February
5,
2008
And the winner is... I
wasn't really planning to turn the RetroChallenge
into a contest, but a few of the entrants
thought otherwise and instigated an impromptu
vote. The results are as follows:
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Best Creative
Project - The Mycroft Server Project:
Mars Observer
Mycroft
Server Project's novel use of vintage Macs
to record observations of Mars raised
a few eyebrows. Documentation was carried
out on a Powerbook 170 and the results
served to web by a Mac Classic on dial-up. |
 |
Best
Programming Project - Jeremiah Stoddard
Jeremiah easily
won this category with a bucket load
of Apple II games. His efforts include
Hangman, a Breakout clone and a classic
text adventure. |
 |
Best
Hardware Project - MacTV's Media
Centre
MacTV's
PowerMac 6100 Media Centre isn't strictly
a hardware project, but that's the
category it got the most votes in. No matter
how you look at it, it's a really cool
way to repurpose an old Mac. |
 |
Best
Blog & Best Endurance Run - Conceited
Jerk
Not
only did Conceited
Jerk impress everyone
by getting through the month using
only a 22-year-old Amiga,
but he also managed to entertain us all
with an excellent blog. |
Other notable achievements:
- mmphosis deserves special mention for his Apple I "Hello World!"
program... certainly the most retro project.
- Oliver's well-presented blog entries documenting his numerous
hardware projects.
- Before bowing-out due to injury, wgoodf inspired us all
with his really
crappy printer.
- Slor resurrected 3-1/2 classic computers and promised to
clean his room.
- DoctorClu used
the event as an excuse to play games and
hang out on the BBS, which I find quite
admirable.
- MacMan's
SE/30 digital picture frame proved that
old Macs are good for more than just
keeping fish in.
- Several
people complained about my short rendition
of In-a-gadda-davida on
the Apple II... there's just no pleasing
some people!
I'd like to take
this opportunity to thank Tom Levens of
the 68KMLA for hosting this
site and providing the forum, and Lorance
Stinson for keeping the official RetroBBS running
during the event... and of course thanks
to everyone who took up the challenge!
See you in July,
Simon
Williams (AKA Luddite)
January
27, 2008
Into The Home-stretch. Only
a few days left in the Winter Warm-up and
the surviving participants are all [theoretically]
scurrying to finish up before month's end. I'll wait
until the weekend for the final update,
just to give everyone a chance to polish
their submissions.
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- In
spite of having to pull out early
due to injury, Wgoodf's ZX81
print-out seems to have inspired
a couple of homages:
- After
laying low for the first 2/3 of
the month, Equant used the participant
list concept as an old school Mac
Pascal programming exercise.
- MacTV took
a slightly different approach by
employing the Talking
Moose to
do the job. (My apologies for missing
this on the last update).
- Slor's
attempt to revive 3 and a half
retro systems has met with success...
now he just has to figure out what
to do with them.
|
January
21, 2008
Dropping Like Flies. We've
lost a few contestants to illness and injury
(and you thought retrocomputing was safe...) and gained
a couple of late entries.
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- mmphosis joins
in the fun with some Apple
1 programming exercises. Hello
World!
- Slor popped in with a heroic attempt
to resurrect 3 and a half classic
systems.
- Oliver has
succeeded in upgrading his Apple
IIe to enhanced, but
suffered a major set-back with
his Core
CL9 universal
remote project.
- MacTV gave
us a sneak
peek at his Mac 6100
media centre's UI.
- Luddite (me) got completely side-tracked
and wrote a program
launcher for
the Apple ][+
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January
12, 2008
Good News / Bad News. Another
week ends and we find the RetroChallengers
pressing on in the face of varying degrees
of adversity.
January 5, 2008
First Report. It's
only been five days, but there's already some
cool stuff happening in the RetroChallenge:
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- Wgoodf has
been busy showing off his slightly borked ZX81 on YouTube.
Probably the first time I've sat through a printer demo
and been excited about it!
- Jeremiah
Stoddard is off with a bang -- no less than three Apple
II game demos in the bag, including a simple Breakout clone
and a rather charming lo-res graphic version of Hang
Man... and he's just warming up!
- In the Amiga camp,
both DoctorClu and Conceited
Jerk seem to have brought their Amiga 2000s
back to life after inadvertently killing them. Let's hope
the carnage is over.
- Over at the Mycroft
Server Project, the old Mac Classic is doing
a fine job of updating us on the condition of the Red
Planet... I can't help but think the MacPaint drawings
of Mars would make awesome tattoos.
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At this point we have 19 entries,
which I believe may be a RetroChallenge record.
We've also seen a few "new faces" over
at the RetroChallenge
BBS, which is
nice because it means the regulars have
to be on their best behaviour -- for the
time being, at least.
January 1, 2008
We're off and running!
Not much to report as yet, but I'll be posting occasional
reports throughout the month... Those who are so inclined
can view site
activity logs courtesy of StatCounter.
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