Today's links

Galaksija: Yugoslavia's open source hardware, free software socialist computing platform.
This day in history: 2005, 2010, 2019
Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming appearances, current writing projects, current reading

Galaksija (permalink)

In 1948, Yugoslavia was expelled from Cominform, the Soviet information agency, in retaliation for its "non-aligned" status; deprived of information-processing capacity, the country created its own IT industry from scratch.

Yugoslavia's high tariffs and uneasy status on the world stage meant that by the 1970s, members of the New Wave" – science and tech enthusiasts who clustered around the sf/electronic mag Galaksija – could only play with PCs by pooling their money to import western machines.

In the 1980s, "digital electronics enthusiast" Voja Antonić went on a Montenegro holiday with a copy of RCA's manual for a new single-chip CPU and had an inspiration for a kit-based PC that revolutionized Yugoslavian computing: the Galaksija computer!

https://jacobinmag.com/2020/08/computer-yugoslavia-galaksija-voja-antonic/

Antonić's insight: you could run 64×48 block graphics on the ubiquitous Zilog Z80A chip, without a video controller. He produced a simple schematic that hobbyists could follow, and it was a hit with Yugoslavian subcultures: coders, gamers, DJs, musicians, sf fans.

The resulting computing revolution was grounded in (in the words of Jacobin's Michael Eby) "collectivity, autodidacticism, and technophilia." An early article about the design by Dejan Ristanović for Galaksija led to an all-computing issue of the mag.

The normal 30,000 copy run of the mag sold out quickly and that issue was reprinted four times before national demand was satisfied: 120,000 copies sold, and 8,000 subsequent letters from hobbyists who'd built their own computers following the diagrams it contained.

Antonić found a name for his computer: the Galaksija. The limits of its 4K of memory forced many idiosyncratic design choices, like its error message:

WHAT? (syntax error)
HOW? (input error)
SORRY (out of memory)

Every Galaksija looked different – hand-built by hobbyists who each had to improvise their own cases, with fantastic designs inspired by the New Wave's love of science fiction.

Antonić designed his system to be collaborative and open, rather than proprietary, sabotaging any attempt at DRM for code: "Free play was implicitly encouraged: the sharing, collaboration, manipulation, and proliferation of software was built into Galaksija’s very operation."

These programs spread widely thanks in part to a radio show that broadcast the computer code as audio, intended to be recorded to cassette (the main storage mechanism for the system). Zoran Modli's Ventilator 202 program broadcast hundreds of listener-supplied programs.

The listeners' programs were early multimedia magazines: audio, video, concert listings, ed-tech, flight sims and other games. Other listeners would record, run, and improve these and send them back to Ventilator 202 for retransmission.

There was a brief time where Galaksija computers were mass produced and proliferated through Yugoslavian schools and universities but were eclipsed by cheaper imports and the death of the New Wave scene during the civil wars.

Today, Antonić lives just up the road from me in Pasadena, where he is fielding new inquiries from computer historians seeking to preserve the Galaksija and its story.

This day in history (permalink)

#15yrsago Chevron being sued in US for hiring Nigerian death squads https://web.archive.org/web/20050812002406/http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/12285441.htm

#10yrsago Shades of Milk and Honey: Kowal's debut novel is a drawing-room romance with magic and art https://boingboing.net/2010/08/02/shades-of-milk-and-h.html

#1yrago Amazon's secret deals with local cops give them access to realtime 911 data for use in scary alerts sent to Ring owners https://gizmodo.com/cops-are-giving-amazons-ring-your-real-time-911-data-1836883867

#1yrago Paying for climate change: the question isn't "How?" but "Who?" https://www.wired.com/story/dont-ask-how-to-pay-for-climate-change-ask-who/

#1yrago Corruption is contagious: dirty cops make their partners dirty https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-08/nu-poe080119.php

#1yrago Elsevier sends copyright threat to site for linking to Sci-Hub https://twitter.com/citationsy/status/1156626811398307840

#1yrago We could fund the transition to green energy with 10-30% of the world's fossil fuel subsidy https://www.iisd.org/sites/default/files/publications/fossil-fuel-clean-energy-subsidy-swap.pdf

#1yrago Leaks reveal that disgraced, hacked surveillance company wrote Republican Congressman's border security talking-points https://theintercept.com/2019/08/01/perceptics-hack-license-plate-readers/

#1yrago Cathay Pacific's new privacy policy: we are recording you with seatback cameras, spying on you in airports, and buying data on your use of competing loyalty programs https://www.flyertalk.com/articles/cathay-pacific-passengers-not-to-expect-any-privacy.html

Colophon (permalink)

Today's top sources:

Currently writing:

My next novel, "The Lost Cause," a post-GND novel about truth and reconciliation. Yesterday's progress: 517 words (41820 total).

Currently reading: The Deficit Myth, Stephanie Kelton

Latest podcast: Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town (part 11) https://craphound.com/podcast/2020/07/27/someone-comes-to-town-someone-leaves-town-part-11/

Upcoming appearances:

Do Androids Dream of Electric Cars? Public Transit in the Age of Google, Uber, and Elon Musk, Aug 4, https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/public-transit-in-the-age-of-google-uber-and-elon-musk-tickets-114353753154
Virtual event with Christopher Brown for his novel "Failed State," Aug 12, https://www.bookpeople.com/event/virtual-event-christopher-brown-failed-state

Latest book:

"Little Brother/Homeland": A reissue omnibus edition with a new introduction by Edward Snowden: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250774583; personalized/signed copies here: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1750/July%3A__Little_Brother_%26_Homeland.html
"Poesy the Monster Slayer" a picture book about monsters, bedtime, gender, and kicking ass. Order here: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781626723627. Get a personalized, signed copy here: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1562/_Poesy_the_Monster_Slayer.html.

Upcoming books:

"Attack Surface": The third Little Brother book, Oct 20, 2020. https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250757531

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