3 ms·

Speaking as bulgarian, my guess is that the eastern block countries were limited to the amount of software/hardware that could be sold in the countries due to C

by malkia 13y ago

Speaking as bulgarian, my guess is that the eastern block countries were limited to the amount of software/hardware that could be sold in the countries due to Cocom ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CoCom http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CoCom ) and this possibly brought a whole generation of people that became good at reverse engineering, but most likely also at whole culture that thinks it's okay to reverse engineer almost everything... One of my friend's mother worked at bulgarian shop that all they did was to translate Norton Commander into russian (basically hex editing here and there), and then it was sold on the russian market. We had up to 1988-1989 a bulgarian company that was selling bootlegged games under their own name (yes I bought Karateka from them, and it worked on the bootlegged Pravetz-8C - a.k.a Apple ][/c). But it doesn't stop there - you can (or at least back in the days) find people living in the same apartment building that were able to fix your TV, car, radio, etc. without calling technician. My father regularly fixed TV sets of neighbors for no money (he's an ex military engineer - worked in radio-location) But then it was something about russian, or eastern block made hardware - you take any plane, car, tank, radio, etc. - you can open it yourself and start hacking, replace parts, etc. - e.g. even the own-made products were meant to be hackable. Now this is according to my father, who told me that it was much easier to fix russian produced military vehicles than anything else. The I-fix-it culture was really thriving, and some thanks to the "communism" (there was never such thing), but lots of kids got free education since 1st grade in computer science, hardware, rocketry, train modeling. The magazines were so cheap (and printed out on cheap paper) - that you can buy dozen of them full with models, etc. This is no longer the case (I've been living in USA since 1999, but visit my own Bulgaria almost every year). I wish some of the days are back, but I knew that it was utopia we lived.... Well take it with a grain of salt, typing this while on vacation from my lovely Bulgaria :)

antimora 13y ago
+1 for Karateka and Pravetz-8C which was my first computer =)
Keyframe 13y ago
Same reason as why demo coders from amiga, c64 and other limited systems are premier coders today. Limited financial and hardware resources make you shine in all kind of situations.
brownbat 13y ago
> "communism" (there was never such thing) In college I wrote a major research paper on market-style exchanges on the factory floors of Eastern Europe, with the underlying point that you can never really purge all market forces, that "capitalism" is more descriptive than normative. When I think back on it, well, I'm mostly ashamed for talking out of my ass about what other people actually experienced. It'd be great to hear more of your thoughts on it.
- malkia 13y ago
  Possibly you understood what it was better than me, especially since you've researched it. From my point, it was never communism - ahem the simple - produce as much as you can, take as much as you need There was one difference - central planning - all prices were fixed and you can't find much variety in the store (2-3 types of bread, 2-3 types of feta cheese, etc.) Another thing was the foreign currency - read about it here - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corecom http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corecom As a kid one of the best things were getting bananas/oranges for New Year, or getting some real dollars so you can buy kinder eggs/pezz/tobleron/etc from the Corecom stores (above). Although you might afford the money, there was no easy way to exchange them. It was a 'meh' moment for me, when democracy came, and my favourite store (selling cake, soda drinks) start also selling kinder eggs - It was impossible for me to think that I can go and buy as much as I want with ... levas (our currency). And as such they were no longer interesting :) I had a happy childhood, maybe because I did not know anyone too rich, or too poor, and the choice was limited... okay maybe that was not the case... But looking at all old bulgarian kid movies, one can see kids roaming the streets without any danger (and it was so - It was normal for me to stroll around while I was 5 or 6 years old). This gets old, a a bit reddit-ish, and it's purely my experience and surely for other people it could've been totally different story.

by malkia 13y ago

antimora 13y ago

+1 for Karateka and Pravetz-8C which was my first computer =)

Keyframe 13y ago

Same reason as why demo coders from amiga, c64 and other limited systems are premier coders today. Limited financial and hardware resources make you shine in all kind of situations.

brownbat 13y ago

> "communism" (there was never such thing) In college I wrote a major research paper on market-style exchanges on the factory floors of Eastern Europe, with the underlying point that you can never really purge all market forces, that "capitalism" is more descriptive than normative. When I think back on it, well, I'm mostly ashamed for talking out of my ass about what other people actually experienced. It'd be great to hear more of your thoughts on it.

malkia 13y ago
Possibly you understood what it was better than me, especially since you've researched it. From my point, it was never communism - ahem the simple - produce as much as you can, take as much as you need There was one difference - central planning - all prices were fixed and you can't find much variety in the store (2-3 types of bread, 2-3 types of feta cheese, etc.) Another thing was the foreign currency - read about it here - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corecom http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corecom As a kid one of the best things were getting bananas/oranges for New Year, or getting some real dollars so you can buy kinder eggs/pezz/tobleron/etc from the Corecom stores (above). Although you might afford the money, there was no easy way to exchange them. It was a 'meh' moment for me, when democracy came, and my favourite store (selling cake, soda drinks) start also selling kinder eggs - It was impossible for me to think that I can go and buy as much as I want with ... levas (our currency). And as such they were no longer interesting :) I had a happy childhood, maybe because I did not know anyone too rich, or too poor, and the choice was limited... okay maybe that was not the case... But looking at all old bulgarian kid movies, one can see kids roaming the streets without any danger (and it was so - It was normal for me to stroll around while I was 5 or 6 years old). This gets old, a a bit reddit-ish, and it's purely my experience and surely for other people it could've been totally different story.