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Bajtek

11 bytes added, 21:24, 7 September 2006
/* Bajtek and CPC */ some typos and a little rephrasing
On the beginning, Bajtek had mainly articles about computers from "private import"(more communistic 'nomenclature'), particulary about ZX Spectrum, which became quite popular in Poland in the first half of the 80'ies, mainly because of it's price. In the 1986, there was an advent of 'clans' - subparts of Bajtek, each dedicated to only one machine/producer(All Ataris, All Commodores and so on).
By that time, the popularity of the CPC in Poland was rising. That was, to the simple fact, that CPC were (thanks to CP/M+ and 80 column mode) considered as cheap alternative to IBM PC and other 'professional machines'. Personally, I've heard about CPC applications in scientific calculations, witch on it own shows how this trend was strong. That was because even institutions(like universities) couldn't allow themselfs for substantial amounts of PCs. Poland was (at that time) very poor country and high excange exchange rates added to the problem. Also, there was COCOM, witch which meant that really big machines were out-of-reach.
Also, the bulit-in Cetronics port of the Schneiders allowed very easy producing of so called "Publikacje bezdebitowe"('debitless' publications). Debit is a word from french, meaning 'to sell', 'place of selling' and 'bez-' is a polish word for without. At that time, if you wanted to distribute your publication, you had to have 'debit', an allowance from Office of Censorship. So, in short, "bezdebitowe" or 'debitless' publications were illegal 'papers' distributed by underground. As they usally been produced in quantities of around 200 copies, The CPC with good NLQ printer and possibly a copier was all you need to fight with communism. Needless to say, CPC became quite popular in underground.
Thanks to that, CPC was noticed by Bajtek and The "Klan Amstrada/Schneidera", a clan for the CPC and PCW computers was also formed. Unfortunatly, because of the typical profile of polish CPC users, polish 'scene' never formed, so there weren't autors in "CPC clan" who could portrey the "Colour in CPC". Most articles was about 'practical applications of CPC/and PCW'.
Bajtek continued to publish articles about CPC and PCW until 1994.
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