I sent 2 files to ticalc.org on the 3rd, and today is the 8th and my files are not there. WHAT THE F*** IS THEIR PROBLEM?! And if they don't have them on next Monday, Screw this website. They even had an update today. This is so f***ed up.

I'm seriously considering abandoning TICalc as well. I submitted my 3D program TWICE, as I said in an earlier post, and I submitted it AGAIN TODAY. Meaning they deleted it TWICE. I don't know who the hell is in charge of the archives, but try getting your act together!!

You guys should consider sending an e-mail to Magnus about your files ... and make it polite and civil. I don't think that Magnus (or any other members of the archive staff) want hate mail.

I sent one to the file archivers.

Kerm: Damn. If it took you 2 1/2 YEARS to make a 3.89 KB program, I really feel sorry for you.

DoorsXP has some serious bugs. For example, the 'program list with 16 entries' requires you to go in and edit the code yourself, in two separate programs, if you don't just want the 16 programs *you* specified.

Your password program is useless. Once again, people can just hit ON to break the program execution.

The 'SELF-INSTALLING' screen is phony. Here's the source:

Text(0,10,"WELCOME TO DOORS XP
Text(10,25,"A TI OS SHELL
Text(20,10,"MADE BY KERM MARTIAN
Text(40,20,"SELF-INSTALLING...
Horizontal -10
Horizontal -2
Line(-5,-8,5,-8
Line(-5,-6,5,-6
Line(-5,-8,-5,-6
Line(5,-8,5,-6
For(X,-5,5,.1
Line(X,-8,X,-6
For(A,1,randInt(1,40
End
End

It just increments a number randomly until it hits 40! IT DOES NOTHING!!! surprise!

The same with the LOADING RESOURCES screen! Just a 'for' loop using 'line'!

"Restart". What?? Go to the label at the beginning of the program? DAMMIT! That's NOTHING!!!

Text(20,10,"RENTERING CALC MODE...
Wonderful spelling.

After running the 'shell' on VTI, I came to this conclusion: it's NOT A SHELL. It's a shortcut menu for 16 programs that have to be entered in by hand. and a buggy one at that.

So how about it, Kerm? Your response? ass.

You know, you should seriously give Kerm a break. I think by now everybody's gotten the point that you don't like him. So stop it while you're ahead.
And so what if his program isn't the best shell around ... what did you expect from a BASIC program anyway? 64 million colors? 1000 fps? Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound?
And besides, it's hard to write BASIC programs that large. There are always bound to be errors in that much code and it always takes a bit of time to code. I'm pretty darn sure that Kerm didn't code 24/7 with absolutely no errors.

I think the point he was getting at was when it was "loading" it was just a delay loop.

which is a waste of time and RAM

Yeah, I forgot to concede that point to nightrose. Then again, I was kind of pissed off at nightrose for continually picking on Kerm (this is a COMMUNITY, not politics where everybody cuts everybody's else's throats (OK, that was a little harsh on politicians, but it's true to a certain extent), you're supposed to provide CONSTRUCTIVE criticism)

Oh, and admit it, Kerm's human. And human programmers don't usually have the longest attention spans when it comes to programming, especially when it's done for free. I'm pretty sure Kerm worked on other things during that 2 1/2 year period.

The point isn't that I'm angry at Kerm because I dislike him. The point is that he LIES about what his programs are. He said that this is a shell. ALL it does it launch 16 pre-defined programs from a popup menu! Nothing else! The rest of his code is just a bunch of deceptive graphics stuff.

If someone in junior high/high school/whatever he's in doesn't have the free time to code UNDER 4 BYTES of BASIC code PER DAY (which is what 2.5 years for 3.89 KB means), then how is he EVER going to release an assembly version?

I don't dislike Kerm. I dislike the fact that he LIES about things like this:

1. It didn't take you 2 1/2 years to make. Nobody codes at <5 bytes per day. Even if you were to take a semi-random sampling of what a person wrote by hand in a day, more than 5 bytes of it will compile/run in SOME language. My TI-89 shell (which IS a shell, since it can attempt run ANY file on the calculator of ANY type, with however many arguments are needed) is 7.15 KB. It took me less than TWO WEEKS to write. even if you were to say that you were one-tenth as good a coder as I am, you could have written THIS version of DoorsXP nearly five times over in 2 1/2 years.

2. You shouldn't lie about what your programs really are. Doors XP BASIC isn't a shell, Kerm; it's just a prog launcher. If you were to cut out all the unnecessary code, it would be <1KB. probably <=400 bytes.

3. You need to stop trying to get peoples' hopes up. You tell us that you're working on some wonderful, beautiful program that can do amazing things; and yet, the only sign you give us that you've seriously considered working on it at all is 1) a bit of ASM code that doesn't compile, or 2) a bunch of empty reassurances.

If Kerm would stop trying to convince everyone that Doors XP is so wonderful - when it doesn't even exist yet - I would stop razzing on him. until then, I will continue to say things like this. Because they're true.

