I was wondering when you'd post your joke. :) Too bad it is the joke (if it isn't, I'd be hard-pressed to believe you, it is 1 April after all).

I dunno, I actually think it might be a good idea :D That would be funny if he posted it and all he got was positive feedback, I wonder if it would actually go into effect?

It does sound like a good idea, but... I don't think they could actually implement it very easily. :)

That's true. And I didn't even realize the whole April 1st thing.. it's still the 31st over here! Ahhhhh the havock I will try to wreak today... tomorrow... today.

Well, this year's April 1 joke is not good as the previous ones. It looks "too true" and it would really be a good idea to implement this system. (All those quadratic solvers and super duper guessing games would be gone.)

Anyway, I wonder how many people will send an email to have their programs put in the queue. I hope they anounce this number after the joke is over.

Damn, this April Fools joke sucks!

I agree, it's not much of a joke...but it is a goood idea! Basic programs are what even the most devoted asm game player use when they need help for an exam. Also, the plague of poorly made basic programs affects all calculators (ti83 is most hit cause thats what all highschool students are told to get...truth is a ti89 is better suited for highschool work).

Their should be an effort to remove redundant and poorly designed programs! Look at this crud for example :P http://www.ticalc.org/archives/files/ fileinfo/143/14321.html

Whoa, it's depleateduranium! :-P Heh, it's funny when people use their own programs as examples of bad programming.

although a great idea, it probably would be hard to do, considering a lot of people have written great BASIC programs but then lost affiliation with ticalc. how will their programs be resubmitted? also, will stats like how many times their file was downloaded be reset?

I think some of the junk in the archives should be cleaned out, but some of it is really good, but what if the programmer made a really good basic program but doesn't know any ASM. That would really suck. So only porblem who decides what's junk and whats not.

Yeah, as some assembly programs I've seen (which will go unnamed) have demonstrated, being an assembly programmer doesn't necesarily mean that you can write a better game or judge games any better. ;-)

It doesn't. You can make crap in ASM just as easily as you can make crap in BASIC. Want an example? Check out the Tron game I made so many years ago.

yeah and crap ASM is worse than crap basic. crap basic takes up space. crap ASM frees it up. Lots of it. Lots as in all of it in fact. Or if it doesn't it makes you do it. (HOw many times have you had to pul a battery?)

Good point. :-D

Every anti-ASM person argues that losing your memory is the worst thing that could happen. It's really not. Archive stuff. If you can't do that, backup or test it with VTI first. And hey, my "crap ASM" game doesn't crash your calc. I made sure of that. ;-)

I've had a couple of rare cases where even archive stuff got lost in a crash, or at least TI-OS didn't restore it correctly. And the programs I test with VTI don't seem to crash until I actually put them on my calculator. ;-)

The best solution is to back up your calculator data to the computer very regularly. Especially if you have important stuff/projects on it. I make a habit of doing that before trying a new ASM program, and I have not had any major data losses in quite a while.

One must also remember that BASIC programs can crash the calculator (I have had it happen to me), due to bugs in the operating systems...but that does seem less common than faulty ASM programs.

You're right... it's rare, but it's happened to me before too. I used to know a BASIC crash for the TI-83+, I know there was one (now corrected) for the TI-89, and I even once had my TI-82 crash while running a BASIC program I was working on.

*For the 83+

:999->L1
:Fill(999999999,L1
:SortA(L1

Put a message before it for some spice.
Always good for a laugh

The other day I was debugging a BASIC program on my TI-89 and got an "ER_throw" black bar at the top of my screen and had to reset (fortunately, I had been making frequent backups of everything before that happened).

I've been getting a lot of annoying "Internal Error" errors too, but they don't crash. It seems to have something to do with using the when() function with an expression that doesn't evaluate to true or false, but I'm not sure of that.

Hey :),.
I have the same problem, and i have tried to remove the batteries and reboot the calc. but then after the installation it shows the message again!, do you know how to solve the problem ?
please answer if you know :)
, Troels

I'm not anti-ASM, in fact I'm learning it. I'm just pointing out the Basic programs directory isn't the only directory with crap in it, and crap ASM does more damage than CRAP Basic.

