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Hi everyone! I know we already have a thread for plans for 2024, but that's more about discussion and figuring things out...

I though it would be great to have a thread where every participant puts in just one message with what they're doing for this years challenge, which tools/hardware they're using etc. So not a discussion thread, but an overview where we can see at a glance what each participant is up to, and then we can keep discussions on the other thread.

So the rules for this thread: Post one message, and tell us what you're going to do for this year's OCC. If your plans change, just edit your post. Keep discussions to the other thread https://bb.deadnet.se/viewtopic.php?t=35

I'll start, but I don't have very concrete plans yet, so I have to certainly think about this some more... but for me, I think I'll do some kind of "back to 2004" thing. Back then I had just started university, and I had one laptop and one mobile phone (not smart obviously), a Discman and an MP3 player, and that was it in terms of tech/hardware. The laptop was also tethered to an ethernet cable on my desk because there was no Wifi in the place I lived in, so there was no sitting on the couch/bed and surfing for hours.

I might experiment with going back to a simple setup like this... but I haven't figured out all the details yet.

I think my plan is to run my clamshell g3 as much as I can and tie it down to my desk (it has no wifi anyway, so that comes naturally.) I'm so used to just carrying the laptop around the house with me all the time that it'll be a fun little twist on top of using classic MacOS.


I might bring the T41 out on an adventure or two to grab pics though. Can't do that with the clamshell since it has no battery

My plan is, as most have probably seen already, to go completely portable. That might be either portable at home, or outdoors, on hikes, trips into town, hanging around in parks etc. Anything goes really. This will be done with what turned out to be an early 2008 Macbook (The trashy Macbook Pro from the same age might join in if the battery turns out to work)
The goal is really to just do random computing, but also tinker with websites, edit photos shot with an old pocket camera, upload them via FTP. Fiddle with SSH, and just general stuff.
I'll write considerably more about the details in the log later, where it's more fitting and I'm hopefully not as tired from work, lol.
But that's the jist of it. Mobile like it's 2008-ish.

I've talked about "going '94" in the other thread, picking an operating systems from 30 years ago. And my first pick would've been OS/2 Warp 3. Now, as it turns out, that version is rather peculiar about the hardware it supports. I've basically got two systems that would even be candidates for this, one being a Gateway P3 tower, the other a very thicc Compaq MMX laptop…

So I thought about what I was supposed to do with this system anyway, and I've settled on "DOS Productivity". A non-networked system that I'm going to use to write a bit (WordPerfect/WordStar probably), plan some things (Lotus Agenda/Grandview) and do a bit of "app development" for missing elements (dBase/DataEase). Probably have to update gopher by a fully automated process where a "modern" system just accepts a floppy and uploads everything I've written.

The good thing about this is that it doesn't really matter what I'm going to use to multiplex DOS applications. It could actually be OS/2 Warp 3. It could be Desqview 2 or Windows NT 3.5 (also from '94). It could be just DOSBox/DOSEmu in Linux on a Crusoe-based thin client

Hello all!

Very jealous of the hardware options everyone has at their disposal! An older powerbook or gateway laptop would be a great deal of fun for the old computer challenge.

For 2024, still narrowing it down to either ancient PowerPC ibook, tiny, early, low-power Netbook from Acer or an underwhelming Dell Mini10 that hasn't combusted yet .

Hi 82mhz and everyone!

The oldest hardware I have is from around 2012, but I thought I would go back to an OS I have lots of fond memories for- BeOS. OK I can't run BeOS, but I've used HaikuOS in the past but haven't for a few years now. I'd like to setup Haiku again and run that for the OCC. I started using BeOS around '99 so I think using a direct descendant of that OS is within the spirit of the challenge

Also the web browser in Haiku has always been behind in terms of being able to properly run modern websites, so that will add to the challenge. I could also just run a text based browser.

Falkon actually runs on Haiku these days. It's crashy, but it can play youtube, etc.

Supernova wrote: ↑Sat Jun 29, 2024 9:09 pm Hi 82mhz and everyone!

The oldest hardware I have is from around 2012, but I thought I would go back to an OS I have lots of fond memories for- BeOS. OK I can't run BeOS, but I've used HaikuOS in the past but haven't for a few years now. I'd like to setup Haiku again and run that for the OCC. I started using BeOS around '99 so I think using a direct descendant of that OS is within the spirit of the challenge

Also the web browser in Haiku has always been behind in terms of being able to properly run modern websites, so that will add to the challenge. I could also just run a text based browser.

Web+ has gotten better, but yeah, it's still rather unstable, just not as unstable as it used to be.

I know tekk mentioned Falkon, which is great, but there's also GNOME's Web (formerly Epiphany) which seems to work best so far on Haiku. Sean, aka ActionRetro, is a big Haiku fan and he seems to go with Web most of the time for YT stuffs and others.

I thought a bit about using one of the alternative OS of the early 00s (sadly OsDev seems rather dead these days). Namely AtheOS, Syllable or maybe even one of the assembly based ones (e.g. MenuetOS). But decided against it, as that woudld mean spending the challenge *setting up* an environment, not *using* it. So I'll probably fiddle with those operating systems a bit later in the year, maybe for next year's challenge…

BeOS, of course, should still have way more stability and support than those abandoned projects.