Thread
Winter Warm Up 2010
The site is up!
This year we have a DOOM competition too!
Roll Up - Roll Up!!
http://www.retrochallenge.org
This year we have a DOOM competition too!
Roll Up - Roll Up!!
http://www.retrochallenge.org
Don't think I'm gonna enter this time 'round, since I seem to lose motivation rather quickly once something goes awry. So, unless I'm struck by a momentary spark of passion, a bout of genius, or when something obvious becomes even more so, I'll be cheering from the sidelines...
-Shaun
-Shaun
Awww, sorry mate. I can't bear to see you like this.
Just sent in my entry. I'll be resurrecting a few Amigas that have been comatose in the lab, namely my A4000D and both my A1200s, will probably do something with my A2000 and CDTV as well, with a dose of TRS-80 Model 100 for good measure.
Couldn't resist the pull after all... Everytime I think I'm out, they keep dragging me back in! :lol:
Alright, if I can dig the machines out of storage in the next two days; I'm going to use only machines that were current the day my step-son was born (September 25, 1994.) This means a PowerBook 540c for portable use, and a Power Macintosh 7100/66 for desktop use. (I may go for the 6100/60av; I haven't decided yet.) If I feel that I need a PDA, I'll use my Original Newton MessagePad. The mobile side will hinge heavily on if any of my PB500-series batteries still hold a charge. I have four PB5300-series batteries that hold a reasonable charge, but the PB5300 is too new for my personal deadline. (It was introduced in mid-to-late '95.)
For photos, I wish I had a QuickTake 100, but sadly, I only have a QuickTake 200. I'll have to fudge it and use that slightly-too-new hardware. Once the photos are transferred to computer via software, it doesn't really matter, anyway.
I will allow myself hardware upgrades and software that was available exactly ten years prior to the start of the warmup (as of 1/1/2000,) mostly to allow myself to use my WaveLAN card on the PowerBook.
(I can't remember if my PCMCIA cage is the one-and-only model that works with the PPC upgrade. If it is, I'll use my 520c with PPC upgrade instead of the 540c.) I was going to have the cutoff be my step-son's fifth birthday (9/25/1999,) but that would exclude Mac OS 9; and I feel like using OS 9.
I will also allow for security and bug-fix updates that are newer than 1/1/2000; but not major releases. So iCab 2.9.9 will be my web browser of choice. (I can justify that 2.9.9 is really just the last in a long line of bug-fix/security updates of the earliest version of iCab, right? )
A few unavoidables: My home server must continue to run for my wife's sake; and at work, I don't exactly have a choice in the matter. Finally, since pre-2000 cell phones don't work; I'll be using my iPhone for phone calls. I will not use it for browsing the 'net, though. I don't think there's any way to get an OMP (Newton) on the internet wirelessly, so I may have to resort to doing mobile email on the iPhone, as in my job, mobile email is unavoidable. (I know a 2000-series Newton can use WiFi, but those are newer than my hardware timeline allows.)
My Summer project will be to set up my home computer museum, though. (We should get the remodel going by then, and I'll have a proper 'museum-style' display; with as many machines as possible in ready-to-use condition.)
For photos, I wish I had a QuickTake 100, but sadly, I only have a QuickTake 200. I'll have to fudge it and use that slightly-too-new hardware. Once the photos are transferred to computer via software, it doesn't really matter, anyway.
I will allow myself hardware upgrades and software that was available exactly ten years prior to the start of the warmup (as of 1/1/2000,) mostly to allow myself to use my WaveLAN card on the PowerBook.
(I can't remember if my PCMCIA cage is the one-and-only model that works with the PPC upgrade. If it is, I'll use my 520c with PPC upgrade instead of the 540c.) I was going to have the cutoff be my step-son's fifth birthday (9/25/1999,) but that would exclude Mac OS 9; and I feel like using OS 9.I will also allow for security and bug-fix updates that are newer than 1/1/2000; but not major releases. So iCab 2.9.9 will be my web browser of choice. (I can justify that 2.9.9 is really just the last in a long line of bug-fix/security updates of the earliest version of iCab, right?
)A few unavoidables: My home server must continue to run for my wife's sake; and at work, I don't exactly have a choice in the matter. Finally, since pre-2000 cell phones don't work; I'll be using my iPhone for phone calls. I will not use it for browsing the 'net, though. I don't think there's any way to get an OMP (Newton) on the internet wirelessly, so I may have to resort to doing mobile email on the iPhone, as in my job, mobile email is unavoidable. (I know a 2000-series Newton can use WiFi, but those are newer than my hardware timeline allows.)
My Summer project will be to set up my home computer museum, though. (We should get the remodel going by then, and I'll have a proper 'museum-style' display; with as many machines as possible in ready-to-use condition.)
If 10-year-old game systems make the cut, why not a 15-year-old computer? (Heck, a Quadra 840 may very well be faster for many tasks than a Power Mac 7100/66. I've just found that iCab 2.9.9 on 68k makes many sites that I pretty much need to use unusable; while 2.9.9 on PPC works fine on the same sites.)
edit: Ah, now I see the 486/68040 specification in the rules....
most 10 year old game systems are 2 generations old, leaving them with (at best) small meg's of memory, and 10's of megahertz
This rule does need to be revised, under the current rules I can drop in with a 200mhz, 16mb,3d accelerated,networked, sega dreamcast. But cant use my 8mb 90mhz Pentium laptop :-/
This rule does need to be revised, under the current rules I can drop in with a 200mhz, 16mb,3d accelerated,networked, sega dreamcast. But cant use my 8mb 90mhz Pentium laptop :-/
The rule regarding games/pdas is the result of sheer laziness and ignorance on my part... there just isn't a convenient cut-off as there is with computers. If anyone has any ideas on how to streamline the rules on games/pdas feel free to stop by the BBS and suggest away...
