RC2024/10 Registration is Open

We are happy to announce RetroChallenge for the month of October 2024! Brought to you once again by hosts urbancamo and ep00ch with support from semachthemonkey.

About RetroChallenge

In a nutshell, the RetroChallenge is a loosely disorganised gathering of RetroComputing enthusiasts who collectively do stuff with old computers for a month.

The point of this, if indeed there is one, is to challenge you to do something new with your retro-computer, to learn something new or just play for a month. It is sort of like a show-and-tell. Do something fun or interesting and let the world know. The event is very much open to interpretation… individuals set their own challenges, which can range from programming to multimedia work, hardware restoration to exploring legacy networking, or just plain fooling around. It really doesn’t matter what you do, just so long as you do it.

Take a look at the "rules" for the RetroChallenge for basic guidelines.

RetroChallenge 2024/10 Theme Categories

We have two theme categories for this event: RC2014 and Halloween Hacks. These categories will be judged and awarded separately from the standard entries. If your project qualifies, enter it into one of the theme categories! Otherwise, enter in the General category and just do your own retro thing. Check out last year's List of Entries for some examples.

RC2014

Spend some quality time with your RC2014 kit computer.

In collaboration with semachthemonkey, we are celebrating the 10th anniversary of the RC2014 kit computer (invented during RetroChallenge 2014) with a category just for RC2014 owners! Solder up the unassembled kit sitting on your shelf, write a fun Z80 program, or prototype some new hardware for it. If you don't have a kit yet, check out the selection on Tindie or Z80KITS and join the most active homebuilt 8-bit computer community!

Halloween Hacks

Get ready for Halloween with the help of your retro-computer!

With the RetroChallenge ending on Halloween most years, this is an obvious match. Write or port a horror-themed text adventure, modify some vintage e-waste with a halloween theme, or synchronize your haunted house animatronics with programmable logic controller from the 80's. If you don't mind your house getting egged, you could even write your own BASIC game and hand out printed copies of the type-in program to those rascally trick-or-treaters. Anything you want… with touch of the macabre.

Prizes

We will have some RC 2024/10 themed gear for the "winners" and we are working out details for some awesome RC2014 goodies too!

Hosting Options

Feel free to host your project anywhere that everyone can follow along. We are trying out a new reddit community where you can host your project updates. Blogger, your github project wiki, Hackaday.io, or the 68kMLA RetroChallenge forum (for Macs) are all great choices too. The Captain's Quarters II BBS is a perfect option for you low-bandwith luddites.

How to Enter

Fill out the Entry Form for Contestants and save the link at the end in case you want to update or change your information. Let us know in the comments if you have any issues signing up.

Sign Up Now!

RC 2023/10 Results!

The results are in and it's a tie! The three Grand Prize "winners" this year (one for each category) tied for first by popular vote! The other prize winners also received votes and were highly regarded by the judges. But as we all know, even finsihing the RetroChallenge is an impressive task (one that I have been unable to complete for years). Everyone who finished has earned the judge's respect and appreciation!

Stay tuned for details on RetroChallenge 2024/10!

Click below to see the results...

This Is the End!

Time's up, light pens down!

You did it... we are at the end of another great month of the RetroChallenge! Despite the limited number of entries, we had great participation this year, which is the way we really like it.

I will always remember this RetroChallenge as the one where I completely ignored my project and instead met up with urbancamo on his visit to Southern California. We did a version of "October Offline" as we checked out the USS Midway Museum, ate a bunch of Mexican food, and went to an (American) football game to see the Los Angeles Rams and Ice Cube. What a great time, and a great guy to co-host this event with!

As promised, if you participated in the challenge, you can vote for the winners. Take a look at the project links in the Entrants List and then cast your vote on the RC2023/10 ballot. Make sure to get your vote in on or before Tuesday, November 7 (conveniently Election Day here in the USA), and we will award prizes based on the vote and the organizer's favorites. urbancamo, ep00ch, and an ACMS board member will be spending next couple of weeks reviewing and writing up all of the projects. Stay tuned for results!

Radio Repair room on the USS Midway... at least somebody is getting their project done!

RC2023/10 Halftime Update!

We have a small group of contenders this year and it is nice to see that they are nearly all making great progress. I also really appreciate the variety of projects this year. If you are making progress and have some blog posts we missed, let us know in the comments.

Mousepad prizes have been ordered, and we can expect to have a few prizes from the Australian Computer Museum Society as well!

Here is the halftime update (after the break), or just keep an eye on the RC2023/10 Entrants List!

RC2023/10 IS ON!

RetroChallenge 2023/10 has begun!

It's the 1st of October somewhere, we have a few solid RetroChallengers, and I expect we will have many more joining us this week. It's not too late to enter! NOW, GET STARTED!

urbancamo, ep00ch and Adrian from ACMS will be working hard to keep everyone updated and get you timely halftime and final summaries and results.

Shout-out to the Australian Computer Museum Society for incorporating the RetroChallenge into their membership activities.

RC2022/10 Results

The popular vote results for RC2022/10 are in! Eek... we almost started RC2023/10 without the write-up for 2022.

Remember, if you didn't finish the month but made progress on a project you should be proud. If you did finish, you should be very proud.

Stay tuned for details on the RC2023/10!

Results (grouped by category, then grouped by final status, no particular order besides that) after the break:

Finish Line!

Time's up, soldering irons down!

We did it! Another great RetroChallenge with some fine projects and great participation. Urbancamo and I were especially impressed with how few non-starters we had with nearly everyone makig some progress on their retrocomputing projects.

Now, I promised we would have a vote for the Endurance Challenge, but with only two participants this doesn't make sense. Instead, we will open the voting up to the General Category too! So, get your vote in on or before Tuesday, November 8 (conveniently Election Day here in the USA), 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!

If you participated in this RetroChallenge, you can cast your vote on the RC2022/10 ballot after reviewing the project links in the Entrants List.