[jhgb]

We were not incredibly poor, although we probably would have been considered as such by US standards (which I'm sure were quite different at the time from Czechoslovak standards). We did have to smuggle our C64 over the Iron Curtain though, so I hope that this counts as something.

[thrtythreeforty]

Stories like this fascinate me. (I've lived in the US my entire life so it's just completely foreign to my worldview.) What was logistically involved in getting ahold of one? And what were the "legal" alternatives?

[jhgb]

> What was logistically involved in getting ahold of one?

Having a grandfather who left the country in 1968 for West Germany gifting me one when we visited him.

> And what were the "legal" alternatives?

Buying one at an outrageous markup in an exclusive shop. I don't remember the exact number (although I could find it out) but the price tag was something like five month of average Czechoslovak wages at the time. Apparently in the US the equivalent would have been paying $10000 for one (in 1988, mind you). Of course in Germany it cost something like 299 DM or so...

[rasz]

In Poland for a very long time private ownership of typewriters, fax machines, radio transmitters and computers was illegal without special permissions (>3 year prison term). You have to remember this was the time CIA was smuggling those to Poland with the help of Church. https://www.nytimes.com/1992/02/18/world/reagan-and-pope-rep...

>The report in Time adds many new details, particularly the role of the Central Intelligence Agency and the Roman Catholic Church in opening networks across which telephones, fax machines, printing presses, photocopiers, computers and intelligence information moved to Solidarity.

Personal possession anecdote from book "High-tech za żelazną kurtyną. Elektronika, komputery i systemy sterowania w PRL" (978-83-8098-094-5)

>In 1984, "Informatyka" magazine, involved in the dissemination of these machines, reported on the adventures of Mr. Przemysław, who received in April [...] a package from his brother in Toronto, containing the VIC-20 microcomputer, power supply, cassette recorder, a set of cassettes for television games and English language learning and connecting cables. The Customs Office in Gdynia refused to issue an import license, stating that it could issue [...] only if the computer was necessary for the citizen's professional or scientific work

It slowly got better in second half of the 80s. COCOM relaxed import sanctions in 1984 on low end 8bit gaming machines:

"New Media Behind the Iron Curtain: Cultural History of Video, Microcomputers and Satellite Television in Communist Poland" https://research.utu.fi/converis/getfile?id=51338894&portal=...

>The breakthrough in the domestication of computers in Poland took place in the mid-1980s, most likely between 1984 and 1986. In the global context, this might have been relatively late, but in the context of the Eastern bloc it seems that Poland was within the norm. There are two main reasons behind this chronology: one international, one local. Firstly, on an international level, the embargo on 8-bit technology was relaxed in 1984. Computers had been at the heart of the CoCom debate since the mid-1970s, but – as Mastanduno reports – it was not until July 1984 that the embargo on the most popular 8-bit microcomputers was removed, even though at the same time new restrictions were introduced regarding various telecommunications software and solutions.

In 1985 you could finally legally buy 8bit Atari in Pewex - chain of shops exclusively accepting $western currency$. Personal ownership of western currency was illegal :-) but regime was running low on foreign cash to repay international loans so they came up with this brilliant plan of opening shops where you could spend your smuggled black market money semi officially.

>Secondly, on a local level, as Kluska reports, in the autumn of 1984, the “[Polish] customs office ceased to make it difficult for citizens to import microcomputer equipment.”

In 1986 weekend computer market opened up in Warsaw in rented School building. It ran weekly uninterrupted up to ~2012 with one location change. Interview with founder https://spidersweb.pl/plus/2021/04/gielda-komputerowa-prl-la... VHS recording from 1994 https://archive.org/details/gielda-komputerowa-na-grzybowski... Official 'Polish Film Chronicle' newsreel from 1992 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxQqsqqH8ao