
The Galaksija computer was a craze in 1980s Yugoslavia - viburnum
https://tribunemag.co.uk/2020/07/make-your-own-self-managed-socialist-microcomputer
======
stiray
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
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.

~~~
stiray
We had 14 days of "war" and 19 killed and 182 wounded (official numbers - if
you would took a book about history you would quite quickly figure out the war
in Bosnia and Croatia was not due to change of system but due to cultural
burden that was piling up for centuries).

But I will not go down that political rabbit hole or classical fallacy that
every generation thinks the next generation is worse - no, not everything is
better just for the fact that previous generation thinks it is worse.

I do believe that in your country was as you said it (which is imho normal -
you lived there). For my country, let me judge myself (as I have lived
"there").

~~~
macspoofing
>We had 14 days of "war" and 19 killed and 182 wounded

You can't praise Yugoslavia, and then fall back on Slovenia when Yugoslav
failures are mentioned.

>you would quite quickly figure out the war in Bosnia and Croatia was not due
to change of system but due to cultural burden that was piling up for
centuries

Both are true. I think there is universal agreement that Tito's death set up
the conditions for the eventual civil war. And yes, it is also no coincidence
that the civil war was along ethno-nationalistic lines.

>For my country, let me judge myself (as I have lived "there").

That's fair, but I'm not sure if anything I mentioned was actually untrue or
even controversial .. even if I didn't grow up in Yugoslavia.

------
celerity
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-...](https://noizz.rs/intervju/voja-antonic-za-noizz-o-odlasku-u-
ameriku-dobio-sam-uslove-o-kojima-sam-sanjao/hpbd25t)

~~~
black_puppydog
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
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
Slight correction: _The Demon-Haunted World_, Sagan, 1995.

------
okramcivokram
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_t...](https://media.ccc.de/v/29c3-5178-en-
the_ultimate_galaksija_talk_h264)

~~~
hrvach
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.

------
8bitsrule
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://oldcompute...](https://web.archive.org/web/20191226063832/http://oldcomputer.info/8bit/galaksija/index.htm)

[1][https://web.archive.org/web/20191220081815/http://www.spetsi...](https://web.archive.org/web/20191220081815/http://www.spetsialist-
mx.ru/Galaksija/)

------
smsm42
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
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
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 :)

------
robin_reala
_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.

------
qpiox
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
I'll have to ask my dad where my Commodore 64 came from in mid 80s Sarajevo.

------
djur
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
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
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
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.

------
desireco42
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.

------
msolujic
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-
di...](https://www.usgamer.net/articles/the-story-of-yugoslavias-diy-computer-
revolution)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voja_Antoni%C4%87](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voja_Antoni%C4%87)

~~~
Jaruzel
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
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 ;)

------
jankotek
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%...](https://cs.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pap%C3%ADrov%C3%BD_po%C4%8D%C3%ADta%C4%8D_CGS)

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

------
pp19dd
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.

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

~~~
bane
This sounds like a Demosplash project.

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

~~~
paleotrope
Did the Zilog Z80 require a massive industry to support it? That chip came out
of engineers who left Intel.

~~~
kjs3
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
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.

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

------
jd115
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
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
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_Yugosla...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cominform#Expulsion_of_Yugoslavia)

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.

~~~
acqq
> east of the iron curtain

I only don't understand why "east of the iron curtain" when the country is on
the _west_ of the countries behind the iron curtain, as per Wikipedia link
I've given?

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

------
Churdy
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.

------
mouldysammich
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.

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

------
slim
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
BBC did something similar with its BBC Micro:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_Micro_expansion_unit#Telet...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_Micro_expansion_unit#Teletext_adapter)

~~~
Lio
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)

------
nem_pet
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.

------
ausbah
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

