The Personal Computer Revolution Behind the Iron Curtain

szczys writes Obviously the personal computer revolution was world-wide, but the Eastern Bloc countries had a story of PC evolution all their own. Martin Malý tells first hand of his experiences seeing black market imports, locally built clones of popular western machines, and all kinds of home-built equipment. From the article: "The biggest problem was a lack of modern technologies. There were a lot of skilled and clever people in eastern countries, but they had a lot of problems with the elementary technical things. Manufacturing of electronics parts was divided into diverse countries of Comecon – The Council for Mutual Economic Assistance. In reality, it led to an absurd situation: You could buy the eastern copy of Z80 (made in Eastern Germany as U880D), but you couldn’t buy 74LS00 at the same time. Yes, a lot of manufacturers made it, but 'it is out of stock now; try to ask next year.' So 'make a computer' meant 50 percent of electronics skills and 50 percent of unofficial social network and knowledge like 'I know a guy who knows a guy and his neighbor works in a factory, where they maybe have a material for PCBs' at those times."

Comments

Re:We're so far from that now!

[pegr]

And sometimes the chips are even genuine!

'it is out of stock now; try to ask next year.'

[Nutria]

And academic leftists wonder why Communism collapsed...

"But we can do it the Right Way!!!" Yeah, sure, bud, because (modern) Liberal Arts professors have soooo much experience outside the Ivory Tower...

Re:'it is out of stock now; try to ask next year.'

[TWX]

Worker-owned companies, often Employee Stock-Option Programs or ESOPs are still a form of captialism, but with the ownership of capital more specially distributed than normal. It's more like a partnership where everyone working there is a partner to a certain degree. The company is owned by the partners, the workers or former workers in this case, and they benefit directly from the company's success.

If I understand the principal intent of Communism, the individual is to be provided for without question, and the individual is supposed to work to the best of their abilities without question. The problem with this is that lots of people won't work if they're provided for without having to do so, and if the system attempts to impose metrics on individuals to compel them to work, they'll look for ways to skirt the rules. In manufacturing that means poor quality goods as various stages do the minimum needed to pass, which compounds as the products go through multiple stages of production.

Re:'it is out of stock now; try to ask next year.'

[MarkvW]

Hitler took a nation of Germans and made a poor country out of it.

Only US provided welfare brought it back!!

Welfare is great!

Re:'it is out of stock now; try to ask next year.'

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

The principle intent of communism was to end the oppression of the working class by those who had capital and wealth. Not so lazy people could leech off the system. I don't think that I've read anything like that in some of the original communist works.

I think the problem with Soviet style communism was that central planning bureaucracies were trying to balance authoritarian political power and economic production.

It's a pretty Brady Bunch view of the world, but had the Soviet Union not been a paranoid authoritarian bureaucracy, we might have a different view of what "communism" means.

Re:'it is out of stock now; try to ask next year.'

[Nutria]

Not so lazy people could leech off the system.

Thus the fundamental failure of Marx: ignoring the reality of human nature.

had the Soviet Union not been a paranoid authoritarian bureaucracy

That many people -- in the Russian Empire, Germany, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Romania, China, Korea, etc, etc, -- can't just accidentally be paranoid and authoritarian.

Good socio-political theories must take people's baser instincts into account. That's the genius of Adam Smith's Invisible Hand: it presumes that people will be selfish and greedy.

Re:'it is out of stock now; try to ask next year.'

[wierd_w]

You seem to have mis-identified my political affiliation. I am not a marxist communist. I have simply read the manifesto, and marx's rhetoric. I was pointing out that the AC above had clearly not done so, having created such a strawman to beat.

Genuine criticisms, such as "You cant cultivate marginal lands as if they were fully arable! It's madness!" are fully fair game, and I apply them with gusto. However, asserting blandly that Marx had not contemplated human nature? That's clearly not supported by his rhetoric, but is rather a consequence of ingesting pre-chewed propaganda pieces.

I value correct, well based arguments. that's why I bothered to read Marx's rhetoric in the first place. It is a necessity to develop and use proper analytic skills.

Does Marxism work? Fuck no.
Did Marx think about the freeloader problem? Definitely.

That latter part is all I was trying to point out. It never ceases to amaze me how such a correction makes people instantly apply "You must be a marxist!" as a reactionary measure.

Please avoid doing so in the future. Thank you.

Re:Wait, how is this possible?

[K. S. Kyosuke]

They didn't actually. For example, Soyuz-U still has analog control computers. So you didn't get advanced computers as spin-offs of the space program, because the space program didn't have advanced computers in the first place.

Re:Wait, how is this possible?

[Anonymous Coward]

They don't work because they're susceptible to corruption. The "commanders" in the command economy quickly find out they can use their position of power to enrich themselves. And do. Every time.

Unchecked capitalism has the same problem, as we're currently experiencing here in the US. The capitalists can use their positions of power to enrich themselves. And do. Every time.

Wealth redistribution mechanisms used to keep a lid on these things but the capitalists have found that they simply need to engineer public opinion and convince the public that taxing the rich is "unfair" and "evil". Far-right conservative media exists not to entertain or inform, but to convince the general public to work against their own self-interest. In the past two decades wealth concentration has mirrored the rise of far-right media.

At this rate we'll collapse, just like the USSR. Weep for your grandchildren.

Re:Wait, how is this possible?

[Irate Engineer]

Sometimes leaving stuff that works alone is fine. Actually that's a good general engineering practice.

Most engineering failures occur when "outdated" technology gets replaced with new shiny (because, new shiny!), and the new shiny bites you in the ass with the unexpected.

Not to say that things shouldn't be updated if the technology improves, but if you just need a relatively robust low tech computer technology, sticking with what works isn't such a bad thing.