3 ms·

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. Th

by 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."

by djur 6y ago

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."