And The Winners Are...

August 15, 2008

It was really tough picking winners, especially since many entrants qualified for multiple categories... not to mention the judges complete lack of consensus. Anyway, without further ado:

[drumroll]

• Programming: This was the toughest category to judge, but PrintStar's efforts with The DEC Rainbow 100 were thoroughly entertaining. Bonus points for the most obscure and least glamourous platform.
• Creative: Mycroft wins again with his belly-dance drumming tutorial put together and hosted on a vintage PowerBook.
• Endurance: Scott Baret took this category by whipping up an entire novel on his failing Mac Plus.
• Hardware: Oldbitcollector's Commodore 64 game controller hacks were thoroughly inspiring.

The four first place winners will receive an official RetroChallenge mouse pad... everyone else gets a well-deserved pat on the back!

Another One Bytes The Dust

July 31, 2008

Well, that's another RetroChallenge done... as is customary, I'll give the entrants a couple more days to wrap things up and document their progress (if any) before turning things over to the judges.

A few thoughts about this year's proceedings: although we're still cursed with the traditional 50% drop-out rate, I found the successful entries were quite compelling this time round, and the contestants really had a good take on what it's all about. The BBS was busier than it's ever been, and there was a lot of good discussion going on.

I really enjoyed the input from the new BBS "regulars" and I hope everyone will continue to haunt the boards after we officially wrap up.

Three Weeks In

July 21, 2008

A few stragglers reporting in at the mid-way mark... Retrobits is finally getting his virtual disk drive for the Epson PX-8 laptop underway, while Chris joins us with a text adventure programming challenge for the Olivetti M-10.

Digitalrampage continues to plug away at his massive Lisa/Mac Portable restoration project, while martinws is getting back in the swing of things after a short break.

Pukka has posted some very impressive images generated by his 68K Mac ray tracer project. also in the 68K realm, equant is currently busy with a port of Robot Finds Kitten, which looks like a lot of fun.

arfink finally posted a video of his M-100 Retro Rocket "graphics" demo, while PrintStar posted video evidence of his progress on the Rainbow 100.

And to wrap things up for now, I (Luddite) have posted a mostly complete version of Hangman for the Apple II.

Midpoint-ish

July 13, 2008

Here we are at the end of Week 2 and things are still bubbling along...

Pukka has updated us on his 68K Mac Ray Tracer project, with some screenshots posted for good measure.

Mycroft is bashing away at the darbuka and posting pics of his belly dancer friends that should give even the saddest geek hope ;-)

After coding up a Tandy 102 demo, arfink is taking a well deserved break to play Apple II games.

MacMan solved his Spectrum tape loading issues by not bothering with tapes and is also currently playing games.

wgoodf found a way to work on his ZX81 assembly problem at the pub, which inspired equant to jump onboard with a "Hello World" program written in Z80 assembly... not at the pub.

PrintStar has managed to tame the mouse of his DEC Rainbow and is now looking forward to tackling graphics and (hopefully) a game, while martinws is up to his ears in NeXTstation ans SPARCserver fun.

First Report

July 6, 2008

Week one draws to a close and there's already been a good deal of activity... actually too much for a comprehensive update, so I'll only mention a few here. Use the blog links at right to see what everyone else has been up to.

In the Lucky Sod department, Oliver managed to get his hands on an original 1984 Macintosh complete with all the extras and packaging. Check out his web page for the unboxing in all its gory detail.

wgoodf is apparently out to prove he knows no fear with a ZX81 project that will involve learning basic electronics and Z80 assembly language.

MacMan weighed anchor with a spritely tune programmed on his dumpster-dived Sinclair Spectrum.

In the hardware hacking department, Oldbitcollector has a wii-style baseball bat working with his Commodore 64.

And They're Off!

June 30, 2008

Depending on where you live the RetroChallenge has either just started or is about to begin... I'll be posting updates when (if) anything exciting happens, in the meantime I suggest stopping by the BBS to say hello.

Good luck to all contestants!

Retro Retro

Oliver got seriously retro with the 1969 PIKO dat "computer" during last year's RetroChallenge