(c) 1984, Radio Student
Welcome to the first Slovenian game, made in 1984 by Žiga Turk and Matevž Kmet for the then most popular microcomputer in Yugoslavia, Sinclair's ZX Spectrum, affectionately called "the rainbow."
The Apple II was present in Yugoslavia at that time mainly in various larger companies and academic institutions. In terms of price, it was not at all close to domestic home microcomputers such as the ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64.
In Yugoslavia, Branimir Makanec brought Apple II computers to schools and public institutions. Makanec was employed by the company Ivasim, which sent him to specialize in America, where he saw that Americans were using the then very popular Apple II computer in schools. Since 1979, the Apple II computer had more than 400,000 educational and serious programs, so the Apple II was the first choice. The Ivasim company called it the KAG A2 100 “universal school computer.”
Due to import rules, where production had to be “domestic” and the components themselves were difficult to import from abroad (the price of the basic model at that time was 300,000 dinars), the Apple II was presented in the brochures as a product of domestic experts in cooperation with the Americans. In fact, it was only the Apple II Plus / Europlus, which Apple introduced in 1979 for the European market and Australia.
Later, the sale of Apple computers was taken over by the private company Velebit (Velebit OOUR Informatika or Velebit Informatika), which was engaged in the support and sale of Apple computers for the next few years. Ivasim, however, made its own model of Apple II clone called Ivel Ultra, as a replacement for the universal school computer KAG A2 100. Velebit adapted and localized quite a few software, including "Apple Ured" (Apple Office), which included a text editor, database, and editing of calculation cells or tables. So far, I am not aware of any truly Slovenian program for the Apple II. Because of this, for many years, I have been wanting to translate some program into Slovenian, since later models such as the Apple IIe and IIc support accents, as they had a built-in YU ROM with our character table.
In December 2023, Tomaž Štih adapted the Kontrabanta 2 code for our Slovenian computer Iskra Delta Partner, and the idea was born that this would be a right game that could run on an Apple II computer.
On the Internet and forums, I looked for expert programmers, and indeed, in December 2024, my wish came true. I was contacted by Antoine Vignau from BRUTAL DELUXE SOFTWARE, who told me that he could translate the code and prepare it for the Apple II. In December 2024 and January 2025, we were in touch, preparing and testing the game. Antoine programmed, and I tested every step by step of the game play with different solutions, as a walkthrough for Kontrabanta 1 had not yet been published anywhere. A large map with the game's rooms was created. It was also necessary to decipher secret passages and sequentially important tasks; otherwise, the computer would not recognize the command.
I am very pleased that we succeeded. Not only that, we adapted the game in English and French.
Janez J. Starc
Download:
(143k, English) -
(143k, French) -
(143k, Slovenian)
Manual:
(English) -
(French) -
(Slovenian)
Solution:
Source code: