Title: The Old Computer Challenge v4 (Olympics edition) | |
Author: Solène | |
Date: 24 June 2024 | |
Tags: oldcomputerchallenge nocloud life | |
Description: The Old Computer Challenge announcement for the year 2024. | |
Grab your old hardware and have fun for a week. | |
# Introduction | |
This is the time of the year where I announce the Old Computer | |
Challenge (OCC) date. | |
I recommend visiting the community website about the OCC if you want to | |
connect with the community. | |
Old Computer Challenge community | |
The Old Computer Challenge history | |
The Old Computer Challenge v4 poster, by @[email protected] on Mastodon | |
# When? | |
The Old Computer Challenge 4th edition will begin 13th July to 20th | |
July 2024. It will be the prequel to Olympics, I was not able to get | |
the challenge accepted there so we will do it our way. | |
# How to participate? | |
While the three previous editions had different rules, I came to agree | |
with the community for this year. Choose your rules! | |
When I did the challenge for the first time, I did not expect it to | |
become a yearly event nor that it would gather aficionados during the | |
trip. The original point of the challenge was just to see if I could | |
use my oldest laptop as my main computer for a week, there were no | |
incentive, it was not a contest and I did not have any written rules. | |
Previous editions rules were about using an old laptop, use a computer | |
with limited hardware (and tips to slow down a modern machine) or limit | |
Internet access to a single hour per day. I always insist on the fact | |
it should not hinder your job, so people participating do not have to | |
"play" during work. Smartphones became complicated to handle, | |
especially with the limited Internet access, all I can recommend to | |
people is to define some rules you want to stick to, and apply to it | |
the best you can. If you realllyyyy need once to use a device that | |
would break the rules, so be it if it is really important, nobody will | |
yell at you. | |
People doing the OCC enjoy it for multiple reasons, find yours! Some | |
find the opportunity to disconnect a bit, change their habit, do some | |
technoarcheology to run rare hardware, play with low-tech, demonstrate | |
obsolescence is not a fatality etc... | |
Some ideas if you do not know what to do for the challenge: | |
* use your oldest device | |
* do not use graphical interface | |
* do not use your smartphone (and pick a slow computer :P) | |
* limit your Internet access time | |
* slow down your Internet access | |
* forbid big software (I indented to do this for 4th OCC but it was | |
hard to prepare, the idea was to setup an OpenBSD mirror where software | |
with more than some arbitrary line of codes in their sources would be | |
banned, resulting in a very small set of packages due to missing | |
transitive dependencies) | |
# What to do during the challenge? | |
You can join the community and share your experience. | |
There are many ways! It's the opportunity to learn how to use Gopher | |
or Gemini to publish content, or to join the mailing list and | |
participate with the other or simply come to the IRC channel to chat a | |
bit. | |
# I can't join during 13th to 20th July! | |
Well, as nobody enforces you to do the OCC, you can just do it when you | |
want, even in December if it suits your calendar better than mid July, | |
nobody will complain at you. | |
# Conclusion | |
There is a single rule, do it for fun! Do not impede yourself for | |
weird reasons, it is here for fun, and doing the whole week is as good | |
as failing and writing about the why you failed. It is not a contest, | |
just try and see how it goes, and tell us your story :) |