Survey posted 2005-12-19 21:48 by Jon.

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PowerComPress (still)

Yes. Before PCP, my catalog took 7 seconds to load (I timed it with a stopwatch). Because I was able to use PCP to compress away a few of the larger packages that I didn't use on a daily basis (anageom, multivariable folder, FDI, etc), I was able to reduce catalog load time down to a more reasonable 2-3 seconds. I also benefited from the extra memory, both ram (VAT entries?), and from archive (Because it compresses).

Great piece of software!

Thank you very much!

Very useful utility! With a very nice and professional looking graphical interface.

I wish grav was in there

ya, grav pwns all.

M4r10. Everyone knows it is the best. Denying the fact that you're addicted to it shouldn't mean that you don't vote for it. Graphics, gameplay, replayability, stability, this game has it all. You know it. Vote what you know.

Sumo wrestling: Unstable

GB68K: Can't play most popular games.

TEXAS fighters: Unfinished, low replayability

FlashZ Bomberman: Utterly unoriginal

PowerComPress: Uninteresting technical achievement

Platinum Edition for TI-92: A centuries old game that has already hogged the limelight

M4r10 has none of these problems. Vote for the best program of the year!

for me sumo isnt unstable AT ALL, and M4r10 is REALLY unstable. i had to patch it with ghostbuster for my titanium even though it said it was comatible and even then it still freezes my calc. if this problem was fixed then MAYBE it would have a chance against the alimighty sumo, but thats still a maybe.

That was the first version. The current version should be working perfectly.

I guess I shouldn't have uploaded an early and unstable version.

ya im using the new version. itll work fine for a while, then sometimes it will freeze during the game, and other times it will freeze after i play the game and try to turn off the calc. the new version isnt as buggy as the first one was for me tho.

Okay. I'll investigate.

Didn't find anything, it works perfectly well for me.
Too bad :(

ya, too bad for me. ill never enjoy playing m4r10 without my calc freezing. sux 4 me :(

What AMS version do you have installed? What TSR's do you have installed? Have you tried it with M4r10's files being the only thing on the calculator? Have you tried playing M4r10 after a fresh reset? How about after clearing the RAM&archive memory?

All good questions to ask.

My take on that:

> M4r10.
JfG won last year, do you really want him to win AGAIN?

> Sumo wrestling: Unstable
Not for me. I think it's the best game to pick.

> GB68K: Can't play most popular games.
You must have tested an old version. The best non-game to pick. Too bad (and that's really its only weakness) there are legal issues with most Game Boy ROMs (there are only a few high-quality freeware ROMs, Sqrxz for example).

> TEXAS fighters: Unfinished, low replayability
I agree.

> FlashZ Bomberman: Utterly unoriginal
I agree. The nth Bomberman clone won last year, now we have the (n+1)st.

> PowerComPress: Uninteresting technical achievement
I must say I agree. Nothing against saubue, but it isn't what I'd give a POTY to.

> Platinum Edition for TI-92: A centuries old game that has already hogged the limelight
That's a funny way to say it, but I agree.

> M4r10 has none of these problems. Vote for the best program of the year!
:s/M4r10/Sumo Wrestling/g :p
I didn't test it myself yet, but judging from the other reply you got, M4r10 is probably the more unstable of the 2, so accusing Sumo Wrestling of being unstable is just unfair.

>> M4r10.
>JfG won last year, do you really want him to win AGAIN?

We are voting for programs, not authors. That is irrelevant.

>I didn't test it myself yet, but judging from the other reply you got, M4r10 is probably the more unstable of the 2, so accusing Sumo Wrestling of being unstable is just unfair.

If we judge stability by number of replies on ticalc.org, as you seem to, then they are equally stable.

Wow, this is really competitive. besides,

>> M4r10.
>JfG won last year, do you really want him to win AGAIN?

What kind of comeback is that?
Look, the're just programs for calculators. I say we should give thanks to the authors who spend months working on these programs.

>JfG won last year, do you really want him to win AGAIN?

yes?

LOL

Oh, and you also forgot krodakus's Kirby. What's your beef with that?

Too bad for Astrosmash... Although not technically advanced, it is a very fun and addicting game. It is bug free as far as I can tell or from what I have heard. I guess sticking with the original 1981 graphics was a bad choice...

NOT! I love those old graphics ;-)

Good luck to the remaining contestants! I'll try again next year.

Indeed, it is a very good game that makes lots of fun. Maybe it would have made it to the finals if it would start with a letter that comes after 'M'

that game ROCKED! actually I have all of these games on my '89 and this is the one I play the most

You should really make a v200/92+ version.

