Old Computer Challange 2024, Days 1 & 2

 The start date for this years OCC was a mixed bag.  For one, if the
 goal was to use your computer less, a sunny weekend made this a lot
 easier.

 On the other hand, if you didn't really prepare for it -- and sadly
 this was the case here -- there might be a lot of time spent on
 fixing this lack, and not enough actually using your computer

WHAT I'M DOING THIS YEAR
 But speaking of goals, that was a bit difficult this year.  Last
 years setup made it easy enough for me, I didn't have to repair or
 buy a reallly old device, I could just hobble one of the smaller ones
 I already had.

 And so I did, using a relatively modern thin client, which took care
 of connectivity issues and compatibility to modern operating systems.
 Not a lot of space with the default disk, but I just installed a
 contemporary Linux and thus the "only" hindrances where the
 performance characteristics.

 It was fun, but I have to admit that not a lot of the tools I used
 back then really stuck.  I wouldn't even call that a "bloat detox" so
 that you appreciate some things better, it was more a temporary
 survival, maybe even with elements of penance.

 Now, this year's motto is "DIY", as in "create your own challenge".
 I'll extend that mantra to focus on the DO aspect here - I hope to
 end creating something I'm going to use way after that challenge.
 This isn't a temporary withdrawal from regular computers, but
 developing new habits and solutions.

 Well, but what does this mean?  Here's the ideas I had leading up to
 this:

1 It's 2024, so let's create an environment from 1994 and see what you can
 extract from this.  I was using OS/2 Warp at this time, between DOS
 as my main environment and Linux which I adopted later (I had the
 Win95 beta, but didn't like the end result).

 But what to do there that sticks?  Well, OS/2 is a good DOS/Windows
 multiplexer and both have interesting applications: Borland Sprint,
 Lotus Agenda and various scripting languages.

 But it was horrible to install, and I honestly got tired of doing
 that, gathering the requisite hardware etc.

2 If I just want to multiplex DOS, then do that from within either
 DesqView (available in '94) or Windows 98 (I just bought an old
 laptop that had a working installation.

 But this suffers from a lack of good networking apps, with Windows 98
 maybe edging towards usefulness (old IE, SSH client with all the
 vulnerabilities).

3 Do more with Tcl/Tk.  I thought about both my early Linux years,
 where due to the lack of decent compiled GUI libraries, I did a lot
 with Tk and thus learned Tcl, and the early years of my career where
 I managed to wrangle that in being sent on some interesting projects
 (and one less so, where I had to compile CORBA brokers on ancient
 HP-UX hardware).

 In these days, it might not bet the number one choice for polished,
 distributable GUI applications, but it's just perfect for very
 personal projects.  It has all the widgets you need, even in the 90s
 it had a multi-font text editing component.  Just by combining that
 with a list view lets you tackle all kinds of personal productivity
 applications.

So that's it, do all the network and social stuff with simple tools
again, and then write some Tcl/Tk applications for fun & productivity.

THE ENVIRONMENT(S)
 My initial plan was doing that with a roughly 20 year old system, if
 1994 turns out to be too old-fashioned, 2004 might work roughly.

 2004 was the year I came back from a short turn as an Apple held desk
 agent, living in Ireland for not quite a year.  During that time, OS
 X 10.3 "Panther" was released, and it really impressed me more than
 any subsequent release: Expose was a godsend for managing windows,
 and the UI lost a lot of the pinstripes that weren't fun anymore on
 LCD monitors.

 We got a really wild variety of old equipment at Apple, and my
 personal system was a 450 Mhz Power Macintosh G4 (The re-use was both
 cheap and also meant that if we had specific problems with a
 customer, something close to their equipment wasn't far away).  Not a
 fast system even then, but the OS upgrade meant a lot.

 My personal system was my first laptop ever, a iBook G3 600, by the
 way.  Linux wasn't that great on portable devices back then, and this
 brought me on the Apple train in the first place.

 I currently have neither of those, but I've got a Powerbook G4 867
 that should do.  Technically a bit anachronistic, but not by much.

 So I spend some time installing Panther on there, and used this
 weekend to put some of the basics on there.  The latest version of
 the Camino browser that runs (out of nostalgia, it's about as useless
 as the native Safari), an editor and of course a Tcl/Tk installation.
 Outdated, but sufficient.

 Another essential part is a proxy server for http to https
 conversion, and to make ssh connections to the outside more secure
 (ssh to proxy, ssh to server, nothing fancier).

 I said "environment(s)" up there, as I wasted considerable time to
 get an alternative system running.  You see, I watched a bit of the
 first seasons of the TV show "24" recently, and thought about
 creating a contemporary computer system for that - with a few
 settings, my new Tcl/Tk GUIs could have some of the charm of spy show
 fake UIs.

 There's a Pentium III tower underneath my desk that didn't get any
 usage yet.  I put in a PicoGUS and a network card, and was about to
 install a 2001-2003 era Linux system.  Then it turned out a IDE power
 cable didn't work, the Linuxes of this time or the system itself
 didn't support installation from USB sticks, and the CD-R spindle I
 thought contained some actual blank ones was full of 00s-era DIVX
 files and DVD rips...

 I ordered some cheap replacements, maybe I can report some progress
 before the challenge ends.

ODDS & ENDS
 So my plans for this week are pretty clear, I'm going to write Tcl/Tk
 applications on whatever system is most convenient.  If both
 Powerbook and Pentium III turn out to be too much "survival-mode",
 I'll put a modern Linux on my Thinkpad X60s and continue from there.

 I also want to see what I can do for mobile music consumption.  I've
 got some iPods I collected, but all of them seem either broken or
 have no battery.  My pile of junk might even contain replacement
 batteries, so let's see if my patience is good enough for those
 fiddly bits.

 I did already take some photographs with a newly-arrived Casio
 QV-3500EX, which is a pretty decent 3.3 megapixel camera from 2004.
 At least this has compact flash card support, I really wanted to work
 with an even older model, but smart media cards are both very small
 and by now, very broken.