• hayvan@piefed.world
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    10 hours ago

    Soviets did a lot to harm Eastern Block tech. Bulgarian Pravetz was a clone of Apple ][. Nothing impressive but cheap, functional, domestically produced. Can’t really be exported towards west due to blatant IP violations, but the production capabilities were good enough to produce and export hard drives.

    Except the trade deal with Britain was blocked by Soviets because it was seen as a security threat, and an industry died in its infancy.

    • Alcoholicorn@mander.xyz
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      7 hours ago

      There’s another future where Yugoslavia is the birthplace of a free software movement, and homebuilt PCs lower the barrier of entry to anybody with some time on their hands, with software distributed by radio and powerline until the advent of internet.