I guess I could do that... You are the first to request it ;)

>PowerComPress: Uninteresting technical achievement

You aren't a power user, are you? ;)

IMHO, while the nominated games are VERY impressive, I find that a powerful utility deserves more merit in most cases--while games are entertaining, they don't do much to expand the technical capabilities of calculators.

But then again, maybe I shouldn't talk--the only programs I wrote that were nominated for POTY were games! I stand by my vote, though...

maybe just a titanium user. I never find my self running out of space.

KOMP, shrnklib, ziplib, pepzip, xPak, zipfile, and I'm sure I missed some. A powerful utility it may be, but it sure isn't new, and it sure doesn't offer much innovation over some of the ones I listed above, specifically KOMP xPak and pepzip. The author himself has said that the compression has a worse ratio than Pepzip, but is faster to compress and decompress.

I have nothing against Saubue, and I think he did a fine job with this program. I do not, however, think it was innovative or any particular improvement over the previous generation.

- better compression ratio than KOMP.
- not command-line-only like pepzip
- support for GroupFiles (splitting, extracting single files etc.)
- file browser for easy managing of GroupFiles
- additional options like deleting the original files
...

I think that PowerComPress is innovative, although the idea of compressing files to save space is very old.

- not command-line-only like pepzip
- file browser for easy managing of GroupFiles

Doesn't a GUI completely go against the purpose of a compression program? It wastes space, where the entire point of compression is to save space. It is really not that difficult to type in the name of whatever you want to compress.

- additional options like deleting the original files

A BASIC program could do this very easily if someone was really that lazy.

- better compression ratio than KOMP.

Good job :-)

- support for GroupFiles (splitting, extracting single files etc.)

I agree that this is nice feature, but it was already accomplished in FLib (perhaps not some of these more obscure features with GroupFiles, but what is the point of grouping together files which do not belong together? Isn't the point of grouping files to keep large BASIC programs with many seperate files as one big file?)

Doesn't a GUI completely go against the purpose of a compression program?

Of course, the GUI makes the program larger. But what about compression programs on the PC (WinRAR, WinZip etc.)? They have a GUI, and I it is useful.

I agree that this is nice feature, but it was already accomplished in FLib

Yes, but you have to group them first and then compress them (or the other way round)

but what is the point of grouping together files which do not belong together?

I don't see your point. The user can freely choose what files he wants to add.
Let me give a short example: Let's say that a user has got a folder where he stores all his study-cards for the corresponding Flash-App by TI, but he doesn't need them all the time. With PowerComPress, he can easily compress this folder into a single GroupFile and automatically delete the original cards. If he wants to use them, he just decompresses the group and he can use them again. Unlike command-line-programs like pepzip, the decompressed files will have the original name and location after decompressing.

I think Saubue took an old idea and truely innovated it! I am glad to see PowerComPress in the finals!

M4r10 has gameplay and replayability? it seemed to me to be the same thing over and over, I was soon bord whith it.

Some games are very addictive even though they are repetitive (tetris?). I hope this is the case for M4r10.

Personally, I think M4r10 is the best game I made because it requires lot's of improvisation as well as lot's of skill. Dodging an icicle and a turtle by a pixel while jumping from a frozen plateform to hit a fireball is very enjoyable ;-)
Unfortunatelly, you need to be pretty good to even begin to appreciate the game.

But I am not criticizing your post since you said "I think that this game is..." instead of "This game is...", and I perfectly well understand that people have different tastes.

>Unfortunatelly, you need to be pretty good to even begin to appreciate the game.
this could be the problem also I could have had a poor understanding of how to play.

you also might think its the best game because you made it. o_0

Please finish reading his post correctly before you start thinking of your clever comeback.

He said "I think M4r10 is the best game I made", not "I think M4r10 is the best game EVAR IN TEH WH0L3 WYRLD".

mah bad mah bad, i read the whole post i just "misread" it. theres a difference

Yes, there is a difference, that's why I said "finish reading his post correctly" and not just "finish reading his post". You really didn't score well in reading comprehension in school, did you?

He apologized... The continued insult is not necessary.

When people make up "bug reports" right at the time of the POTY, without reporting them before, and without providing any information whatsoever other than "It freezes!", an insult is always necessary. Besides, he continued to insist that I was wrong with his "theres a difference" comment.

Maybe we need to have a "Bug Reporting Lesson".

- What version of the program are you using?
- Describe the bug.
- Is the bug repeatable? When? How?
- What AMS are you using?
- What hardware version are you using?
- How much free RAM do you have?
- How much free FLASH do you have?
- What other programs do you have installed?
- Do you have any TSRs defined?

For more advanced testers, I would also want to know the largest block of free RAM.

Did I miss anything?

This is a great idea. Good work!

It probably falls under "- What other programs do you have installed?", but it might be nice to specifically answer "- What Flash Applications do you have installed?" also.

Agreed... More detail is always better.