The Old Computer Challenge Explained ==================================== The Old Computer Challenge is a challenge, started by Solène Rapenne in 2021. The challenge is to only use a computer with limited capabilities for the duration of one week. On Libera.chat, the IRC channel #old-computer-challenge was created for this challenge. This channel turned out to be a great plus, and it is still in use today. Recently, this channel is renamed to #oldcomputerchallenge. 2021 edition ------------ The challenge of 2021 was the first edition, with the following rules: * 1 CPU maximum, whatever the model. This mean 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. 2022 edition ------------ 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 mean 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. 2023 edition ------------ This edition is a bit back to the roots: let's use a SLOW computer for seven days. This will be achieved by various means with any hardware: * Limit your computer's CPU to use only 1 core. This can be set in the BIOS most of the time, and on Linux you can use maxcores=1 in the boot command line, on OpenBSD you can use bsd.sp kernel for the duration of the challenge. * Limit your computer's memory to 512 MB of memory (no swap limit). This can be set on Linux using the boot command line mem=512MB. On OpenBSD, this can be achieved a bit similarly by using datasize-max=512M in login.conf for your user's login class. * Set your CPU frequency to the lowest minimum (which is pretty low on modern hardware!). On Linux, use the "powersave" frequency governor, in modern desktop environments the battery widget should offer an easy way to set the governor. On OpenBSD, run apm -L (while apmd service is running). On Windows, in the power settings, set the frequency to minimum. Of course, you can also simply use an old computer. The challenge will start the 10th July 2023, and end the 17th July 2023 at the end of the day. Participation ------------- We hope you will participate in the challenge. The past editions have shown that for everybody the challenge holds some unexpected effects which turns the participation in a learning experience and that people participate in a way that matches their personal capabilities. Whether you are a complete IT noob, or a hard core hacker, you are welcome to join! There are no prizes to win, but participating is fun. Please join the IRC channel #oldcomputerchallenge, and please write about your experiences in a phlog post, blog post, or on your Gemini capsule, and share the link to it.