After a couple days off doing a no-computer challenge over the
weekend due to meatspace obligations, I'm starting off the old
computer challenge using another trusty mac. This time it's a G3
iMac (Ruby), so even slower than last year.
Since the rules are DIY, I'm just settling in a nice comfortable
environment without too much regard to rules and whatnot. Not
really reinventing the wheel this time. I probably should fetch
the mail locally, but I've got mutt already set up the way I like
and it would just be an exercise in customizing another machine.
On the #oldcomputerchallenge channel, some of the participants are
setting up quake and quake2 to play. It seemed like a fun
diversion, so I decided to give it a go. It didn't quite get along
with the G3, and was quite the slideshow even after tweaking the
settings as best I could. Framerate was more appropriately
expressed in seconds per frame. So I decided to employ a Wyse 3030
instead, since it's constrained in various ways similar to old
computers. I got q2 to run with the demo data pretty nicely, but
it would segfault with the full game. Puzzling. trying a few
things resulted in running out of disk space. The eMMC on this is
only 4GB and it was already a challenge getting AntiX pared down
enough to fit, so maybe my journey might end there.
Back on the G3, it's pleasant and I like the CRT. It's still
sharp. I like that X works on here although most of what I'm doing
is in terminals, but it's nice to browse the OCC forum in dillo. I
did drop out of X and live a bit in screen for fun and that's
quite pleasant too. On the occasional need for something a bit
faster (work or bills or whatever) I just pop into a virtual
desktop I had set up for the thin client. Keeps me from getting
too distracted. The spice client went kablooie so I fell back on
VNC over ssh, which is fast and works just fine.
So that's the challenge so far. Nothing too eventful, probably
since the workflow is a lot more text/terminal based now. Plus
it's nice to be outside every now and then too, like how I used
computers like this back when they were new.
Tags: #oldcomputerchallenge #imac #wyse #text
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