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Saturday, August 10, 2024
RC 2023/10 Results!
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The results are in and it's a tie! The three Grand Prize "winners" this
year (one for each category) tied for first by popular vote! The other
prize winners also received votes and were highly regarded by the
judges. But as we all know, even finsihing the RetroChallenge is an
impressive task (one that I have been unable to complete for years).
Everyone who finished has earned the judge's respect and appreciation!
Stay tuned for details on RetroChallenge 2024/10!
Click below to see the results...
Category: Endurance Challenge
Granz
Granz's avatar twitter : @retrocheng
Platform: MS-DOS, x86
Project : I think that I will commit to using MS-DOS on a daily basis
(I did this throughout the late 1980s and into the 1990s, in several
different professional positions.) I plan on connecting my chosen
system (see first post in my blog thread) to the internet (maybe
through an ESP modem.) Then I will try to figure out how to post to my
thread (or some other) to keep my blogging up.
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Halftime Update: Granz is keeping us well updated with his endurance
challenge and is making great progress getting his Zenith Z-Star
configured and connected to peripherals. Reading the good book and
dealing with cursed CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files... what a combo!
Happy birthday!
Final Comments: Granz actually managed to use MS-DOS everyday for a
month!! His journal on the daily struggles with the Z-Star is a joy to
read: FoxPro database installation, serial port issues, PS/2 mouse
problems, BBS logins, experimenting with NewDOS, programming in C,
TinyBASIC corruption, a few games, and daily Bible study. His
perseverance is award-worthy! I hope he can get the content posted
where it is accessible again.
Final Status: *** Grand Prize! ***
Digitalrampage
Digitalrampage's avatar Affiliation: Australian Computer Museum Society
Platform: Multiple
Project : I'm attempting to setup an ISP, restore a broken Micro PC
286, fix a PowerBook 2300 PPC laptop and others
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Halftime Update: DigitalRampage has added to his list of things to do
by damaging the power supply on his 286 Carry-I terminal PC. At least
he got a bit of time playing Leisure Suit Larry.
Final Comments: Digitalrampage had mixed success during the month, but
finally ended up with a blown powersupply, a non-functioning PowerBook
Duo 2300c, and some recapped PowerBook Duos.
Final Status: Finished the Month!
TiredGeezer303
TiredGeezer303's avatar twitter : @ElonIsEvil303
Platform: iBook g4, IBM Netvista circa 2003
Project : Doing the endurance challenge!! Trying to use my iBook g4 and
NetVista computer for all of my computing with a few exceptions for
work, texts, phone calls, etc.
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Halftime Update: TiredGeezer made some initial progress with his Net
Vista PC, installing Debian 10, but I fear we may have lost him. Give
us some more updates!
Final Comments: Despite my pleas, we lost TiredGeezer303 early in the
month.
Final Status: Stalled
Category: General
LambdaMikel
LambdaMikel's avatar Platform: Busch Microtronic
Project : My goal is to create a multi-purpose expansion for the Busch
Microtronic Computer (1981, 4bit). I already have a Raspberry Pico set
up to emulate the Microtronic's 2114 SRAM. The Pico enables me to store
and restore Microtronic memory dumps as files to resp. from SDcard, in
milliseconds (the cassette interface takes minutes for a decent
program!) By "snooping" the address bus and SRAM (which the Pico
emulates), the Pico also knows the instruction currently being executed
by the Microtronic. I can hence turn the Pico into co-processor, adding
new op-codes to the original Microtronic. I plan to add op-codes for
OLED display output, sound, speech synthesis, a Real Time Clock, as
well as bank switching. The goal is to have a working prototype at the
end of the Challenge month that can then be turned into a PCB
(consisting of a Pico, OLED display, loudspeaker am op-amp, SDcard,
speech chip, and a few buttons for the user interface).
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Halftime Update: LambdaMikel gave us a thorough log post and video
right at halftime. He demonstrates the voice function and fully
functional SD card. He even has the RPi Pico interfaced with the Busch
Microtronic allowing it to run programs directly from the to RPi. Great
work so far!
Final Comments: LambdaMikel made amazing progress on his Busch
Microtronic, and provided some great demo videos to finish off the
project. I love the Microtronic's German accent... very appropriate! He
added many capabilities, including RTC, OLED display, voice, SDcard,
all integrated through a Raspberry Pico.
Project : I'll be making a game (or maybe several) in Assembly for the
Hungarian HomeLab-2 computer from 1982.
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Halftime Update: Gergo" just barely got us his first post in time for
this half-time update. Looking forward to more content here!
Final Comments: Gergo" ported a text adventure game "The Revenge" to
the HomeLab-2 which required optimizing it to fit in the computer's 16
KB of RAM. Text compression and carefully pruning the maps and
storyline resulted in a completed 'Part I' with the ability to save
gamestate in-memory. We are looking forward to the sequel!
Final Status: Finished the Month!
Kerry
Kerry's avatar Affiliation: Australian Computer Museum Society
Platform: DEC PDP11
Project : I have spent hundreds of hours repairing a PDP11/10 CPU box
which is now working. It is lonely for a peripheral and I have just the
thing, a PC05 high speed paper tape punch/reader. I am hoping to get it
cleaned, repaired and interfaced to my PDP11/10 and loading the DEC
pdp11 paper tape basic. Utilising another previously restored paper
tape punch I will be creating the tape and the absolute loader to suit.
