Interesting fact about Bulgaria and Amazon, first order on Amazon.com was from Bulgaria.
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The Bulgarian Computer's Global Reach: On Victor Petrov's "Balkan Cyberia"
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Re: The Bulgarian Computer's Global Reach: On Victor Petrov's "Balkan Cyberia"
#12Interesting fact about Bulgaria and Amazon, first order on Amazon.com was from Bulgaria.
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Re: The Bulgarian Computer's Global Reach: On Victor Petrov's "Balkan Cyberia"
#13One of the first Sovirt Union's general purpose computers, the MESM[1], was built in some pre-revolutionary mansion outside Kiev. Romania also had significant semiconductor industry and DDR too, such as Kombinat Mikroelektronik "Karl Marx" Erfurt. I'm disappointed the article is so eager to tag late communist Bulgaria "repressive". The same myopic vision where Bulgaria can be of no significance, but also where social…
"Repressive" seems pretty accurate. That it had non-repressive attributes (what repressive regime doesn't?) doesn't mean it wasn't repressive.
Re: The Bulgarian Computer's Global Reach: On Victor Petrov's "Balkan Cyberia"
#14things worked when there was the state behind it.. Regardless of efficiency.
cm601 CPU was exact copy of motorola-6800 (with ~10% yield - doesn't matter).
Pravetz-82 was Apple-][, with M6502 imported.
There was even some DEC micro-VAX being copied, EC-1055 AFAIR.
Then came the PC... and things went more software-ish.
There was "mikro monitor 1.0" which was.. MS windows 2.0 but all in cyrillics and encodings (none in original). Xerox Ventura 2 was also copied and rev.engineered.
"docs 1.0/2.x" was (pre-MS and MS) Word. Lots of other stuff. Rev.engineered and fixed/enhanced to support cyrillics or else.
Then one day it wasn't anymore.
Actually all that, let's call it borrowing, laid a perfect ground for all future versions of those products/companies - with plenty of educated and demanding users thereof.
(btw rev.engineering was good fun.. but that's a forgotten land now)
Re: The Bulgarian Computer's Global Reach: On Victor Petrov's "Balkan Cyberia"
#15One of the first Sovirt Union's general purpose computers, the MESM[1], was built in some pre-revolutionary mansion outside Kiev. Romania also had significant semiconductor industry and DDR too, such as Kombinat Mikroelektronik "Karl Marx" Erfurt. I'm disappointed the article is so eager to tag late communist Bulgaria "repressive". The same myopic vision where Bulgaria can be of no significance, but also where social…
"Repressive" seems pretty accurate. That it had non-repressive attributes (what repressive regime doesn't?) doesn't mean it wasn't repressive.
With "non-repressive attributes" you're continuing to dig the same hole I was talking about. I mean, come on.
Re: The Bulgarian Computer's Global Reach: On Victor Petrov's "Balkan Cyberia"
#16Are there people who studied in UKTC here? Maybe we could connect.
Re: The Bulgarian Computer's Global Reach: On Victor Petrov's "Balkan Cyberia"
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Repressive" seems pretty accurate. That it had non-repressive attributes (what repressive regime doesn't?) doesn't mean it wasn't repressive.
With "non-repressive attributes" you're continuing to dig the same hole I was talking about. I mean, come on.
What is the hole in question? You're complaining the article calls a repressive regime repressive. What's the actual objection? That it wasn't repressive? It was really repressive!
Re: The Bulgarian Computer's Global Reach: On Victor Petrov's "Balkan Cyberia"
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
With "non-repressive attributes" you're continuing to dig the same hole I was talking about. I mean, come on.
What is the hole in question? You're complaining the article calls a repressive regime repressive. What's the actual objection? That it wasn't repressive? It was really repressive!
That now sounds like that Anarcho-Syndicalist dialogue from Monty Python's Holy Grail, where Arthur represses peasants by existing.
And I'm absolutely no fan of communism.
The hole in question that absolute majority of Bulgarians' experience was shaped by what the economy can let them do and what it can't - talking about both pre-1990 and post-1990.
Late communism was more like an asylum which is run by inmates. It was as repressive as they personally were.
Re: The Bulgarian Computer's Global Reach: On Victor Petrov's "Balkan Cyberia"
#19things worked when there was the state behind it.. Regardless of efficiency. cm601 CPU was exact copy of motorola-6800 (with ~10% yield - doesn't matter). Pravetz-82 was Apple-][, with M6502 imported. There was even some DEC micro-VAX being copied, EC-1055 AFAIR. Then came the PC... and things went more software-ish. There was "mikro monitor 1.0" which was.. MS windows 2.0 but all in cyrillics and encodings (none in…
Well... it's complicated
Re: The Bulgarian Computer's Global Reach: On Victor Petrov's "Balkan Cyberia"
#20In case anyone doesn't know - Bulgaria is the most beautiful country in Europe and is rich with cultural history. Ruins and artefacts everywhere. Please come and check it out - Sofia is amazing this time of year.