[HN Gopher] Building a Galaksija
___________________________________________________________________
Building a Galaksija
I came across this as an interesting curiosity several years ago.
Recently it showed up in a personal reference and I thought it
might be of interest to the HN community. Really amazing story
behind this and the community that was created around it is
fascinating. Part I (linked):
https://blog.vladovince.com/building-a-galaksija-the-1980s-y...
Part II: https://blog.vladovince.com/building-a-galaksija-part-ii-
the... Part III: https://blog.vladovince.com/building-a-galaksija-
part-iii-au... Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaksija_(computer) Internet
Archive Magazine Collection:
https://archive.org/search?query=galaksija Emulator:
https://github.com/mejs/galaksija Another:
https://github.com/nikp123/Galaksija-Emulator Libretro core:
https://github.com/libretro/galaxy-libretro
Author : bane
Score : 102 points
Date : 2024-07-16 18:16 UTC (5 days ago)
(HTM) web link (blog.vladovince.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (blog.vladovince.com)
| ubavic wrote:
| This year marks 40 years of Galaksija, and the magazine PC Press
| with the author of the Galaksija Voja Antonic released a reprint
| of the original special issue which introduced Galaksija.
| Building kit is also available. More information is available on:
| https://racunari.com/
| Gys wrote:
| > ... a 1980s Yugoslav 8-bit computer called the Galaksija
| input_sh wrote:
| More precisely, the magazine that published it was titled
| "Galaksija"
| (https://www.popsci.com/science/article/2011-11/galaksija-
| mag...). The computer (and the OS) were simply named after the
| magazine.
| grujicd wrote:
| Even more precisely, it was published in the first edition of
| "Racunari u vasoj kuci" magazine. That magazine was created
| as a special edition of Galaksija magazine (so name came from
| there, that part was right), but from that point on we had
| both Galaksija, for general science, and Racunari for
| computers.
| shrx wrote:
| My family lived in Yugoslavia near the Italian border within a
| zone where people were issued special passports allowing them to
| go across the border to the west. This was not generally
| possible, so people took advantage of it and bought (or smuggled
| to avoid trouble with the customs) many goods which were not
| available inside the country, like jeans, washing machines, vinyl
| records, ... My uncle brought both the ZX spectrum and the
| Commodore back with him on one of such trips. And then during
| that time our student radio station used to play whole computer
| programs and games live on air, and everybody could record them
| to a cassette and load them on their computer, for free!
| bapo wrote:
| Thanks for your comment.
|
| Could you elaborate a bit on the "recording and loading
| cassette" part?
|
| I'm really wondering!
| wjnc wrote:
| Cassette tapes doubled as music storage and data storage for
| machines like ZX Spectrum and C64. You could just copy
| software like you would copy a music cassette. Code via radio
| would be as easy as playing a song. Another time long gone
| computer magazines would print code that you could enter
| yourself! Before that Sussman is reported to meditate on
| code, and acolytes where supposed to create machines that
| could run that code.
| shrx wrote:
| Here are some details about the ZX Spectrum tape interface:
|
| http://www.zxdesign.info/cassette.shtml
|
| https://sinclair.wiki.zxnet.co.uk/wiki/Spectrum_tape_interf
| a...
| dhosek wrote:
| Pretty much all the early 8-bit computers had cassette
| storage. On the Apple ][ series, the interface to write to
| the cassette was identical to the speaker interface so you
| could load audio into memory from a cassette and play it
| back (at 1-bit resolution) on the internal speaker of the
| Apple ][. It sounded like crap (although a lot of cassette
| decks did too) but seemed like magic.
| boomskats wrote:
| That's interesting - do you have any more info on this special
| passport zone, or travel to the west being generally not
| possible?
|
| Yugoslav passports from 40 years ago are widely regarded as
| being one of the most powerful passports ever, with visa-free
| travel to almost all Western states [0].
|
| [0]: https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/s/o7mJrRuWOu
| vldxts wrote:
| I lived in the same area as the GP, and the thing about not
| being able to go to the west with regular passports is false.
| In fact people from all over Yugoslavia went shopping to
| Trieste in Italy.
|
| The special passports did exist however, and were issued to
| residents of what used to be the Free Territory of
| Trieste[0], both in Italy and Yugoslavia. They were
| established by the Udine Agreement of 1955 (although the
| border was still disputed and finally settled only in 1975 by
| the Treaty of Osimo[1]).
|
| I can't find many sources about the special passports online.
| There is a mention here[2].
|
| Their main advantage was the possibility of using secondary
| border crossings between Italy and Yugoslavia that had less
| traffic and shorter queues.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Territory_of_Trieste
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Osimo
|
| [2] https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/urban-
| history/articl...
| shrx wrote:
| Hi, thanks for clarification, I was not aware that other
| Yugoslavian residents were able to cross the border as
| freely as those with the special passport ("Propustnica").
| grujicd wrote:
| There were similar "passport lite" cross border documents
| in other parts of Yugoslavia, allowing people living in
| border regions to easily pass the border but limited to
| maybe 10-20km in another country. These passes were used
| by farmers who had pieces of land across the border, or
| even if land was in the same country the closest road
| might be through border. I think something like that
| still exists.
| dhosek wrote:
| There was a school bus route in Washington that passed
| through Canada on its way to the school that got really
| screwed by the post-9/11 stricter border controls.
| thecupisblue wrote:
| That is insanely cool! I've heard countless war stories from
| older ex-yu people about Galaksija and the early beginnings of
| the tech scenes on the territories, even about setting up the
| first proper internet connections and servers with war blasting
| around them. It's insane when you remember that was all happening
| not even 30 years ago.
|
| To those who can, I'd suggest donating to the mentioned museum -
| I've had the blessing to visit it once and it is such a cultural
| treasure - they don't just collect old machines, they also
| inspire generations by teaching them coding, electronics and
| everything in-between.
| strgtwhtmle wrote:
| Cool in general, but... what an ugly botched job.
|
| Should have tested on that spare board and THEN built the final
| rev.
| dhosek wrote:
| And hear I was thinking I was the only one in these parts using
| old lit mags as monitor raisers.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2024-07-21 23:08 UTC)