Previous experience has taught us that there's no point discussing the rules on this forum as we'll just end up with a bunch of folks complaining that their G5 should be allowed because it won't run Snow Leopard ;-)
Previous experience has taught us that there's no point discussing the rules on this forum as we'll just end up with a bunch of folks complaining that their G5 should be allowed because it won't run Snow Leopard ;-)
Personally, I'd suggest an age cutoff. As 486/68040 was just becoming no longer top of the line 15 years ago, I'd make it a rolling 15-year cutoff. So next year, more Pentiums and early PowerPCs would be eligible; and in a few more years, yes, even a Pentium II would be eligible.
One issue with even introducing PPC G1-era Macs is that because they have so much more capability, there could be a tendency for them to dominate retrochallenge. Considering I keep coming across techie types who talk about building minimal systems with mere tens of Mb of memory and hundreds of MHz, I suspect people are increasingly losing touch with what computing really used to be like.
Personally I think that retro should mean the earliest days of the platform. So my kinda retro challenge would be getting an AVR cross-development IDE working on my Mac Plus
! That'd be good as it provides a bit of a reality check for all the arduino heads who think they need a Quad Core 4Gb iMac to do that kind of thing with ;-) !
But maybe there's better ways to consider newer machines. For example, retrochallenge could just introduce new classes of retro, e.g early superscalars and have separate 'awards' for them. Vintage and Veteran categories for example; so there's an easier entry point but still more kudos for the real keen-beans
!
-cheers from Snial @P
Personally I think that retro should mean the earliest days of the platform. So my kinda retro challenge would be getting an AVR cross-development IDE working on my Mac Plus
! That'd be good as it provides a bit of a reality check for all the arduino heads who think they need a Quad Core 4Gb iMac to do that kind of thing with ;-) !But maybe there's better ways to consider newer machines. For example, retrochallenge could just introduce new classes of retro, e.g early superscalars and have separate 'awards' for them. Vintage and Veteran categories for example; so there's an easier entry point but still more kudos for the real keen-beans
!-cheers from Snial @P
Please do!
A "degree of difficulty" score, like in Olympic diving?
Well, one of my ideas, for example:
Using a Gameboy to emulate a serial LCD (HD44780 or a graphic controller) via the serial port, and also pass button presses. This would be a cheap way to get a display and UI for various microcontroller projects. It should be possible to do that in the 256k of onboard memory so you wouldn't have to use a flash cart.
In the earliest days of the retrochallenge it was a straight date cutoff, of ten years I believe, however this was changed a few years ago because 1994 seemed retro then, but 1999/2000 doesn't seem so retro now. Weird.
What we did back then as well, either the year I hosted it or the year before, was we had a multiplier for each type of platform you might have used. I believe that PPC/Pentium were 1.0, 040/486 were 1.5, 030/386 were 2.0, and it progressed down the line as such, in an effort to make it such that you were rewarded for using even older technology, but that it was possible to participate with something that was ten years old or older.
What we did back then as well, either the year I hosted it or the year before, was we had a multiplier for each type of platform you might have used. I believe that PPC/Pentium were 1.0, 040/486 were 1.5, 030/386 were 2.0, and it progressed down the line as such, in an effort to make it such that you were rewarded for using even older technology, but that it was possible to participate with something that was ten years old or older.
I like the handicap idea.
My main impetus for wanting to use a PPC was, yes, because a semi-modern web browser is available. As I've been discovering, trying to use circa-1995 web browsers is impossible. IE 2 and Netscape 2 just don't work anymore. And it's not just lack of support for HTML 3, it's the fact that they don't send their HTTP requests properly. Google.com will not even attempt to load in IE2. Microsoft.com loads the basic text, then gets stuck in some kind of loading loop.
Ironically, even Archive.org doesn't work in IE2! Of all the websites to work properly on old browsers, you'd think that would be one.
I don't know about IE 2, but Netscape 2 is still sort of usable. I've been running it on my PowerBook 180c for a few days, and as long as you have the exact version of Netscape 2.02 that allows you to disable Javascript, it is really quite usable, if a bit slow and butt ugly (due to its lack of CSS support). But for the most part, everything works, such as the HTML version of Gmail, and this forum.
For a while I was actually going to use NCSA Mosaic, but I've since discovered that like you said about IE 2, it doesn't really work. I couldn't even get Google to load under Mosaic - it got stuck in a loop redirecting between Google.com and Google.com.au.
we could also do with getting rid of the idea of the RC being about an 'endurance' challenge - largely that was dropped as an active 'idea' a couple of years ago, its really all about 'projects' and 'things'.
nobody just uses retro kit through the month anymore, people push themselves to do something different that they have never done before - its more personal and more fun because of it.
to say again, there is no challenge in using a modern machine and no interest either, do so if you wish, nobody can really stop you after all, its just that nobody will be interested and it will seem a bit weird when other folk are messing around with machines 20-30 years old.
do it for yourself, do it for pleasure, but to paraphrase, sometimes its not retro, its just old, there is nothing wrong with that, but there is a difference.
i will say no more on the matter -just my view.
nobody just uses retro kit through the month anymore, people push themselves to do something different that they have never done before - its more personal and more fun because of it.
to say again, there is no challenge in using a modern machine and no interest either, do so if you wish, nobody can really stop you after all, its just that nobody will be interested and it will seem a bit weird when other folk are messing around with machines 20-30 years old.
do it for yourself, do it for pleasure, but to paraphrase, sometimes its not retro, its just old, there is nothing wrong with that, but there is a difference.
i will say no more on the matter -just my view.