Artifact Details

Title

Antonić, Voja oral history

Catalog Number

102738446

Type

Moving image

Description

Voja Antonić is a self-taught Serbian electronics engineer, writer and journalist who built a series of innovative microprocessor-based digital systems in the 1980s, culminating in the popular Galaksija (“Galaxy”) personal computer. Antonic began experimenting with electronics in elementary school, using germanium transistors to build simple circuits. In spite of high grades, and winning first place in the national math and physics contest in high school, unfortunate political events at the time prevented him from attending the Nikola Tesla University where he wanted to study electronics.

Studying instead at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in the late 1970s, he started to build computer systems on his own, including one for his studies capable of rendering short 3D wireframe animation. In December 1983, with friend and magazine publisher, Dejan Ristanvoić, Antonić deisgned and published a hobbyist construction article for the Galaksija computer, which sold over 8,000 units across Yugoslavia, a remarkable number given how difficult it was to obtain parts in the Eastern Bloc.

Antonić describes briefly an episode in which he barely avoided military service during the Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s and what life was like during those times. The interview concludes with him moving to the United States.

Date

2017-08-16

Participants

Antonić, Vojislav, Interviewee

Spicer, Dag, Interviewer

Publisher

Computer History Museum

Place of Publication

Mountain View, CA

Duration

01:04:52

Format

MOV

Credit