The Old Computer Challenge

irc: #oldcomputerchallenge libera.chat

Old Computer Challenge community is a smol group of enthusiasts, who come together every year to experience new and old things.

Solène Rapenne began the Old Computer Challenge in July 2021 with the initial 7 day 512M of RAM task. Since then the challenge brought together a following of retro computing and digital minimalism enthusiasts.

Like before, if you decide to document your journey and have it archived here, you can submit your journal by sending us the url to the mailing list: ~tekk/old-computer-challenge@lists.sr.ht

irc: #oldcomputerchallenge irc.libera.chat mailing list: email this address to subscribe ~tekk/old-computer-challenge+subscribe@lists.sr.ht rss feed

2026 2025 2024 2023 2022 2021

2026 - Make Something

First off, some news: I (Tekk, the person running the mailing list,) have been given control over the website as Matto and Prahou, who ran it previously, have stepped down. I'd like to thank them (and of course Solene) for all the work they've put in to make every year until now have fun! In positive news, that means that if you have any issues with the mailing list or website, you can just contact me (my e-mail address is easily found on the list.)

This year's OCC will take place during the first full week of July. That means from the 5th to the 12th this year.

Given the constant onslaught of LLM garbage the last few years, I thought it was appropriate for us to have a theme again, if a simple one. There are still no rules for how you OCC, but I'd like to encourage people to hand-make something during their OCC week and share it somehow, be it on their page, on the mailing list, or in IRC. Write a story, make some music, publish a new program. Just flex your creative muscle!

Thanks to Emilio for the banner this year!

Participants To be filled in.

2025 - No Challenge aka DIY

Participants

[www] lambdacreate.com [gopher] bencollver on tilde.pink [gopher] box.matto.nl [www] wastingmoves.com [gopher] anthk on texto-plano [www] ti-l.de [www] andrei.xyz [www] thedaemons.space [gopher] stoickidoomer on tilde.institute [gopher] g4slv.cloud [www] www.k58.uk [gemini] jasonsanta.xyz [www] tekk.in [www] sinopemigre.neocities.org [www] vidak [www] 82MHz [gopher] nathancampos [www] dkrefft.de [www] bsandro.tec [www] talibov.xyz [www] deadnet.se/occ25 [gopher] unixlore [www] unixlore.net [www] retrobsd.ddns [gemini] bugwhisperer.dev [www] bugwhisperer.dev [www] cyberhole [gemini] tilde.town/~mio [www] jeanjack on catto.garden [www] screwlisp.small-web.org [www] lyk.so [www] acdw.net [www] novelistparty.com [gemini] jmccue at sdf.org [gopher] jmccue at sdf.org [gopher] /booji.mutated.net [www] blog.not-outdated.com

2024 - DIY

The topic of 2024 was DIY. Getting inspired by other users and previous years and crafting a personal experience!

The Challengees

0x00 | TC 2048 82mhz | "Back to 2000s" andreixyz | "Party like it's 2004" angora.pet | 9front Daniel | 586 NetBSD ddlyh | Pentium III, 128M, no phones allowed gopher: ~dokuja (http proxy) | G3 iMac durrendal | the Ruby crusades gopher: ed(1) conference (http proxy) | Combination of the three gopher: emilio (website) | (es) gopher: gef (http proxy) | observe and understand Headcrash | Apple flavored OCC gemini: jasonsanta (http proxy) | Intel Atom Win7 jag | OpenBSD gopher: jdd (http proxy) | Internet on Demand JDRM | T500 9front gemini: jmcunx (http proxy) | xorgless OpenBSD like it's 1989 Keith Burnett | "actually using troff" Klaus Zimmermann | "Push it to the limit!" gemini ~lettuce (http proxy) | zine making Marc | Debian Dell gopher: matto (http proxy) | no X11, no xorg, FreeBSD gopher: ~mhd (http proxy) gemini: mio (http proxy) | Portrait of a penguin as an old computer msangi | 2009 Macbook Nathan | Many Macs Paths of the Moon | A glorious Sony VAIO prahou | xorgless OpenBSD rollcat | hand-me-down-Macs

gopher: sinza (http proxy) | in favor of the 2000s sizeof(cat) | Windows 7 gemini: socksinspace (http proxy) | EeePC 4G Steve Lord | Going Newer Than Normal gopher: ~stoickidoomer (https proxy) | trickled(8) gopher: sunoc (http proxy) **work in progress** teabag.ninja | Acer 3500 Tekk | Now with 30% more fruit thedaemon | "artists of the front!" gemini: vigilia (http proxy) | First gen Macbook Air and OpenBSD gopher: xiled (http proxy)

