I wish they tried to solve the 1989 4x4 crossword puzzle optimization with a modern solver, but a small memory limit (~8MB) and perhaps a severely underclocked CPU to showcase the algorithm improvements.
It's kind of funny because comparable hardware would be hard to find nowadays.
Even the ESP32 which can be purchased for something in the neighborhood of $2 runs at 600mips (technically dmips but all that means is they're not benchmarked for floating point operations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ESP32), although I am not sure that they can run the full exact same instruction sets.
I heard about some competition like this: they made a boolean satisfiability problem. Then they ran a "race" -- an old solving algorithm running on modern hardware, versus a new algorithm on old hardware. The new solver won, even with a massive speed handicap!
Even the ESP32 which can be purchased for something in the neighborhood of $2 runs at 600mips (technically dmips but all that means is they're not benchmarked for floating point operations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ESP32), although I am not sure that they can run the full exact same instruction sets.