Yeah, as some assembly programs I've seen (which will go unnamed) have demonstrated, being an assembly programmer doesn't necesarily mean that you can write a better program or judge programs any better. ;-)

Sorry about the double post.

Man, I'm gullible...I thought this was real for a few blissful moments...

Don't feel bad, so did I.

This better be try. The large amount of un documented BASIC programs is rediculious. And a ton of them are garbage anyways.

My BASIC programs are well documented and (I hope) not garbage, and it would be very tedious to go through all that to submit programs.

I don't think anyone's saying that all BASIC programs are junk - far from it, there are many great ones - it's just that there are so many to sort through, and consequently a lot of junk too...

Maybe there should be further sub-categories within the BASIC directory.

yeah, divide up the RPGs (no offense but the worst of the crap is here, everyone who knows any basic thinks they can make a cool RPG), from the action games, and the puzzle games

BTW, I didn't mean to offend any BASIC programmers, I was just joking about the moment being "blissful".

yeah, so did I

Darn, I thought the archives could be kept cleaner -- and would give me an excuse to not upload my almost-crap basic shell-type thingie, then I noticed the date. Then the red border. oh well.

If this is a joke, then why doesn't it have the red "fake news" border?

They never do it right away on the April Fool's Joke. Come on, you've got to know that. :)

I was going to ask the same thing, but yeah, then everybody would know!

Phew... I was worried there for a second. Wonder how many emails they'll get.

Read my post on page 3. If this stupid idea is implemented, I will leave ticalc.org, and I will start my own site. I'm not kidding.

Judging by your user id, you haven't been around for long, so I'm sure we won't miss you.

I agree :(

So do I. lol

I don't get how you can tell how long someone has been around. ;-)

Heh, because of the smiley and because you've been around longer than me, I'll assume you're joking. :-P But for those who don't know, it's your ID. Put your mouse over the orange image. Mine is 20953.

> because of the smiley
When glancing through the comments page, I almost misread that as "because of the slimey". :( I'm still here, but don't have much to say lately. It's all been said.

Astrid, hi! :)

To anyone who wants to make it easier to find good files, please rate files as you try them out, in your search for good ones. That will be nice for other users. Thanks.

Oh no!!! Don't give away my true name!!!

Not only that, he hasn't even authored any files.

User ID = how much someone will be missed?

Not in my case, I'm sure... I'm such a lurker...

actually it how much they WONT be missed. u should kno, u have user id 600 or something like that. im 46653. i will not be missed much!!! ;)

Btw, I could always find what I wanted on ticalc.org through a google search or the search tool. I see no reason for this foolish idea that will destroy ticalc.org. It seems to me that the file archivers are just getting lazy about archiving their files, and now they want to cut down the load.

If you're going to implement this idea, you might as well remove the TI-Basic sections entirely. After all, what will happen to the really good programs with authors who probably arent noticing this news? Like the 83+ program AllMath. I loved that one.

If it wasn't April 1, I'd be puting my fist through my computer right now!

What I recommend is that instead of using the invitation system, use a system based on rating, so that if you really liked a certain program, you could rate it highly and it would stay. And if you hated a program, rate it low. What ticalc could do is thta for recent files, only the top rated ones would go permanently into the archives. And not just with basic programs, either!

not gonna work. there aren't enough people to judge very well, some of the best programs here are totally unrated!

just use ratings to recommend files to newbies: dont use them to delete stuff.

Since almost everything is unrated, newbies will think that everythingis junk

Okay, you're both wrong. :)
Just go through and delete EVERY guess-the-number game.
That should free up LOTS of space!
Why do people even bother submitting those?!

I agree, but we obviously need to keep the Wacky Fun Random Numbar Generator, the epitome of guess-the-numbers!

We could also take out the Windows "shell" programs that don't work at all and serve no purpose except to take up memory.

And are also trademark violations, I'm sure.

