Cobra: The Illegal DIY Computer Movement in Communist Romania in the 1980s

You don't have to look too hard to uncover the "vision" of the Socialist Republic of Romania in the 1980s, and the nefarious activities of its secret police, the Securitate. Life for Romanians was hard, with very limited access to certain things, including technology. At best, one could find a clone of the ZX Spectrum at an exorbitant cost, and the Cobra was one of them. But out of necessity arose a movement of enthusiasts determined to build their own clones, defying the authorities in the process.

Imagine a world where a state artificially inflates the prices of electronic components to prevent its population from building radios or computers. That's what happened in communist Romania in the 1980s, but state intervention was far more extreme than you might think.

If you want to learn more, you should check out the documentary "Chuck Norris vs. Communism", which shows us the movements and risks some people took to watch and trade "forbidden" movies on VHS. However, movies were just one item for which people were willing to flirt with illegality. Then there were computers, and especially the Cobra clones.

The Cobra and Its Price

In the early '80s, the ZX Spectrum had become one of the most copied systems in the entire Eastern Bloc. Cobra (COmputere BRAsov) was just one of the clones manufactured in Romania, but its cost put it out of reach for the vast majority: 35,000 lei, half the price of a Dacia 1300, the Romanian version of the Renault 12.

A partial and definitely illegal solution emerged thanks to a group of students from the Polytechnic University of Bucharest, who began to build their own copies of the Cobra. They pooled resources, obtained motherboards "extracted" from the factory, and made special deals with wholesale electronic component suppliers. The Cobra was both a technological marvel and a symbol of rebellion.

The Aftermath

More than three decades later, some of those students claim that the number of Cobras they built surpassed those that came out of the factory. Each Cobra required on average 2,000 soldering points, but enthusiasts were also forced to make the tools to diagnose computers when they didn't work properly. Just as VHS movies became a documentary, I hope someone makes a short film about the Cobra movement.

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