It's
Not About The Winning!
The
WINNERS!
Well let us
be honest, we are all winners! But there are winners and then there is the
crown of Uber-Geek!
But first,
some shout outs. Thanks to Tom from 68kMLA who owns the RetroChallenge domain
and who gave me free run to do what I wanted with it. Thanks for the trust!
Thanks to Lorance of the BBS, for once again, keeping it running and being
there for the new folk who arrived, and thanks to Simon for making the official
wallpaper. But mostly
big thanks to everyone who participated and those who followed along.
Now to
the Winners!
The
Creative
This vote
was for a thing that was made. This amounted to anything that exists now but
did not exist at the start of the challenge. There was some fun stuff out there
but the runaway winner as you all can guess, was the HappyClock by Ahall.
Well
done to Ahall! Your work was by far the most voted for. And a book will be on
its way to you soon.
The
Experience
This vote
was for the best blog or best retro experience as described. This vote was wide
open with a good bunch of you receiving votes from your fellow RCers. In the
end a single vote could have created a tie from four other blogs; it was that
close. I would also like to thank the two people who voted for me in this
category even though I told everyone not too!
So who won?
Well that would be Oliver. He put together three
projects over the month which were all good fun, interesting and well filmed.
Well done to Oliver, a book to you too.
All
Hail Uber-Geeks Ahall and Oliver!
And
with that, all that is left for me to say is Goodbye! It was fun and I hope to see you all in twelve months. Just
what will I do for the summer games 2008?
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RetroChallenge
BBS: Telnet to - lorance.no-ip.org
Quick Links to the
challengers Blogs:
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The
Challengers Resume
Blackbird-USA
Running with three Power Book
540c- Blackbird plans on swapping all his internet tasks to these machines. All
going well he will also manage to install a CPU upgrade card in one of the
Powerbooks. He also holds out hope of finding a Rev C PCMCIA module and getting
WiFi working. I wish him luck on that one.
Dualdflipflop-USA
Appears to have a range of machines that he plans
to use, from old Macs, Sparc Stations and a Tandy 102. His aims in his own
words -Actually, this just gives me a chance to
really focus on my hobby, which is acquiring retro computing hardware and using
it either as it was at the time it was popular, or making it somehow work with
more modern computing needs. I might also attempt to document my activities via
text journaling, audio commentary, and hopefully video!
Wgoodf-Scotland
A range of things to do during July.
The plan is to make a battery for my Power Book 100 that actually fits inside
the machine rather than hanging loose. Continue my efforts in getting my Apple
//c to act as a Dial Up BBS, make some 720k floppies for my duel floppy DOS
Olivetti laptop and finally play around with my old web cam and the 540c to
make videos of the stuff that I am doing; a kind of video PodCast. In short
muck about and see what happens.
Luddite-Canada
An old hand at this; Luddite once again
has as his focus, music based projects on his numerous Apple ][ machines. He
plans to use the RetroChallenge as a breather from the hectic pace of the 21st
century and impressively wishes to also: -fit an LP's worth of Apple II "music" on
a 5.25" DSDD floppy disk. The music will be sample-based and necessarily
minimalist; samples will be mixed and sequenced in real-time (theoretically, at
least). And also - If time permits I may explore a few ideas I have for audio
programs on the Apple II-
MacGreg-Australia
Coming in with a PowerBook 100, a couple of Newtons
and a Quadra 950. MacGreg hopes to write some software for the Newton as well
as something for the Classic Mac environment. Those of us with Newtons I am
sure, will be keen to see the results of that one. Although having to fit
things around his work, the challenge is there before he starts. Good luck on
managing that.
Mycroft-USA
Mycroft has a simple and fun aim with his Mac Classic
and his more than important 28k modem. Which is, putting them all together and
operating a dial-up web server for the month of July. How long will it be up
each day? What goodies will await those that drop on by? Will I be able to dial
in from my Apple //c all the way from the UK. Only July will answer those
questions for us. I just cannot wait. No, really, I am serious!
Multifinder17-USA
Like Retro Machines? Like Linux? I guess you will like
Multifinder17s efforts. How about trying to stick Linux on your Mac Classic II?
A worthwhile effort in anyones language I am sure you will agree! All going
well Multifinder17 will be able to increase the standing of this Road Apple.
Pzler-The Netherlands
It is a simple enough task that Pzler has set himself;
to use his SE/30 as his main machine throughout July. Simple that is, if it was
not the software problem, the fact that it needs to actually perform as a
workstation for word processing, spreadsheets, scanning, making graphics using
a tablet and producing printouts. Oh, and then there is the small problem that
at this point the SE/30 needs some ram, a new hard drive and a new screen. This
sounds like fun.
Mr 680x0-USA
Mr 680x0 weighs in with his Classic II, Color Classic
and his Quadra 630. An artistic month planned ahead it seems with scanning,
printing and editing being the focus. The question is, what will Mr 680x0 scan,
what does editing mean, and where will he put his photo graphic efforts after
he has finished? In short, will we want any of his Retro pie? Mr 680x0 has a
bunch of other computers which he hopes to use in some way. Interested folk can
find them Here!
MacMan-Scotland
MacMan has a big ole bunch of Macs. Internet during
the month of July will be served by his PowerBook 520c and his Quadra 700. From
the hardware side there could be some battery building fun as MacMan takes on
the task of re-building either a PowerBook 520c or Duo 2300c battery. However
the most fun may come from his inclusion of a BBC Master into the challenge.
Plans include a bit of software writing or graphics work, which will then be
transferred by serial connection to one of his many Macs and uploaded for the
world to see. I can only guess he will also dust off an old copy of Elite.