2023 - "The machine is not timeless"

The 2023 issue of the Old Computer Challenge was a nostalgic return to its roots. Old and slow, still divine.

512M RAM 1 CORE LOWEST CPU FREQUENCY

The list:

[gemini] Adam's OCC 82MHz [gopher] xiled bsandro [gemini] lionelfromlunel DdlyH's SmolPub thedaemon's space [gemini] EhrindCB [gopher] emilio ffog [gemini] ghostze.ro Headcrash's deadnet.se blog hotchill jmcunx [gopher] juliobrome Keith Burnett (λ (x) (create x) '(knowledge)) lich luke8086 [gopher] mhd Notes from the Dork Web [gopher] matto [gemini] ~mio [gemini] mouseless [gopher] nutilius prahou triapul [gopher] praetor.tel supernova's space [gemini] socksinspace [gopher] screwtape Solene'% Tekk's webbed site Yanik Magnan [gemini] xchg [gopher] z3bra

2022 - 60 minutes of internet

The 2022 edition focused on limited internet time.

The idea was to recreate the experience of the old time of RTC modems with a monthly time budget. Again, the duration of the challenge was one week, from 10th to 17th July 2022. The challenge rules for this edition were easy: you are allowed to connect your computer to the Internet for a maximum accumulated time of 1h per day, from 10th to 17th July included. This means you can connect six times for ten minutes, twice for thirty minutes, or once for one hour in the day. Again, for the participants it was a challenging experience. The rules of the challenge resulted in an unexpected side effect. It allowed for limited interaction on the IRC channel. Other than that, people were positive about having attended.

Participants' blogs and notes

EG's blog durendall's website rollcat's challenge notes mio with Alpine and Asus C201 [gopher] dokuja [gemini]NinjaTrappeur Tekk's journal stn's experience Keith Burnett's journal matto: The Old Computer 2022 Soléne: Day 1 prahou: Demon Internet; day -1

2021 - 512M of RAM

The challenge of 2021 was the first edition, with the following rules: 1 CPU maximum, whatever the model. This means only 1 CPU|Core|Thread. Some bios allow to disable multi core. 512 MB of memory (if you have more it's not a big deal, if you want to reduce your ram create a tmpfs and put a big file in it) using USB dongles is allowed (storage, wifi, Bluetooth whatever) only for your personal computer, during work time use your usual stuff relying on services hosted remotely is allowed (VNC, file sharing, whatever help you) using a smartphone to replace your computer may work, please share if you move habits to your smartphone during the challenge if you absolutely need your regular computer for something really important please use it. The goal is to have fun but not make your week a nightmare.

The challenge took place from 10th July morning until 17th July morning. At the end of the challenge it turned out that the participants were all very positive about the experience.

Participants

prahou's blog, running a T42 with OpenBSD 6.9 i386 with hostname brouk Joe's blog about the challenge and why they need it Solene running an iBook G4 with OpenBSD -current macppc with hostname jeefour [gopher] matto's report using FreeBSD 13 on an Acer aspire one cel's blog using Void Linux PPC on an Apple Powerbook G4 Keith Burnett's blog using a T42 with an emphasis on using GUI software to see how it goes Kuchikuu's blog using a T60 running Debian (but specs out of the challenge) Ohio Quilbio Olarte's blog using an MSI Wind netbook with OpenBSD [gemini] carcosa's blog using an ASUS eeePC netbook with Fedora i386 downgraded with kernel command line Tekk's website, using a Dell Latitude D400 (2003) running Slackware 14.2