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Galaksija: The Soviet-Era, Z80-based microcomputer

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Re: Galaksija: The Soviet-Era, Z80-based microcomputer

#11

Post by manca »

Galaksija was truly a "masterpiece" at that time, made by a single person by stitching together various smuggled parts from the West. I have a huge admiration and respect for Voja, especially after he decided to give up everything in Serbia and move to the US and start from scratch on his own in his late sixties!

He's a very humble man despite his remarkable impact and influence on the early tech industry in Yugoslavia. He and Dejan Ristanovic [1] started one of the first PC magazines in the 80's which was the bastion of progress filled with ingenious articles and insights collected from all over the world mostly by the word of mouth (remember there was no internet back then). They and a few others actually founded the first ISP and BBC in Yugoslavia in the late eighties.

Anyway, I am glad to see this article on HN and would suggest you all to watch Voja's interview [2] given to Computer History Museum in Mountain View where Galaksija rightfully got its own piece of the history.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dejan_Ristanovi%C4%87

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPLyzOEobw8&ab_channel=Compu...

Re: Galaksija: The Soviet-Era, Z80-based microcomputer

#12

Post by rob74 »

> The picture is one of a landscape littered with uninspired attempts to copy American IBM PCs, British ZX Spectrums, and other Western computers.

As opposed to the Galaksija, which, er... copied the ZX Spectrum? I somehow fail to see the point that the article is trying to make here. If anything, the designers of the Galaksija had an easier job than those of the numerous other Eastern European Spectrum clones (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ZX_Spectrum_clones?use...), because they at least had some access to western-made components...

EDIT: after reading the Wikipedia article, I stand corrected: the Galaksija wasn't a Sinclair clone, it was an independently designed Z80-based home computer. Which of course meant that you couldn't access the extensive software library (= games) available for ZX Spectrum, but had to develop your own software.

Re: Galaksija: The Soviet-Era, Z80-based microcomputer

#14

Post by [deleted] »

rob74 wrote: post #12

> The picture is one of a landscape littered with uninspired attempts to copy American IBM PCs, British ZX Spectrums, and other Western computers. As opposed to the Galaksija, which, er... copied the ZX Spectrum? I somehow fail to see the point that the article is trying to make here. If anything, the designers of the Galaksija had an easier job than those of the numerous other Eastern European Spectrum clones ( http…

[deleted]

Re: Galaksija: The Soviet-Era, Z80-based microcomputer

#15

Post by nxobject »

"Uninspired" is a little unfair – the Soviet Union took the PDP-11 architecture to strange new heights, once they had integrated it into a small 40-pin DIP package, and then later QFP: home computers with surprisingly good demoscene capabilities [1], little engineer's calculators with full QWERTY keyboards that ran BASIC programs [2], etc. DEC: when you care enough to steal the very best.

[1] the UKNC, with two LSI-11 compatibles on the same Qbus – one as a CPU, one for IO – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UKNC

[2] https://gregescov.tripod.com/calc.htm

Re: Galaksija: The Soviet-Era, Z80-based microcomputer

#16

Post by ivanche »

tomca32 wrote: post #2

Wow! I can’t believe I never heard of this. Despite being born in Yugoslavia and alive at that time, I’ve never encountered or heard of Galaksija in my life. Sinclair stuff was pretty common: Spectrum and the older zx80, Commodore, even Amiga in the late 80s/early 90s. The only domestic machine I ever encountered was Orao.

You never had a chance to experience another Yugoslavian computer Pecom 32 then :)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pecom_32

Re: Galaksija: The Soviet-Era, Z80-based microcomputer

#17

Post by ivanche »

esafak wrote: post #10

As I said in another thread, there used to be more European computer technology in the 80s. Hardware technology shifted to the US, then to China. The rest of the world only does software now.

Way more for sure, it was akin to a Cambrian explosion. One large downside was compatibility though - at best you could hope for two machines to be CP/M compatible, otherwise if you needed an app you could've written it yourself or hoped that someone else would do it.

Re: Galaksija: The Soviet-Era, Z80-based microcomputer

#18

Post by nickpp »

otto2 wrote: post #7

It is not correct to refer to it as Soviet-Era. Using the logic from the title, Apple Macintosh is also Soviet-Era. Yugoslavia was never part of Warsaw bloc, it had its own political system and no USSR army on its territory.

Everything East of the Iron Wall (German Divide) was under USSR control.

Re: Galaksija: The Soviet-Era, Z80-based microcomputer

#19

Post by Muromec »

nickpp wrote: post #18
otto2 wrote: post #7

It is not correct to refer to it as Soviet-Era. Using the logic from the title, Apple Macintosh is also Soviet-Era. Yugoslavia was never part of Warsaw bloc, it had its own political system and no USSR army on its territory.

Everything East of the Iron Wall (German Divide) was under USSR control.

But it’s Yougoslavia, it’s to the south

Re: Galaksija: The Soviet-Era, Z80-based microcomputer

#20

Post by CrLf »

ivanche wrote: post #17
esafak wrote: post #10

As I said in another thread, there used to be more European computer technology in the 80s. Hardware technology shifted to the US, then to China. The rest of the world only does software now.

Way more for sure, it was akin to a Cambrian explosion. One large downside was compatibility though - at best you could hope for two machines to be CP/M compatible, otherwise if you needed an app you could've written it yourself or hoped that someone else would do it.

Of course, if you needed an app you were out of luck, as there were no apps at the time. There were programs, though.
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