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Participated last year with my Thinkpad R61 that I still use as my main laptop after getting so cozy with it during the challenge.
A lot of the group was great, but some friends I invited to the challenge had a bad time in the irc with transphobes and we all dropped out.
I hope this year people moderate the chat a bit better, but I understand its not their day job to police random folk that enter the hobby challenge community.
Since 2013, I have used a laptop made in 2009 as my normal, everyday laptop. I am currently in the process of replacing it, but only because other people have complained about the fan noise.
This is just my life. I have an old netbook running openbsd. It can do netsurf and email just fine when I'm on the go, I have my vita for any media I want to experience on the go, and for anything more intense than viewing a simple website, email/chat, or the occasional perl script, I shell into my home computer
What was the point of this comment? Yeah this is pretty much how I use my computer. I use netsurf because I can use it in the framebuffer. I use mg for text editing and file browsing (using dired), chat using ircii, and email with elm. I don't really do much that can't be done without a GUI, so I rarely use X for anything other than forwarding something from my main computer over ssh
X terminals, 1990s. Same idea: dumb glass up front, real work happens on a box in a rack somewhere. SSH over whatever radio link you've got is just a modern VT100 over a modem. Worked then, works now, nobody remembers why it fell out of fashion.
There is something healthy about a challenge where the goal is not optimization, productivity but just spending a week with constraints and making something
Specifically, the project is to create VFS similar to the one in Linux 1.00 in xv6-riscv. I completed the MIT xv6 labs and read the VFS code in Linux 1.00 a while ago, and I don't think it is a particularly difficult task -- but xv6-fs touches a lot of places, so I'd imagine some re-architecture is needed.
The scope of the project is NOT to create more FS for xv6, but to add one abstraction layer on top of the FS, i.e. the VFS. The kernel is supposed to know which FS is picked manually (in this case it is the original xv6 FS) by the programmer in the makefile, and it should load the correct superblock and go from there.
The whole work, once kicked into gear -- that is, once one has gotten familiar with the xv6 kernel and written some code for the labs, should take more or less 2 weeks for an ordinary people who has no experience with system programming to complete. The good part is that there is no need to write tests for this project -- you just keep running xv6 and see if it passes all of the existing tests -- once that's passed the VFS should work fine.
Interesting site/challenge; however, I had trouble browsing and finding "what to do" in a reasonable time.
I recently spent like $170 giving a new lease on life to a 15-year-old Lenovo S10-3 Ideapad with a 1-core Intel Atom CPU, 2GB of RAM, a WiFi card, and a 250GB SSD running AntiX Linux in TTY/Command Line mode.
So far, I've turned it into a picture/frame + vision board running Tailscale so I could SSH in and/or rsync stuff.
I am also attempting to run a no-AI version of Pwnagotchi to pwn WiFi networks.
I am also using it as an always-on appliance that does stuff like rsync/backup my entire server, run lightweight Python scripts to check the uptime and days until domain expiration, etc., on a set of websites I own and would like to own, etc.
I have all of this stuff connected to a Telegram bot that reports to me.
It's an interesting set of constraints, and you can surprisingly do a lot of cool stuff.
I gave my wife a 2012 macbook pro running ubuntu. It was a huge upgrade over her ~2014 macbook air running stock, which couldn't even update itself anymore.
It never occured to me to consider it might qualify as a "challenge" since it is 14 years old. It just works fantanstically and was my daily driver until 3-4 years ago.
I got it off ebay for approximately $100, cleaned it, and put in a new battery.
The 2012 macbook pro (non retina, at least. I never owned a retina one) is the last truly great macbook apple ever made. God I loved that thing, I used it to death and was truly saddened by its loss. It lasted a good 12 years
> 15-year-old Lenovo S10-3 Ideapad with a 1-core Intel Atom CPU, 2GB of RAM, a WiFi card, and a 250GB SSD
What a weird coincidence, I've just found one of these while clearing out a box of equipment I'm getting rid of and thought "I should stick NetBSD on this!"
Here’s an idea that’s been following me for a while, if you like low-level stuff:
Make a toy OS that boots into a Lisp shell.
Another to appreciate how fast computers that we call old effectively are: write a game for the shell. Depending on your level of skill, you can try pong, snake, lunar lander, or a 3D software renderer.
Disagree that it's mostly pain, depends what you're using it for. Text editing, terminal work, even light browsing with a stripped-down browser is totally fine on that hardware. The "pain" only shows up when you insist on running a modern web stack on it.
Has anyone actually measured the sustained load of Tailscale plus rsync plus whatever else running full-time on a single-core Atom? My worry isn't peak use, it's whether the thing chokes when two background jobs overlap and you're not there to notice.
I have a TRS-80 that still ran last time I tried. It used audio cassette tapes for storage, but I don't have one, so I built a cable to use a modern voice recorder to read and store data on.
I've been wanting to build some kind of project for it that uses the old school nature of the machine with modern conveniences. As an example, it's way easier to create graphics now, but the machine has really limited methods to recreate those.
I mean, I guess I daily run an old computer. Lenovo T400 from 2009, 2.4Ghz Core 2 Duo with 4GB of RAM. So far I haven't really had any issues. That said today I picked up a Carbon X1 4th gen for $100, that might be become my new Old computer. Also in the process of refurbishing an IBM Aptiva from 1996. Pentium 166Mhz with 64MB RAM, that one is a little beauty.
I do like this years challenge, 'hand-make something' as that is always a good thing to do.
T400 is definitely cool, I have a T420 I love. But that Aptiva... man, when those were new, they were full of more bloatware than any other machine I'd ever seen. I made bank in high school just reinstalling windows for people on those... it was like 5x faster when I was done with it, easily. I think it's made it impossible for me to see that as a beauty, though.
