How One Engineer Beat the Ban on Home Computers in Socialist Yugoslavia
fleg writes:
From The Guardian...
"Very few Yugoslavians had access to computers in the early 1980s: they were mostly the preserve of large institutions or companies. Importing home computers like the Commodore 64 was not only expensive, but also legally impossible, thanks to a law that restricted regular citizens from importing individual goods that were worth more than 50 Deutsche Marks (the Commodore 64 cost over 1,000 Deutsche Marks at launch). Even if someone in Yugoslavia could afford the latest home computers, they would have to resort to smuggling.
In 1983, engineer Vojislav "Voja" Antoni was becoming more and more frustrated with the senseless Yugoslavian import laws.
Antoni was pondering this while on holiday with his wife in Risan in Montenegro in 1983. "I was thinking how would it be possible to make the simplest and cheapest possible computer," says Antoni. "As a way to amuse myself in my free time. That's it. Everyone thinks it is an interesting story, but really I was just bored!" He wondered whether it would be possible to make a computer without a graphics chip - or a "video controller" as they were commonly known at the time.
Instead of having a separate graphics chip, Antoni thought he could use part of the CPU to generate a video signal, and then replicate some of the other video functions using software. It would mean sacrificing processing power, but in principle it was possible, and it would make the computer much cheaper."
And the Galaksija (Galaxy) was born.
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