RetroChallenge Hall of Fame page?

[DoctorClu]

Hey, is there a retrochallenge hall of fame page? We have had some great efforts and fun since what? 2005? So would be good, even goal worthy, to have a Hall of Fame to strive for. (and most notable accomplishments of the Retrochallenge)

Also, how do you win the RetroChallenge in the current contests? (Or is the warm up just that... a warm up?)

 

[DoctorClu]

Ok, aside from my victory in 2005 with the Atari 800 (endurance), it would be nice to see what other people did that won.

A good resource to give people ideas.

Who won in 2006 and 2007? How did they win?

These are questions I'd like to know.

 

[equant]

I don't think a "Hall of Fame" page is needed, but summaries of each year's participants/projects would be nice. Not too long ago I was looking for a link to one of last year's projects and had trouble finding it.

I think "Winning" should be very under-emphasized when it comes to the RetroChallenge. Keeping competition out of the equation is a good thing imho.

 

[DoctorClu]

I don't think a "Hall of Fame" page is needed, but summaries of each year's participants/projects would be nice. Not too long ago I was looking for a link to one of last year's projects and had trouble finding it.
I think "Winning" should be very under-emphasized when it comes to the RetroChallenge. Keeping competition out of the equation is a good thing imho.

Seriously entering anything would place you in the Hall of Fame.

Call this a log of where we've come from, what we tried, and who was there. That is just as good.

 

[~tl]

The websites from last year and this year's Winter Warm-up are still online:

http://retrochallenge.net/2007/

http://retrochallenge.net/2008/winter/

As is luddite's Old Computer Challenge website, which could be considered the "Winter Warm-up" for 2007:

http://ld8.org/OldComputerChallenge/

 

[wgoodf]

think a wee summation of some of the stuff would be quite good.

as daft and as pointless as this all is - if it continues for a few more years then having a history does help to sell the whole thing to new folks.

and if it dies a death, then the chance to preserve a bit of old skool retro buffoonary also makes sense.

how to do however?

 

[luddite]

It could be a lot of work for whoever takes on the job (hint: not me). Either you'd have to summarize the notable entries with enough information to make it compelling, or you'd have to archive the original participants web pages and blogs. I'm not entirely sure that archiving blogs would be all that effective since much of the humour/excitement is inherent in the "liveness" of it... especially for the endurance challengers, since the blogs tend to be a bit weird in retrospect.

A worthwhile approach might be to corral all the various "products" of the RetroChallenge into one place for posterity... for big stuff like audio and video files you can upload it to archive.org and embed it to offset bandwidth.

 

[luddite]

I'm just thinking that this is the sort of thing that would go well with a permanent website... I mean permanent as in having a consistent layout and look as opposed to being completely different for every event.... just a thought.

 

[equant]

Mmm, I was thinking that a summation of participants activities similar to the entries pages (except what they actually did) for each event was all that was needed, but seeing that the event sites are still available satisfies me. Maybe we just need links to them from the main site?

I really enjoy how Retrochallenge *doesn't* have a consistent layout for every event. It gives each event a memorable atmosphere/feeling. Helps with the excitement? Maybe I'm alone.

 

[~tl]

I really enjoy how Retrochallenge *doesn't* have a consistent layout for every event. It gives each event a memorable atmosphere/feeling. Helps with the excitement? Maybe I'm alone.

That's my feeling too. I like the different "personality" each one has [] ]'>

It wouldn't be hard to keep a copy of the entries to each 'Challenge on the site's server posterity though. Would just take a bit of organising...

 

[DoctorClu]

It wouldn't be hard to keep a copy of the entries to each 'Challenge on the site's server posterity though. Would just take a bit of organising...

Nothing too difficult really... a basic summary page of these people did that, and possible links to programs or what they made (or pictures) from links of the basic summary.

Does all this go back to 2005 or was there anything before that?

 

[~tl]

The only sites that are still up are the ones that I linked to. The 2005 'Challenge page is on archive.org, but it might be worth saving a copy to the server:

http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://desnoyers.org/retrochallenge/

The first 'Challenge was in 2004 IIRC. I'm not sure if there was a website for it or not -- can anyone remember? Unfortunately the forum crash last year wiped all the posts about it. They'll probably be in the pre-2006 backups that I have though, so I'll dig them out next time I have access to the computer they're on (likely the end of the month). I also can't remember if a 'Challenge was organised in 2006. I seem to remember that there wasn't, but I could be wrong. The site at retrochallenge.net was only set up in 2007, so that's all that's there.

 

[luddite]

As I recall (leans back and points pipe stem at rapt youngsters) nothing "officially" happened in 2006, though wgoodf and myself went ahead with it anyway. I think that was the year we had the huge debate about what was retro and everyone wanted the rules changed so they could enter with a G4 or run Windows 98 or whatever and then got all pouty... I think that was also the year Lorance fired up the Retro BBS.

My blog from that RC is still extant, if anyone has more time than sense.

 

[equant]

Can I get all pouty about people *using* G4s and Windows 98?

I don't really care, since I get to enjoy the challenge however I want, but in my mind, 10 years isn't long enough to be interesting. I'd make the "rule" 15 years. But like I said, it doesn't really matter, I follow the projects I'm interested in. I suppose one has to factor in participation.

I guess it's just that I have a Toshiba Satellite Pro from 11 years ago that I still use on a regular basis for real work. There's nothing retro about it; just slow.

 

[DoctorClu]

Retro in 2005 was anything that was before like March 1993. EVERYTHING had to be from before that time. The operating system, the computer itself. So if you used a Mac you could use a Duo 210 barely and run 7.5.2 I believe was the maximum you could use. Newtons were just a little too young for this since Newtons came out later in 1993.

It was that retrochallenge I learned I didn't need a portable computer as much since my Duo and Newtons were out. Actually this retrochallenge I plan to revisit both.

But yeh, 10 years is not enough, but at the same time, 10 years is a eternity to people trying to stay bleeding edge of technology.

I just think some devices age better than others. And if you are still using a 10 year old computer, that says a lot about the computer I think. I mean to be using it not for a hobby but REALLY using it.

That or you're just cheap about computing.

 

[wgoodf]

not to get all 'hats' on anyone - but shall we gather things up or not? any lead people or person.

cant the wiki come into this in some way?

 

[DoctorClu]

Sure... seems like we located all the information from 2007 and I believe 2006 is still up. 2005 is in archives. So what was the final word on 2004?

 

[wgoodf]

can only say i as told that when i was poking round at the start of the 2006-non-event that 2005 was the first.

thats all i know.

 

[luddite]

I don't really care, since I get to enjoy the challenge however I want, but in my mind, 10 years isn't long enough to be interesting.

I agree, however I don't really think there's a tidy way to decide on a cutoff point. The 2005 RC had a list of qualifying _processors_ and didn't really bother with age, then the scoring was based on whether you used a 8- 16- or 32-bit sytem... it was a bit much.

I think in the past the people who made the most noise about the rules ended up not participating at all... go figure. The current line-up seems to have a good grasp of the *spirit* of the thing.