In total, I've spent about 10 hours over those 2.5 years creating this ..um.. "shell" (you seem to want it in quotes). I actually have a _life_ outside TICalc.org. Oh, and if you look at www.ticalc.org/pub/83/programs, all those "shells" are far worse in terms of being useless...

you have a life outside programming?? *gasp* I DON'T!

you're right, some of those shells may be bad, but I think what people want is more time on a program, vs. a predefined program launcher. I haven't seen the code yet, so I should stay quiet about it, but.... I could download it.

wtf is a 'life'?

I heard all about it by some person who apparently has one. Sounds scary. I don't like leaving the computer chair, myself... though, I have to go to the bathroom every now and then.

All right, then... I just know that when most people say it took them 2 1/2 years to write a program, they mean that they were going at it for at least 20, 30 minutes a day that whole time. It would have been more accurate to simply say "I spent a total of about 10 hours making this", which seems a lot less like a deception.

I'm going to be quiet now. At least you have something, when all you had before was just claims. Now I'm looking forward to see what you have to offer.

That's true enough.
Has anybody noticed that the frauds haven't shown their heads in a LONG time (so OK, it's only been a few days, but that's a kind of long time, methinks)?

I bet they're all the same person. Really. Did you notice that KermMartiain and _lord_nightriose_' and _no_one_2000_' all have something in common? Either they added an i or an underscore. All except "ac". But, I think they're all the same person and it makes me MAD!

Just wondering, if you have a life outside of ticalc, why are you ranked 25th on the alltime busiest authors list. You have to take a lot of time to write and submit all seventy something of those programs.

Well, it's not really that hard; it's possible, since he's been working on this particular program over a period of two years, that during that time he a) had a life, and/or b) programmed other things.

choice a) and b)

i've been around here for a while. and frankly, free or not, what you do is unacceptable.

tict.ticalc.org
pad.calc.org
gforce.calc.org

These are role models. Stop talking about your upcoming programs, and start learning some assembly. Assembly is very hard to learn. Bullshit is not.

I suggest you apologize if indeed you have fake installation screens in your program. Look at it this way: if you can't improve what is currently on the market (aka if you cannot improve upon the work of Michael Vincent, Joe W., and others like them), then there is no point in releasing a crappy program nobody will want to use. I don't see good programmers like Patrick, Michael, Greg, and Tom bragging about their upcoming programs. Their programs are usually received so well BECAUSE they kept the release low key, but then produced a very HIGH QUALITY product.

STOP PROGRAMMING IN BASIC. IT IS WORTHLESS. Basic is meant to program math functions. NOT shells, graphics, games, etc. These can be infinitely better implemented via assembly.

OK, before the flame wars start again, I want to clarify some things on behalf of Kerm. First, it's nice to have role models and the such, but it is not necessary to improve on the works of others to be good. If that was all we did, we wouldn't have too many of the conveniences of modern life that we now take for granted (i.e., computers, electricity, etc.) Second, Kerm IS learning assembly (actually, I think he might already know it). If you had taken the time to read half of the posts on the first page, you would have realized that the PS/2 mouse driver is in assembly. And if you did indeed read those posts, I would have to say that you wouldn't know assembly code if it came up to you and ground you into your constituent atoms. Third, I wouldn't make an extreme comment like BASIC is worthless. That can raise a lot of hell from BASIC advocates, which doesn't contribute much to the community. Finally, what you're doing is only discouraging Kerm from doing what he likes - programming. So what if he writes programs that nobody likes (not saying that's true, just an example) at least he's doing SOMETHING. Instead of joining a street gang or participating in crime, Kerm is doing something constructive - programming. And you know what? He might just program something that will allow him to join the ranks of Michael Vincent, Patrick Davidson, Thomas N. and the others. So do everybody a favor and don't flame Kerm.

And I probably seem like Kerm's lawyer. I haven't been asked by him to represent him, but heck, I'll do it anyway.

For you to say BASIC is worthless shows just how little you know about the language.

I suspect that you haven't been around that long. All I had to do was search for your name on the 'search' page. The earliest your name appears was in the August 2002 news item Thomas Williamson releases King of the Fighters 2. stop making claims that can be so easily refuted.

Do you have anything submitted? If not, shut up about people's work being unacceptable. You have nothing to compare.

you think that putting a news item about a program's release is low-key?

BASIC has many advantages over ASM:
1. much less likely to totally screw yourself over
2. FASTER to code
3. easier to do graphics routines
4. easier to do math routines
5. easier to do... anything (even if it's less flexible with what you actually CAN do)
6. can be edited in a READABLE fashion (i.e. you don't have to memorize dozens of hex codes to edit it on the calculator)
7. can be easily ported to any system

be careful what you say.

(to add to what you just said)

What if you're in a math class and you have to find the Mean Absolute Deviation of lots of lists (sorry, couldn't think of a better example)? Without BASIC, you couldn't write a quick program to solve it for you and you'd have to either do it by hand or use the functions on the calculator to do it for you (which can still take a considerable amount of time).

Disp mean(abs(L1-(mean(L1))))

Without BASIC, your life would be harder.

(addendum to the addendum)
Besides, most (if not all) programmers start out programming in BASIC. At some point, all programmers had to learn a language. And that language was usually BASIC. And many times, it was BASIC that led them to decide to program. If you ask me, BASIC definitely is worthless when it inspires programmers to BECOME programmers.

That code is all fine by me, I've made programs before that have stuff like that, its just to make it look cool, but 2.5 years?!