A T400 is old enough to feel refreshingly simple but still new enough to be useful. A 1996 Aptiva is more like a historical instrument. I like that distinction between old and actually vintage.
I want to participate. But maybe I already do everyday.
My daily driver is a MacBook Pro 2009 running Linux MX 23, does that count as an old computer for this challenge?
I have an old Osborne 1 that worked the last time I plugged it in-- years ago. I would be shocked if the 5 1/4" discs are still readable. If they aren't, or I wanted to add some new software (like a better compiler) is there a place where I can find CPM boot disks etc? It would really be fun to write some C or Pascal or even (less fun) BASIC.
Hmmm. I have a T500 I could use, but it's not that old (a mere 18 years!) - I'd mostly be running the same software and doing the same things, just a bit slower.
Going back another decade I also have a Pentium MMX system, and that'd be more interesting to work with but also a lot more tedious.
Could do hp ipaq challenge, old thinkpad challenge, old macbook challenge, old smartphone challenge, fix an old computer to working state challenge, old browser challenge, it’s not meant for this challenge.
In short: a bunch of people who like old (as in around year 2000) tech periodically try to achieve something using the tech of the time. Many post on Gemini, a few on Gopher (which already was ancient in 2000).
This just reminds me that I have my old MicroATX HTPC (remember that term?) that I built in about 2010 sitting in a closet. I bet I haven’t booted it since 2014. I wonder what’s on it…
HTPC are still very much a thing, I use mine for everything from MAME to watching a 72GB sized 4K copy of Apocalypse Now Redux. I think the major home theater receiver manufacturers continue to include a "PC" button on the remote control and a "PC" labeled input on their better receivers with five or six HDMI inputs.
I ended up getting a second hand Optiplex Micro for this. Tiny unit, low power usable, never even heard the fan switch on. Even with the slow frequency (2ghz) the Intel media decoders are brilliant at handling this stuff.
Early SATA 3 and USB3 and the mainboard footprint is not much bigger than a miniPC. The enclosure it's in is about twice the size of a miniPC, 191 x 286mm, and the discrete little power supply probably has less than the recommended 200W. Enclosure only fits 2.5 inch drives, holds two of them but can't always power up both if they are HDDs when 4GB memory is installed. Never would handle a video card and there's no way one would fit inside the case anyway. Not really taking advantage of the SATA 3 yet, using an appropriate vintage HDD from a 2011 Macbook that's 160GB at SATA 2 which is half the speed.
But it has 3 video connectors from which you can choose any two, and decent sound.
This one has two full processor cores but it's not much faster to boot than my old Dell which does run at about twice the speed. The Gigabyte has a nice BIOS geared toward overclockers but it runs hot enough with default settings so that's enough.
Windows 11 in a MBR/BIOS layout, can only handle up to W11 23H2 but it's fully updated by manually installing the patch each month. Edge updates as expected. LAN drivers also less than a year old. OS takes up over 20GB of a 32GB partition. As drive space dwindles the manual patch installation using DISM will require a /scratchdir on a different partition than you are booted to, or on a storage drive having plenty of space.
This next one is 20 years old, still just sits there running:
32-bit only so it's Windows 10 x86. Used to play internet videos fine just a couple years ago, PC never changed but the internet got more encumbered. When it had XP it was snappier than a new Windows 11 PC at least.
I do use a PS2 mouse with each of these but only one with any balls at all :)
This kind of comment could be written about almost anything and is fundamentally un-interesting. You chose to write "weirdo" instead of "screwball" or "bozo" and probably think the more modern "weirdo" captures your intent the best. I'm sure the original authors had a similar thought.
Naming conventions are the least of your problems. The actual failure mode is nobody documenting why the weird term was chosen, so five years later someone "fixes" it and breaks a grep in prod.
It can't be written for pages that use regular English. I think you missed that "smol" is an in group marker. Using such quirky in group markers like that can limit the audience or give some potential readers a bad impression from the readers opinion on such a group. It's fair feedback to suggest that if someone wants to target a larger audience that they should be careful with their language and go back to regular English.
right, but it appears they prioritize sending a strong signal to the people this *is* for over attracting some normies. keep it smol. if I were them and I wanted to address the outgroup I might start the article with "the old computer challenge is" or "this year's old computer challenge is", for example, instead of "the old computer challenge community is".
Technically KYM says smol pairs with lorge too, so it's not just about tininess, it's a whole size-affect vocabulary. But I'll grant an old computer challenge isn't really affectionate-diminutive territory, though people do get sentimental about beige boxes.
> Smol (often paired with lorge or bean), is an Internet slang term used to describe any animal, character, or object that is considered very tiny and cute
I'm from Spain so I know how to write weird Germanic as in this site... and odd Latin mixed with
- Greek, but that's the default among Latin on borrowing
technical/scientifc words since forever and today.
- Basque (tons of them to put there)
- Iberian (Perro?)
- Gothic (casa, sofá, banco, guardia...)
- French (Carnet, garage...)
- Italian (Most Enlightenment related artsy words)
- Arabic (Most al- starting words)
- English (Modern stuff)
So, we all should switch to a pure language, maybe Icelandic and
Indoeuropean. And Basque/Iberian in my case. Altough Basque and Iberian
share the same numerals... so who knows.
A lot of the group was great, but some friends I invited to the challenge had a bad time in the irc with transphobes and we all dropped out.
I hope this year people moderate the chat a bit better, but I understand its not their day job to police random folk that enter the hobby challenge community.