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Galaksija: The Soviet-Era, Z80-based microcomputer

spectrum.ieee.org

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

#61

Post by ivan_gammel »

Koshkin wrote: post #52
ivan_gammel wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Haven't heard of anything like that. Looks like it is some American pop culture definition that reduces the history of Europe to a few very broadly defined buckets to reduce the intellectual workload. It is often called ignorance. Do you think it makes sense to continue saying it is a valid use?

> Haven't heard of anything like that. (Speaking of ignorance.) The parent knows what they're talking about. "The people's democracies" was indeed the term that was customarily used within the Soviet block to include countries that did not belong to said block but otherwise lived under similar regimes.

I have not heard of equivalence between „Soviet“ and „People’s democracy“ before. In fact those terms are mutually exclusive. Either your country has multi-party system, at least formally, or it is a Soviet republic.

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

#62

Post by ivan_gammel »

thriftwy wrote: post #51
ivan_gammel wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Haven't heard of anything like that. Looks like it is some American pop culture definition that reduces the history of Europe to a few very broadly defined buckets to reduce the intellectual workload. It is often called ignorance. Do you think it makes sense to continue saying it is a valid use?

Well, yeah, but it's the same way on the other side of the Curtain: Such as, France had its own nuclear weapons and was in complicated relationship with NATO, but it gets totally conflated into the Western bloc with no reservations. Same with neutral Sweden and even Finland. So I don't see any point to nitpick.

I don’t know really how things are in the new members of EU, but Russia is indeed a twin of USA in everything, including the ignorance and isolation of political discourse. It doesn’t mean that because Russia has it, it is a good thing.

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

#63

Post by acqq »

flohofwoe wrote: post #35
thriftwy wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'Soviet' is not a name, it is a political term, so I don't see why you cannot apply it to countries with USSR-like regimes, even if they don't carry S in their name. For the curious, it is translated as 'council'.

True, but at least to me "Soviet era" is associated with the Soviet Union. As someone who grew up in Eastern Germany I would actually have expected that it is about a computer produced in the Soviet Union when reading "Soviet-era computer" (despite popular belief, not everything east of the iron curtain was part of the Soviet Union, countries had varying degrees of independence, even though the Soviet influence ran d…

Indeed:

https://www.politico.com/story/2013/11/harry-truman-requests...

"The United States then began inching closer to Tito, supporting his regime rhetorically, economically and, finally, militarily, in order to ensure that Yugoslavia would remain out of the Soviet orbit. Throughout the Cold War, American officials saw in Tito a useful example of a communist leader who was not under the Kremlin’s thumb."

...

"With congressional assent, the United States and Yugoslavia signed a bilateral military agreement in November 1951 that tacitly incorporated Yugoslavia into NATO’s defensive web."

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

#64

Post by Koshkin »

ivan_gammel wrote: post #61
Koshkin wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Haven't heard of anything like that. (Speaking of ignorance.) The parent knows what they're talking about. "The people's democracies" was indeed the term that was customarily used within the Soviet block to include countries that did not belong to said block but otherwise lived under similar regimes.

I have not heard of equivalence between „Soviet“ and „People’s democracy“ before. In fact those terms are mutually exclusive. Either your country has multi-party system, at least formally, or it is a Soviet republic.

Not to disagree, but that’s what they were using.

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

#65

Post by timbit42 »

MichaelRo wrote: post #50

It's unclear to me if it was ZX-Spectrum compatible, seems like it wasn't. Which would have severely limited it's usability. ZX-Spectrum clones were as pervasive as mushrooms after rain in Eastern Europe, Romania had 5 different "brands" of them. There were also attempts at producing proprietary, non-ZX spectrum compatible, Z80 based computers. They were short lived and failed in the market, like this weirdness: http…

It was partially inspired by the TRS-80 but wasn't TRS-80 compatible either.

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

#67

Post by acqq »

acqq wrote: post #63
flohofwoe wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but at least to me "Soviet era" is associated with the Soviet Union. As someone who grew up in Eastern Germany I would actually have expected that it is about a computer produced in the Soviet Union when reading "Soviet-era computer" (despite popular belief, not everything east of the iron curtain was part of the Soviet Union, countries had varying degrees of independence, even though the Soviet influence ran d…

Indeed: https://www.politico.com/story/2013/11/harry-truman-requests... "The United States then began inching closer to Tito, supporting his regime rhetorically, economically and, finally, militarily, in order to ensure that Yugoslavia would remain out of the Soviet orbit. Throughout the Cold War, American officials saw in Tito a useful example of a communist leader who was not under the Kremlin’s thumb." ... "With c…

Cold War Diplomacy - Defense Treaties of the United States

https://avalon.law.yale.edu/subject_menus/mutdef.asp

(in 1949-1951)

- 1949 - NATO Treaty; April 4

- 1951 - Defense of Greenland: Agreement Between the United States and the Kingdom of Denmark, April 27

- 1951 - Defense of Iceland: Agreement Between the United States and the Republic of Iceland, May 5

- 1951 - Mutual Defense Treaty Between the United States and the Republic of the Philippines; August 30

- 1951 - Security Treaty Between the United States, Australia, and New Zealand (ANZUS); September 1

- 1951 - Military Facilities in the Azores: Agreement Between Portugal and the United States, September 6

- 1951 - Security Treaty Between the United States and Japan; September 8

- 1951 - Military Assistance Agreement Between the United States and Yugoslavia, November 14

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

#68

Post by thriftwy »

ivan_gammel wrote: post #61
Koshkin wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Haven't heard of anything like that. (Speaking of ignorance.) The parent knows what they're talking about. "The people's democracies" was indeed the term that was customarily used within the Soviet block to include countries that did not belong to said block but otherwise lived under similar regimes.

I have not heard of equivalence between „Soviet“ and „People’s democracy“ before. In fact those terms are mutually exclusive. Either your country has multi-party system, at least formally, or it is a Soviet republic.

"People's democracy" is actually the regime when there's a single ruling party system but it calls itself democratic because it is comprised of, you know, the people.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_democracy_(Marxism–...

As opposed to regular plain old democracy.

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

#69

Post by lstodd »

flohofwoe wrote: post #28
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…

The Z80 chip family was also "easily" available behind the Iron Curtain because East Germany manufactured reverse-engineered Z80 clones (called the U880). AFAIK the ZX Spectrum ULA could be 'emulated' with TTL logic, that's what East German hobbyist Spectrum clones did at least. That's also why Spectrum clones were so popular, they didn't require any complex custom chips like the C64.

There were clones of 8080, Z80 and 8086. The KR580VM80A - an 8080 clone was the most popular/accessible in the USSR I think.

The U880 was a Z80 clone, Soviet designation KR1858VM1, but most of the early-mid 1980s 8-bit home-built machines were 580- and thus 8080-based.

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

#70

Post by ivan_gammel »

thriftwy wrote: post #68
ivan_gammel wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have not heard of equivalence between „Soviet“ and „People’s democracy“ before. In fact those terms are mutually exclusive. Either your country has multi-party system, at least formally, or it is a Soviet republic.

"People's democracy" is actually the regime when there's a single ruling party system but it calls itself democratic because it is comprised of, you know, the people . https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_democracy_(Marxism–... As opposed to regular plain old democracy.

It is literally in the first paragraph of the Wikipedia article:

People's democracy is a theoretical concept within Marxism–Leninism and a form of government which developed after World War II and allows in theory for a multi-class and multi-party democracy on the pathway to socialism.

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