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Old Computer Challenge

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Re: Old Computer Challenge

#31

Post by pillmillipedes »

charcircuit wrote: post #23
laurieg wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This kind of comment could be written about almost anything and is fundamentally un-interesting. You chose to write "weirdo" instead of "screwball" or "bozo" and probably think the more modern "weirdo" captures your intent the best. I'm sure the original authors had a similar thought.

It can't be written for pages that use regular English. I think you missed that "smol" is an in group marker. Using such quirky in group markers like that can limit the audience or give some potential readers a bad impression from the readers opinion on such a group. It's fair feedback to suggest that if someone wants to target a larger audience that they should be careful with their language and go back to regular E…

right, but it appears they prioritize sending a strong signal to the people this *is* for over attracting some normies. keep it smol. if I were them and I wanted to address the outgroup I might start the article with "the old computer challenge is" or "this year's old computer challenge is", for example, instead of "the old computer challenge community is".

Re: Old Computer Challenge

#32

Post by jvanderbot »

Scrounger wrote: post #3

Interesting site/challenge; however, I had trouble browsing and finding "what to do" in a reasonable time. I recently spent like $170 giving a new lease on life to a 15-year-old Lenovo S10-3 Ideapad with a 1-core Intel Atom CPU, 2GB of RAM, a WiFi card, and a 250GB SSD running AntiX Linux in TTY/Command Line mode. So far, I've turned it into a picture/frame + vision board running Tailscale so I could SSH in and/or rs…

I gave my wife a 2012 macbook pro running ubuntu. It was a huge upgrade over her ~2014 macbook air running stock, which couldn't even update itself anymore.

It never occured to me to consider it might qualify as a "challenge" since it is 14 years old. It just works fantanstically and was my daily driver until 3-4 years ago.

I got it off ebay for approximately $100, cleaned it, and put in a new battery.

Re: Old Computer Challenge

#33

Post by jagged-chisel »

teddyh wrote: post #30
klez wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From your link > Smol (often paired with lorge or bean), is an Internet slang term used to describe any animal, character, or object that is considered very tiny and cute So how's that different?

A “group of enthusiasts” is neither an animal, character, or an object. Nor is it “cute”.

> Nor is it “cute”.

Eye of the beholder and all…

Re: Old Computer Challenge

#34

Post by ErroneousBosh »

Scrounger wrote: post #3

Interesting site/challenge; however, I had trouble browsing and finding "what to do" in a reasonable time. I recently spent like $170 giving a new lease on life to a 15-year-old Lenovo S10-3 Ideapad with a 1-core Intel Atom CPU, 2GB of RAM, a WiFi card, and a 250GB SSD running AntiX Linux in TTY/Command Line mode. So far, I've turned it into a picture/frame + vision board running Tailscale so I could SSH in and/or rs…

> 15-year-old Lenovo S10-3 Ideapad with a 1-core Intel Atom CPU, 2GB of RAM, a WiFi card, and a 250GB SSD

What a weird coincidence, I've just found one of these while clearing out a box of equipment I'm getting rid of and thought "I should stick NetBSD on this!"

Re: Old Computer Challenge

#35

Post by alex7o »

teddyh wrote: post #28

Since 2013, I have used a laptop made in 2009 as my normal, everyday laptop. I am currently in the process of replacing it, but only because other people have complained about the fan noise.

If that works for you pls buy a second hand MacBook m1 or M2 air (air has worse design but some silicon bugs are ironed out around vms etc) and run it for Linux. It is silent very powerful and you will use for a very long time. Very non repairable tho :(

Re: Old Computer Challenge

#36

Post by mghackerlady »

This is just my life. I have an old netbook running openbsd. It can do netsurf and email just fine when I'm on the go, I have my vita for any media I want to experience on the go, and for anything more intense than viewing a simple website, email/chat, or the occasional perl script, I shell into my home computer

Re: Old Computer Challenge

#37

Post by mghackerlady »

jvanderbot wrote: post #32
Scrounger wrote: post #3

Interesting site/challenge; however, I had trouble browsing and finding "what to do" in a reasonable time. I recently spent like $170 giving a new lease on life to a 15-year-old Lenovo S10-3 Ideapad with a 1-core Intel Atom CPU, 2GB of RAM, a WiFi card, and a 250GB SSD running AntiX Linux in TTY/Command Line mode. So far, I've turned it into a picture/frame + vision board running Tailscale so I could SSH in and/or rs…

I gave my wife a 2012 macbook pro running ubuntu. It was a huge upgrade over her ~2014 macbook air running stock, which couldn't even update itself anymore. It never occured to me to consider it might qualify as a "challenge" since it is 14 years old. It just works fantanstically and was my daily driver until 3-4 years ago. I got it off ebay for approximately $100, cleaned it, and put in a new battery.

The 2012 macbook pro (non retina, at least. I never owned a retina one) is the last truly great macbook apple ever made. God I loved that thing, I used it to death and was truly saddened by its loss. It lasted a good 12 years

Re: Old Computer Challenge

#38

Post by ferguess_k »

I want to do something similar.

Specifically, the project is to create VFS similar to the one in Linux 1.00 in xv6-riscv. I completed the MIT xv6 labs and read the VFS code in Linux 1.00 a while ago, and I don't think it is a particularly difficult task -- but xv6-fs touches a lot of places, so I'd imagine some re-architecture is needed.

The scope of the project is NOT to create more FS for xv6, but to add one abstraction layer on top of the FS, i.e. the VFS. The kernel is supposed to know which FS is picked manually (in this case it is the original xv6 FS) by the programmer in the makefile, and it should load the correct superblock and go from there.

The whole work, once kicked into gear -- that is, once one has gotten familiar with the xv6 kernel and written some code for the labs, should take more or less 2 weeks for an ordinary people who has no experience with system programming to complete. The good part is that there is no need to write tests for this project -- you just keep running xv6 and see if it passes all of the existing tests -- once that's passed the VFS should work fine.

Re: Old Computer Challenge

#39

Post by mghackerlady »

ValdikSS wrote: post #16
uncircle wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here’s an idea that’s been following me for a while, if you like low-level stuff: Make a toy OS that boots into a Lisp shell. Another to appreciate how fast computers that we call old effectively are: write a game for the shell. Depending on your level of skill, you can try pong, snake, lunar lander, or a 3D software renderer.

OLPC (one laptop per child) had Open Firmware, a Forth bootloader/firmware https://lwn.net/Articles/209301/

Open Firmware was originally a Sun thing, then Apple adopted it at some point as well

Re: Old Computer Challenge

#40

Post by mghackerlady »

walrus01 wrote: post #10
lobf wrote: post #4

This just reminds me that I have my old MicroATX HTPC (remember that term?) that I built in about 2010 sitting in a closet. I bet I haven’t booted it since 2014. I wonder what’s on it…

HTPC are still very much a thing, I use mine for everything from MAME to watching a 72GB sized 4K copy of Apocalypse Now Redux. I think the major home theater receiver manufacturers continue to include a "PC" button on the remote control and a "PC" labeled input on their better receivers with five or six HDMI inputs.

For anyone wanting to build one, silverstone makes some really good HTPC cases
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