How one engineer beat the ban on home computers in socialist Yugoslavia | Games | The Guardian

Link📌 Summary:
這篇文章介紹了南斯拉夫工程師Vojislav “Voja” Antonić在1980年代如何突破重重限制，自行設計並建造出Galaksija電腦的故事。在社會主義的南斯拉夫，居民無法合法進口昂貴的家用電腦，Antonić為了應對這一困境，自行設計了一款簡單且便宜的電腦，並在一本科學雜誌上發佈建造指南，引發了極大關注。最終，Galaksija不僅改變了許多人的電腦使用方式，還促使政府改善進口限制，雖然因強烈的市場需求而迅速被更先進的電腦取代。該電腦的熱潮在隨後的戰爭時期漸漸消失，但近年來又復興，成為許多人的懷舊象徵，深刻影響了計算機歷史的傳承。

🎯 Key Points:
- 在1980年代，南斯拉夫的大多數人無法合法擁有電腦，因為進口法律限制。
- Voja Antonić憑藉創新思維設計了一款沒有獨立圖像處理器的電腦，名為Galaksija。
- 他與記者合作，將建造指南發佈在雜誌上，導致許多人參與製作自己的Galaksija。
- 該計畫引起了廣泛的注意並促使政府放寬進口限制，但隨後Galaksija很快被更強大的電腦取代。
- 隨著時間的推移，Galaksija漸漸被人們遺忘，近年來卻重新受到重視，激發了人們對計算機歷史的興趣。

🔖 Keywords:
#Galaksija #VojaAntonić #計算機 #南斯拉夫 #計算機歷史

I tend to estimate that I am over 50% done with solder joints on this board #Galaksija #retro #exyu #pcb #VojaAntonic

Remoticon 2021 // Voja Antonic Makes You a Digital Designer

[Voja Antonic] has been building digital computers since before many of us were born. He designed with the Z80 when it was new , and has decades of freelance embedded experience, so when he takes the time to present a talk for us, it's worth paying attention.

For his Remoticon 2022 presentation, he will attempt to teach us how to become a hardware expert in under forty minutes. Well, mostly the digital stuff, but that's enough for one session if you ask us. [Voja] takes us from the very basics of logic gates, through combinatorial circuits, sequential circuits, finally culminating in the description of a general-purpose microprocessor.

A 4-bit ripple-carry adder with additional CPU flag outputs

As he demonstrates, complex digital electronics systems really are just built up in a series of steps of increasing complexity. starting with individual active elements (transistors operating as switches) forming logic elements capable of performing simple operations.

From there, higher level functions such as adders can be formed, and from those an ALU and so on. Conceptually, memory elements can be formed from logic gates, but it's not the most efficient way to do it, and those tend to be made with a smaller and faster circuit. But anyway, that model is fine for descriptive purposes.

Once you have combinatorial logic circuits and memory elements, you have all you need to make the necessary decoders, sequencers and memory circuits to build processors and other kinds of higher complexity circuits.

Obviously forty minutes isn't anywhere nearly enough time time to learn all of the intricacies of building a real microprocessor like the pesky details of interfacing with it and programming it, but for getting up the learning curve from just a knowledge of binary numbers to an understanding of how a CPU is built, it's a pretty good starting point.

Now, If you can only tear your eyes away from his slick game-of-life wall mounted LED display, you might pick up a thing or two.

#cons #hackadaycolumns #microcontrollers #2021hackadayremoticon #digitalelectronics #logic #vojaantonic