Oliver-Germany
Oliver starts of his challenge with plans to replace
the video in his Mac Classic with a new board which will produce 256 greys.
Super stuff. He also plans to stick a 030 CPU in there. However the real fun
from Olivers challenge comes from his plan to write or rather *build* a program
for his PIKO
DAT computer from the late 1960s. To me this looks like an old computer
training device showing the ins and outs of logic gates and the like (trust me
I know nothing about such things), so I look forward to Oliver showing us all
how much more this machine can do, and how it actually does it. Go Go Oliver!
Conceited Jerk-Canada
Mr Jerk is going 8bit Tandy mad for his challenge, as
he is planning an endurance running his Tandy Coco 3, TRS-80 Model 4P, and
TRS-80 Model 100. How cool is that. His blog page is already on its way and he
has a range of things planned; from general productivity to using his Coco 3 as
his internet machine. Conceited Jerk plans to use a dial in to a Unix Shell
account to give him all the online apps he needs. I do hope to see him around
the RetroChallenge telnet BBS when he gets online. He also plans on learning a
bit about OS9, which is the disk OS the Tandy and my old friend the Dragon
32/64 used. I am a little green with envy. Here is hoping he has some good
pictures of his system too.
bigD-USA
bigD seems to be a big fan of the Mac II series as he
comes in with three of them; IIcx, IIsi and a IIci as well as his PowerBook
170. Aims? Well bigD has set himself the endurance task and plans to use only
the specific machines listed during the Retro month of July. He also plans to
try his hand at creating a system 6 application of some sort. No ideas as to
what this could be, but that just gives us all the more reason to follow bigD
along for the ride.
Torbar-USA
Torbar comes in using three machines
and has specific plans for each of them. Using his Mac IIsi as a webserver to
host his RetroBlog and then using his Quadra 950 to record some songs, and the
world will wait with baited breath to hear them at the end of July! Finally
Torbar will be using his PowerMac 7200 as a TV media centre thingy. Internet
wise, Tobar also plans to limit his net access to the machines listed as much
as he can during month.
Ian Nixon-USA
Ian has plans that are clear. To use
his Mac Classic II and a SupraExpress 33.6 Modem and his AT&T Dial-Up
connection to go all RetroNet (yes I made that word up). He may also make use
of a SCSI hard drive and CD drive in some way too. He does have a G4 Cube
(lucky him!), which he admits he may use to snag the odd file, or too, but
ultimately wants a nice and simple Mac Compact Internet terminal running his
messaging and web apps, and you never know a web server too. Sweet!
Cold Fusion-Australia
Cold Fusion seems to be starting from scratch with his
Macintosh IIsi challenge. In his own words -As the IIsi is supposedly a
crippled IIci, I would like to modify the IIsi to outperform a IIci. This could
include changing the clock crystal on the motherboard to a higher frequency and
also installing an FPU, extra ram, a cache card if possible etc. An alternative
goal would be to get this machine to connect to the internet, which would
require an Ethernet card etc. Hopefully one of the above and maybe both might
be achieved. At the moment I've just acquired a bare bones box off Ebay with no
HDD and a dodgy FDHD drive.- Kind of square one type start you have to
admit. Should be a nice system at the end.
Bryon Winmill-Somewhere
Byron has split his challenge down into work and
leisure. As he needs to remain productive in this big ole Windows world he has
chosen to use a Pentium90 and NT4 to continue his work in a way that allows
easy transfer between old and modern. For the leisure side Byrons focus will be
the Apple //c+ or the Apple GS. With these it seems he has some coding fun
ahead running the Opus ][ Collection. What, you do not know what they are? Me
neither, lets join Byron and find out!
Pukka-Finland
More diversity, this time Finish! Pukka
has two main systems, his Macintosh IIcx with an Apple 13" RGB monitor
running system 6.0.8. This is his primary machine for his Retro code writing
month. Any ideas to what it could be? Well how about a mod music player! Has it
not been a long time since you last saw one of them? There may be other goodies
developed along the way, all system 6 compatible of course. His secondary
machine is his SE/30 running 7.1 for internet use, well you need something to
find all those .mod files!
Ahall-USA
Ahall has at his disposal a Mac Plus an
SE/30 and his ][e. Super stuff! What is he gonna do? Well, in his own words-I
wish to complete and publicly release a stylish clock program that can be run
on a Mac Plus. The clock idea isn't original, but all the implementations I've
seen have been made in HyperCard or Director, which is, to my mind, cheating.
Mine will be written to the genuine classic Macintosh API, and will be binary
compatible all the way from System 4.2 on thePlus to Mac OS 9 on modern PowerPC
hardware -- all in one executable.-- So for us all, the other question is, just
how good is the Plus at keeping time. I expect I shall know soon enough!
Jakyamuni-USA
Jakyamuni arrives with his Mac SE/30
[128Mb ram/256Mb HD, Mac OS 7.5.3] with an Apple Midi adaptor and Radioshack
el-cheapo mini keyboard, Macintosh Performa 6360 upgraded with optional Video
input card, 40 gig internal hard disk, Lacie SCSI external CD-writer, Wacom
tablet, and System 7.5.5. All three are networked together with 10/100 ethernet
and switch. The other machine is a Smith-Corona PWP 77d electric word
typewriter. He plans photographs with his Apple Quicktake 100+ digital camera,
and mobile updates from an Apple Newton OMP portable. He seems to be going the
full hog with work, rest and play.
J Gilbert Late Entry!
Jon has as his task: Creating a World Builder game
using an SE/30, and a distributing it in a self-contained Mini vMac distro
(sans ROM I guess). I suppose. I may also be trying to get my Apple III onto
the net.