As are all the Tetris and Super Mario games in the archives.

Being crap and being illegal are 2 entirely orthogonal issues.

They (Nintendo & etc.) sure do not seem to care much about their trademarks...I heard once that if you do not maintain your trademark, you lose it. Then again, I heard that on the Internet, so it is most likely wrong. :)

Well, on the one hand you have Nintendo, and on the other you have Parker Bros...Sometime ago Kirk Meyer made the Monopoly game on the 89, and I think they threatened to sue him (correct me if I'm wrong), so he changed the name to "Monoply".

It really just depends on the company. It could also be possible that Nintendo is advocating this so they can find good programmers. Just a guess.

ONe) Since when is Tetris copyrighted and by who?
TWo)Some of the Mario game sare crap, but I'm guessing you haven't played SUper Mario v1.2. That is almost an exact clone of the original. On the other hand, the Mario LEVELS would free up a lot of space, but they wouldn't make navigation easier since the only people who go there are ones looking for levels for Super Mario

one) Indeed, Tetris isn't a Nintendo invention, it was written by some russian (student) quite a while ago... a certain Alexey something or other on a Electronica 60 IIRC. The licensing for tetris rights have been a very big mess, I think there is a history out there on the Atari website, but you'll have to go check out for yourselves.

two) Super Mario v1.2 (for the 83+ I assume) is hardly an almost exact clone of super mario, but the effort is good and gets a lot closer than any other 83+ mario game does. It still lacks a bit in the "feel" but it's as you as is available, so we won't cry :)

Yet another totally useless post brought to you by Me :)

Why are all number guessing games but "Wacky Fun Random Numbar Generator" bad? If WFRNG's good, they're all good. If they're all bad, WFRNG's bad. You can't have all of them bad but WFRNG, because WFRNG is one of them. If I WANTED to play a guessing game, I'd write one myself in three minutes.

Don't take it so seriously, it's just a joke...

Hey, if this idea is because the archivers are getting lazy, then why would it actually create *more* work for them? If they were really that lazy, they would just turn out all us kids onto the streets, and close the site.

Just a few things for you to roll around in that head of yours.

Bit off topic but I love the screen name, wonder how many people pick up on that? Also turning us out on the street would tick off so many people, Ticalc would probably die under the revenge of the spam. It would just make it harder to get programs. The crap would still be out there on other sites, but it would be harder to find good games

First thing I thought when I saw the update. I look foward to the ticalc April Fool's Day joke every year and I don't trust anything they say on that day.

... though this would be a nice system. I'd just let my BASIC programs go, they aren't that exciting. :-P

>> I'd just let my BASIC programs go, they aren't that exciting. :-P
me to I think that ticalc should give the author the delete option it might free a lot of space.

I agree. I've got two really good and useful basic programs, but I've also got a game in basic that really sucks...if only i could get rid of it. Well, I could, but that would take a lot of effort.

Hey, for both of you, there is a way to have your files deleted! Just e-mail the file archivers and ask them to delete the files, along with your username and password or something.

As I said, I could, but it would take a lot of effort. Personally I think that system is too complicated...if someone wants to get rid of a program okay, but they probably don't care enough to go through all that trouble (like me).

Pfft...had to ruin it for everybody didn't you.... But still, there is a lot of junk in the BASIC archives that people honestly do not care about like all those quadratic formula programs and the getkey programs (there is one in the calculator manual!!). I think this site should be an archive of great achievements of programmers and not just a fileserver for people to stash their work because their harddrive is running out of space....or something.

One word: austin granger.

Yeowch. What a proof-of-concept example.

Isn't that two words?

You get the point. :)

I see what you mean.

Everyone expects these jokes now so theres not really a point, you should just down the site on april fools day next year, or replace all the archives with rand numb generators

or translate all the front page into l33t and put stupid stuff like this page:

http://www.calc.org/apr1

yeah but look at the great discussion these things spark... (cough cough)

Did they actually post that calc.org/apr1 thing on www.calc.org? I think it's rather funny.