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Halftime Update: After "getting his bits together" and punching some
necessary paper tapes, Kerry is working hard on the restoration of his
PC05 paper tape reader and has a lot of video updates to show his
progress. I am really enjoying the multidisciplinary effort on this
one! His short videos are definitely worth watching.
Final Comments: Kerry finished of the month strong with a video of an
end-to-end boot of the PDP11 paper tape system including load, run and
punch a program on the PC05 high speed punch/reader. This was one of my
favorites with frequent updates and explanations of how he ultimately
conquered many setbacks. Awesome job!
Final Status: Prize "Winner"!!
Cefiar (aka Stuart)
Cefiar (aka Stuart)'s avatar Affiliation: Australian Computer Museum
Society
Platform: Applix1616
Project : Restoration/rebuild of an Applix1616 kit computer that hasn't
been powered up in years. Cleaning, checking all components, redoing
bodge wires, etc, through to booting the system and hopefully accessing
files on a SCSI attached volume (on a BlueSCSI V2).
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Halftime Update: Cefiar is making awesome progress with his handsomely
minimalist Applix1616. Great photos and great content here, as he
basically re-solders the entire logic board and installs a BlueSCSI
card. Keep up the great progress!
Final Comments: Cefiar knocked this one out of the park with the
computer equivalent of a frame-up restoration of his Applix1616. Then
he took it the next step with some resto-mods to update its usefulness
with a floppy emulator. Despite the loss of a loved pet, he really
finished strong. I look forward to seeing more of what the Applix1616
will do!
Final Status: Prize "Winner"!!
John Honniball
John Honniball's avatar twitter : @anachrocomputer
Platform: Compukit UK101
Project : I built a Compukit UK101 from a kit in February 1980. 43
years later, I'm going to write a demo program for it. Something snazzy
that'll wow the onlookers.
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Halftime Update: Only one great background post about the Compukit
UK101 so far. John usually makes a late surge, so we won't count him
out yet.
Final Comments: Compukit UK101 entered the 'demo scene' with John's
completed graphics routines. Progress on his assembler written in C
finished up a productive month for John.
Final Status: Honorable Mention
Etno
Etno's avatar Platform: VG-5000�
Project : Using an emulator to develop for a retro-machine can easily
result in code that runs smoothly but not on the real hardware. I will
try to build an interface for the VG-5000� which injects a binary and
grabs the display in an automated way. Thus exercising the real
graphics chip (EF9345). I want to compare the resulting images with the
output of emulators running the same code.
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Halftime Update: Etno has built up a clean looking breadboard for his
VG-5000� ROM emulation device "hot ROM". Nice progress!
Project : I will focus on some 6502 projects, mostly my Synertek MBC020
ExorBus board. I never got it working correctly as a terminal: skewed
video and no keyboard yet. Let's see if I can get all of this working
properly!
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Halftime Update: epooch got us one post with some fixes to his Synertec
MBC020. Hopefully he can get a keyboard working with it!
Final Comments: ep00ch gave up early and ended up just enjoying
"October Offline," meeting up with urbancamo on his visit to Southern
California. He tried to fill the retrocomputing hole in soul with a
tour of the USS Midway Museum, tacos, and a football game with his
co-host.
Final Status: Stalled
paulscottrobson
paulscottrobson's avatar Platform: Sinclair LC3
Project : Try to recreate the Sinclair LC3 unreleased prototype as
accurately as possible. There's not much information, but some
intelligent guesswork will do. I have inquired of both of the main
people involved, not "for information" but to ask if my thoughts and
guesses were right. If it changes, it changes, that'll teach me to
write code that can be adapted easily. I'll write some games and system
software for it.
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Halftime Update: Paul is back with another ambitious entry! He gave us
some great background posts about the Sinclair LC3 and his choices for
period appropriate components. Finally a post about video RAM and
sprites before we might have lost him. We are looking forward to more
progess on this project!
Final Comments: No more progress from paul after a strong start. It is
still worth checking out his project for some Sinclair info.
Final Status: Stalled
MacEffects
MacEffects's avatar Affiliation: Australian Computer Museum Society
Platform: Apple Lisa
Project : Restore a non-working Apple Lisa 2/5
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Halftime Update: Hmm, not sure where I should be looking for updates
here.
Final Status: Non Starter
Category: October Offline
JKnightandKARR
JKnightandKARR's avatar Platform: Zenith Z-Star EX
Project : Repair an old Zenith laptop for DOS and WIndows 3.1x gaming
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Halftime Update: How many Z Stars does Granz have?! JKnightandKARR got
an early start on things and is still battling replacement drives and
batteries. Hopefully the parts he ordered will do the trick!
Final Comments: JKnightandKARR had a very productive month after
getting new batteries, fresh hard drive, mouse, parallel port sound
card, and SD card adapter, On the software side, he freed up some RAM
and installed new games, utilities, and drivers. Nice overhaul for the
old Z-Star!
