Reply 43640 of 53280, by Solo761
HanJammer wrote on 2022-04-01, 08:46:That's surprising. I would have thought that former Yugoslavia, Hungary, Bulgaria would have the best stuff when it comes to former eastern-block countries in the 80s and early 90s...
There weren't that many computers here in the 80s, in early to mid 80s there were some localy made DIY computers, mostly based on Z80 CPU, and in later 80s smaller home computers like C64, Amstrad (mostly Schneider, as they were from Germany), Amiga, Atari... and they were smuggled accross the border into Yugoslavia.
If you wanted to get one legaly you were limited to these local diy computers or you had to have connections in the goverment to get permit to import one of the western computers. Goverment logic was that these were dangerous things and if you got one you could have built a rocket, use said computer as guidance, and fire it on said goverment (true story, that was one of the official reasons for denial of these permits 😁) so it wasn't easy or cheap to get one.
In late 80s inflation was rampant so people didn't have excess money to spend on "toys" like computers, and in early 90s there was a war so people again had something more to worry about than computers. Computers got more widespread in late 90s / early 2000s thanks to these cheap(er) DIY build PCs.
When looking on local classified ads there's never a lot of vintage computers. And what's available is sold by mostly few people who seem to picked up what little there was and now look to profit on it 😬.