So do these people win anything or do they just become "immortalized" in the calc world as the best of the best of the past few years?

They just become "immortalized" in the calc world as the best of the best of the past few years.

I just responded to this one so mine would be closer to the top. Has anyone else noticed that Dimension-Ti.org won't load? I wonder if this has anything to do with the recent defacing of ti-files.org. Oh by the way are you guys planning on keeping that survey up all year or something?

It will be down for the weekend, but up early next week.

I don't know, but Jimmy Mardell is truely one of the best programmers.

No, Bill Nagel is the BEST.
Nobody beats Bill Nagel.

Well, obviously he isn't in the eyes of the TI-Community! :)

Matt H.

P.S. The top four I voted for, and Joe Wing (taught me a lot!)

i hope that was a Joke ;)

Just spewing out a few random comments as they pass through my head:

Matt Shepcar is at the bottom of the top authors list? And Ahmed is above him, Xavier, Joe Wing., PAD, and Andreas? No offense to Ahmed, but how much of the credit he's given there is for his original work, and how much is accreditted to him for ports of others' works? While I can see him being up on that list, I can't see him being placed above those guys. . .

The more graphical the BASIC game, the higher its ranking. I'm not arguing with the positioning on the list, just making an observation. I think that for many of those games, the graphics just go to show the amount of work the author(s) put into them.

Notice the progression of the Best Program awards winners from all platforms (ZTetris) to a bunch of very graphical 89 games and then some good 86 ones. How the hell can ANYONE here honestly say that SF2 deserves that high a ranking?!? While it has great POTENTIAL, the only version that works without crashing once every 5 minutes is the very original release - which, with 2 fighters and a few bugs, doesn't warrant being a high ranked program. The newer versions just aren't stable enough to be playable.

My only qualm with the Assembly Program ratings is that Tezxas is, as usual, far underrated. If those voting understood the technical merits of such an emulator it would be ranked much higher (and good job, Samir =)

Best shell: those seem a little hard to compare to me - it'd be nice if they were ranked on a per-platform basis. You can't make the new, top-of-the-line Doors compete with a classic like ZShell. . .

And with the possible exception of the one MAJOR typo on the ballots -- TI-GCC Lib was NOT yet released when nominations took place. That should be TI-GCC itself, which would garner more votes -- the Utility section looks fair.

Just goes to show that we, as voters, suck. This certainly indicates FAVORITES authors/programs, yes, but not the BEST.

i completely agree with you.
I was suprised that Ahmed was even voted on for top authors. he has made maybe 2 or 3 games that he didnt port.
I agree with Jimmy Mardell winning the top author.
I dont see how shepcar finished last. I voted him second. Personally, i would have placed Nagel and Ahmed at the bottom of that list of "calculator legends"

I disagree with ZTetris as the best ASM game... While it may be fun, it is not very complex, although I am impressed with the cross platform linkplay capabilities. I really didnt think that there were enough good games on the list. No Plane Jump, Daedulus, Joltima, Dying Eyes, Repton, FFx4, McMik, XC-1701, BoulderDash, ... the list could go on.
All of these games could have been on the list, and if i had to vote on my favorite, it would have been Joltima, followed by Dying Eyes... because of the sheer complexity of a RPG.

1) I voted Shepcar first. I know how you feel. Shepcar revolutionized 86 programming and he made what still is, in my opinion, the best 86 shell (Please no holy wars here!)
2) Jimmy owns. That is all that can be said.
3) In the nomination, I recall voting for Dying Eyes, ZTetris 86 and Repton.. I forget the other two I picked. They were good too. :)

At any rate, I have to disagree with your thinking on ZTetris. Think about it: ZTetris has become the ESSENTIAL game for anyone's calculator since its creation. I haven't yet seen a calculator filled with games and lacking ZTetris. Its cross-platform capabilities combined with its sheer simplicity and fantastic coding (it almost never crashes) make it one of the best games around right now. When you stop to think about it, ZTetris is really a great piece of work. Even when compared to flashy games like Dying Eyes and Repton, ZTetris always routinely beats them out for sheer entertainment value.

Personally, I'm much more satisfied with Sqrxz and BoulderDash than ZTetris which, as you say, is a very simple game after all. I don't really understand the amazement with the cross platform linking either - sure, it's nice, but it's also something pretty "natural" and required no extra effort from my part.

