Judging Updates and VCF SoCal

A few updates:

urbancamo and I got our act together and judged the RC2014 category pretty quickly after the event to meet semach.the.monkey's publishing deadline for the November RC2014 newsletter. So to make it officially official:

Congratulations to Robert Price for his RC2014 rotary encoder entry! His blog is a great resource for anyone looking to integrate a rotary encoder in an electronics project. Robert has won a Classic II and a set of PCBs that started off semach.the.monkey's journey into homebuilt Z80 madness!

shieladixon and Olav are also RC2024 prize winners for their entries! We will get the retrochallenge prizes to them shortly.

Unfortunately, our work and play schedules haven't allowed us to sync up and finish the rest of the judging, but I promise, it will be before 2025 starts... oh, wait... well, real soon then.

In the meantime, I will be at VCF SoCal with some giveaways for retrochallengers. If you are going, let us know in the comments! I will make sure to find you. I will also have a bunch of 5.25" floppy disks for sale in the consignment area. Proceeds go to RC2015 prizes!

The Vote is Open

As promised, if you participated in the Challenge, you can vote for the winners (other than RC2014 category). Take a look at the project links in the Entrants List and then cast your vote on the RC2024/10 ballot. Vote once, but select as many projects as you like. Make sure to get your vote in on or before Sunday, November 10, and we will award prizes based on the vote and the organizer's favorites. urbancamo and ep00ch will be spending next couple of weeks reviewing and writing up all of the projects. Stay tuned for results!

The Finish Line!

Time is up, oscilloscope probes down... we did it! Even if you did not finish your project, most of of you made great progress and hopefully learned something new. There were so many entries and some great blogging. So, what's next?

1. Take today (1-NOV-2024) to make your final post and reflect on your accomplishments.
2. I will open up voting this weekend and post an announcement. Voting will be for the categories other than RC2014 and will be open for about a week.
3. urbancamo and I will start judging the RC2014 entires when the vote opens.
4. We will post the final summaries and results in the next few weeks.

Thank you to everyone who participated!

RC2024/10 Halftime Update!

Your Halftime update is up-to-date... whew! This is usually the point where we shame you all for a total lack of progress, but nearly everyone has already done very impressive work. We definitely appreciate the participation and social media updates. In addition to my project, I have been writing up a historical timeline of the RetroChallenge to celebrate the 20th anniversary. It was a good excuse to exchange emails with some of the past hosts, catch up, and send out some RetroChallenge merch.

Quote of the week:

gaming on Windows 7 on this computer feels like owning a motorcycle, where you keep it 11 months in the garage fiddling with various tubes and screws and spark plugs and innards to be able to enjoy it for 2 hours on a Saturday afternoon when it’s not raining.
--andreixyz

If you have made progress and we missed it, leave a comment!

Halftime updates after the break...

First Week in the Books

Update: Well, now I have to say something... In a bizarre case of technological convergent de-evolution, we have 3 challengers using a Z80 with the seminal MC6850 ACIA. Poor Zilog: "But we make excellent serial interfaces like the SCC and SIO!" shieladixon designing her ready-to-use MIDI interface, morecat_lab converting a general purpose serial board for MIDI, and CDP1802 trying to use his Sharp MZ-80K2 to make some hot butter-popcorn. Oh, I guess they are related after all!

We are one week in! I have been having fun keeping updated on everybody's projects. We have so many participants this year! Nearly all of you have your first post and at least a plan, while most of the you have some progress recorded. I really appreciate that some unusual platforms are getting some love here. There are some very technical projects and some simple ones focused on documenting things for those who come next. Great variety. Those of you doing endurance challenges, using your retro computers daily, I see and appreciate you! A few of the competitors are posting on gopher blogs (phlogs). Make sure to check them out using a native browser like Lagrange.

Quote of the week:

It has been a while since I entered Retro Challenge, but I think I remember what to do. It goes something along the lines of stating at the start of the month that you are going to design [something], and then at the end of the month report back in with minimal progress.
--semach.the.monkey

I know that feeling all too well! If you are feeling overwhelmed with your current project, just spend some time using an old computer and blog about it. Those are often some of the most entertaining, insightful, and rewarding projects. Or, check out the other participants and use the inpiration to do something related.

With all the competitors, I will be closing the entry form in a few days. If you don't have your entry in, do it now!

Day 1... for the Rest of the World

While half the world had an early jump on things, the rest of us are just dusting off our projects. Perfect time to give an update on the prizes:

The keychains and pins are looking great and are on their way to me! Every entry selected by the judges will receive one of each of these beauties.

RetroCheng kindly dontated two 6802 Nano SBC computers and some components. I am still gathering up the rest of the components to make complete kits. He also provided an RCA CDP1802D chip, a Nook e-Reader, just waiting to be hacked, and a TI LaunchPad dev board with his product the assembled protoboard. Lots of goodies to give away!

Oops, I almost forgot about one of the prizes. I bought a bunch of extra Motorola ICs for my 1-bit robot project. So, I will be putting the extras together into some MC14500B chip-set kits. I am not totally sure what exact components will be in there (I have to see what works well), but at the very least, there will be enough to make the Minimal lCU System:

• MC14500B Industrial Control Unit (ICU)
• MC14512B 8-Channel Data Selector
• MC14599B 8-Bit Addressable Latch
• Binary Counter, either MC14516B, or MC14040B
• Read Only Memory, either DM72LS471 PROM, or TMS2516 EPROM

And finally, the pièce de résistance, semach.the.monkey will be giving away a RC2014 Classic II kit with the final set of the original RC2014 PCBs to the lucky "winner" of the RC2014 category!

But, of course, the RetroChallenge is not about winning prizes... just ask semach "I completed RC2014 and all I got was a new career" themonkey. It is the journey that is important. The nostalgia and pride of getting something done on a computer that has been sitting on your shelf is its own reward.

Now get to that nostalgizing!

It's Time to Retro!

Tin your soldering pens, clean your cassette player heads, reform your power supply capacitors, and flex your typing fingers... It's October 1st somewhere... RetroChallenge 2024/10 is Goooooo!

We have a lot of great entries, including a very strong contingent of Z80 projects by way of the RC2014s, the Sharp MZ-80Ks, and even the PERQ 2T2's I/O subprocessor.

I also like the focus on Web 1.1 and pre-Web technologies. I did some work trimming the fat on this website and supporting non-Web project URLs (more updates to come), and I have even started a new gopher site for the RetroChallenge (Web-proxy link) to join this effort!

A few entrants started early, posting about their too-large-for-a-month projects. No problem! But, rest assured they will be only judged on their progress during October.

If you are still thinking about joining but you are not exactly sure what to do, join now and see where your retrocomputing leads you during the month. Just spend some quality time with your vintage computer!

Here is some emulated Tandy TRS-80 Model 200 BASIC fun to get you inspired:

It's on like Tele-Pong!