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?
> 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...
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:
>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.”
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...