Last, thanks everyone who voted for me :-)

But if you consider _impact_ on the TI community, nothing can compare with ztetris. Dying Eyes and Joltima are very impressive programming achievements (and games as well), but they have only influenced a small portion of the TI community, whereas ztetris has entertained probably 90% of TI users at some point or another. I realize "best asm game" is kind of ambiguous, but when it comes down to it, in terms of overall popularity ztetris just plain rules :-)

Yeah, I agree with most everything you said as well as most everything Scott said. Many voters definitely voted for their _favorite,_ not best programs (ZShell beat Usgard, yet ZShell is not technically superior to just about any other shell...influential, but not better).

As far as ZTetris goes, I agree with both sides of the matter: it is extremely well-coded, simple, fun, and a must-have for anyone on any calculator. However, what if it had never been made? Well, someone else would have made another Tetris game. Doesn't matter who, doesn't matter how many versions, but one thing would be the same: most everybody would have a Tetris game on their calc. BUT turning toward the other side of the argument again, I can only wonder how many of those theoretical Tetris games would be as cross-compatible as ZTetris is....

Considering how so many people love the games with the greatest graphics, often over gameplay, I'd like to see a contest just for voting on the game with the best graphics. Then again, few games have great _original_ graphics, just cloned sprites of the games they were based on. Ex: Super Mario Quest, Street Fighter 2, and either BigDyna or BomberBoy; not sure if BigDyna has original graphics.

ZShell was the best relative to its time...

I just want to say thank you to all who voted for the Zelda Demo. With as much support as there is for the game, I'm happy to let you know that I am still hard at work on it.
If you've been to my website lately, you've probably noticed that I've seemingly stopped updating. Well, you're right. Updating a website even once a week tends to get tedious, and gives me less time to concentrate fully on Zelda, which is what I really want to do.
If you're wondering where the game stands right now, here's the scoop: I am currently in the process of re-writing literally ALL of the programming code for the game. There are several reasons for this, the major one being that the original code was very "sloppily" written. The re-coding process is going quite well, so far. I have a completely new map editor that is working wonderfully compared to my old one, and I already have a substantial chunk of the map re-"installed" for the game.
As far as when you'll be able to play it again, I can't say for sure. With progress continuing as it has been in the past few weeks, I'd say a re-vamped demo isn't too far off, with the finished game fairly close behind. I'm not making any promises at this point, because I most likely won't be able to meet any deadlines that I set.
Anyway, I think I've rambled on enough, and one more time, thank you to everyone who voted for the Zelda Demo. Your support is greatly appreciated, and because of it the project is still in full swing, and will be better than ever.

-Fil

Hmm. Isn't it spelled "millennium"? Just a thought.

Reading the Millenium Awards page a little more closely:

"Note: You may be saying to yourself.. "Hey, isn't millennium spelled with two 'N's?" You're right, it is. However, as any educated individual should know, the millennium doesn't start until 2001. With that said, you may be saying to yourself.. "Hey, you're a year early then!" That's why these are the "TI millenium awards" instead of the "TI millennium awards." Well. According to the Microsoft Press® Computer and Internet Dictionary, "millenium" was a word invented to mean "the year 2000," since people were misusing that way. So, for our TI millenium awards (taking advantage of the overused and overhyped theme), we figured that we might as well get it right and call it the "TI millenium awards" instead of the "TI millennium awards." "

And now for my thoughts on the results. It seemed that the TI-89 was a little over-represented. Sure, it's a fantastic calculator, and a lot of people own it, including myself, but it's a pretty recent addition to the arena of TI calculators. I would have liked to see more of the true pioneers, like Dan Eble and Dines Justesen.

I definitely agree with Dougs statement regarding the old school programmers. Sure the TI-89 is a revolutionairy and great calculator, however where would calc supported assembly had come from without the work of Dan Eble, David Ellsworth, Jason Todd, Dines Justeen. Absolutely NOWHERE. They definitely should have gotten at least an honorable mention for starting this whole ASM madness.

-Will

Yes, I'm really sorry, but this doesn't really have anything to do with the subject above. If there is somewhere else I can post this message, please let me know. Well anyway...

Whenever I run a program on the TI version 2.0x (2.03) I get an error:
"ASAP or Exec string too long"
This is making me mad and I don't know what is wrong with it, please help.

Is your program in BASIC or ASM? If it's BASIC, I can probably help you out. E-mail me if you want help.

-Fil

Ugh. Stupid 8K limit. This error happens if assembly program is longer than 8K. Suggestions:
- Use programs that do not require shells and they are shorter than 8K as CReversi and CaveBlaster
- Use programs with own launchers as Tezxas.
- Install Universal OS, it is very compact and fixes this limitation.