Old Computer Challenge 2024
I was pondering what would be the next topic I would write about after my first post. And since I started this blog to write about my daily days and shenanigans, let me tell you about the Old Computer Challenge.
The Old Computer Challenge is an annual event where you use, for the span of a week, an old computer for your daily tasks, not counting work, of course. This means that you challenge yourself to use your most oldest device, or to limit the capacities of your current rig, to see if you can do your usual computing on that device. Solène Rapenne started this challenge three years ago, but I knew of it last year, when the challenge was already over. So I promised me to participate in the next round, and here I am.
What will I do in this, my first time? Well, the theme of this year's challenge is a sort of DIY, that is, you decide your own rules, but following the spirit of the activity. I was thinking what would be my configuration. I don't have many devices, and my oldest one is a desktop computer from around 1997. But the thing is that right now I'm a bit restricted in terms of space in my house, so installing a desktop is a little difficult. That also discards my second oldest computer, a lovely IBM NetVista A21 from the year 2000. And what was my main PC after that, right now is reduced to a CPU and a couple of RAM sticks, without motherboard or case. Damn.
The machine
Luckily, a couple years ago I got for free some old laptops which were going to be tossed out. One of them, a Lenovo netbook, is working right now as a mini home server. Another, a Toshiba, I consider it a little "too new" to be a challenge (it has a 4th or 5th gen Intel Core-i5 and 4 GB of RAM, I think). So my best bet is the third, a Sony VAIO netbook from around 2010.
It has a double core Intel Atom N470 CPU at 1.83 GHz, 2 GB of RAM and a 11" 1024x600 display. It has a 240 GB SDD, since its original mechanical HDD died long ago. I considered to get a HDD, to be more more faithful to its original configuration, but I don't have a spare 2.5" HDD right now, and by the time I get one the challenge will be over. But even so, with this hardware it surely will be a fun challenge. For comparison, my main machine is a Dell Inspiron 7472 with an 8th gen Core-i5 CPU, 16 GB RAM, a 512 GB NVME + 500 GB SSD, and a 14" FHD display.
The theme/config
Other people are amazing, and some of them are planning to go all the week without running Xorg, or by using OpenBSD like it's 1989. Sadly, I'm not too knowledgeable about the *BSDs, and since I'm not a professional programmer nor a sysadmin, I don't have much knowledge about some more fancy things. So I was thinking what would be a good DIY challenge. Finally, I settled to go with a small Linux system with Openbox. Years ago, maybe in 2008 or 2009, I configured Arch Linux with this WM, in a machine with an Intel Pentium 4. That was the last time I used Linux full time, since from 2011 to 2022 (eleven years!) I used Windows, in part for convenience and in part because I was at university, and there everyone was using Windows and Office and so on. So I thought that it would be fun to emulate that config for the week.
The config itself is not too fancy or complicated. I tried to go for something simple, but without going full suckless 😅. I installed Arch (without using archinstall, of course), installed Openbox and right now everything seems to work fine. How the week will evolve, we will se.
What I work on?
My main work is some Python/R coding, writing articles in markdown (using VSCode, but I'm sure that will not run too well in this laptop), using a reference manager (Zotero), and read PDF papers. I don't think I will be stressing the hardware too much, but surely I will find some quirks here and there.
Why?
Because it's fun! 😆 Well, fun for some, but fun nonetheless. And because I like old hardware, old software, and everyday I'm nostalgic about the 90s and early 2000s internet. So the question is: why not?
I'll be documenting my week and at the end I post about my findings and issues here. If you're interested in the experiences of other people, I encourage you to visit the main page of the challenge and check the forum.
Let's go!
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cfcg
:wq