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.
