Preparing for the 2023 Old Computer Challenge
I still have some notes from January, where I thought about making
this the "year of '93", trying to fiddle around with a few technical
bits from that time. This would have included software from back
then, namely Windows 3.11 and some applications that ran on there.
- Creating some RPG products and booklets with Ventura Publisher 4
- Creating some Win16 software
- Using cutting-edge productivity apps from the early 90s.
Alas, it was not meant to be. Half the year has past, and I can't
say that I played a lot with 30 year old technology. There are
probably a few things I could blame:
1 Work. I'm getting increasingly tired of 2023 enterprise web
development, which is tanking my productivity a bit. And there's
some kind of guilt involved playing around with computers after
not doing all the tasks you wanted to do in the first 8 hours
of screen time of the day.
2 Play. This is the much more exciting part, at least for me. I've
been participating in more than one RPG group currently, which
includes running three. This takes some time to prepare, never
mind that it gives me a good excuse to browse through adventures,
source books, rule systems etc.
3 Procrastination. Well, I can't blame it all on real things.
So, when the call for the new Old Computer Challange came around,
I was thinking about reviving that project. But wait: Wasn't this
year's setup intentionally just about running with low resources,
no actual retrocomputing equipment truly necessary?
:
https://dataswamp.org/~solene/2023-06-04-old-computer-challenge-v3.html
| This one is a bit back to the roots: let's use a SLOW computer for
| 7 days. This will be achieved by various means with any hardware:
| - Limit your computer's CPU to use only 1 core.
| - Limit your computer's memory to 512 MB of memory (no swap limit).
| - Set your CPU frequency to the lowest minimum (which is pretty low
| on modern hardware!).
And wasn't it much more likely that I'd be actually able to pull
this off, and not fail again with providing a 1993 era computer,
or something that comes close?
So this is my intention here: JUST THE BASICS. I'll run with low
resources. I won't run an old OS, old software, and too old
hardware. Let working in this restricted environment for a week
inform my future endeavors in that area.
But How?
So, what should I then use? I've got a few old Thinkpads lying
around, so that would seem an obvious choice. They're quite popular
for the challenge.
But again, that would be something new: I generally don't use
laptops all that much, and given the driver situation, I'll probably
have to mix some retro-'putin in there.
A RaspberryPi? I recently found a few old ones in a shoebox, that
actually don't have more that 512 megabytes anyway. Sounded good.
I was about to look for my flashcard reader/writer, when I found
another piece of equipment: A Wyse 3030 terminal. I just bought
this, as an article pointed me toward it for using it as a fanless
home server.
https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2023/04/10/silent-fanless-dell-wyse-3030-lt-freebsd-server/
But hey, it's got a relatively modern GPU, so I wouldn't have issues
connecting it to my current monitor (An acrylic Cinema Display from
the early years of this millennium). No fan, easy storage (USB3).
So that's it. Put some Slackware on this, and start running.
It's going to be an interesting week!
