Survey posted 2000-10-05 23:39 by Andy Selle.

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I think that the programs should be downloaded by which programs have the most downloads in their particular catergory. You could have the five most downloaded programs for, 89ASM, let's just say. Those five would be on the list. Also, and listen up ticalc, this one's important, EACH CALCULATOR SHOULD HAVE ITS OWN CATERGORY FOR EACH LANGUAGE. Did you hear that? Yeah, meaning the TI-82 has five nominees in BOTH assembly and basic. And not just the 82, but ALL OF THE CALCS. I'll repeat that one more time if you didn't get it. Anyway, this is just my personal-unimportant opinion, but hey. Please reply to this if you agree, I really think that the huge groups of calculators is way too broad. Pretty soon I'll bet there will be two catergories: Z80 and 68k. Wouldn't that be nice?

-Fil's worthless $0.02

I agree with you, but I think that similar calculators should be group together. For example, TI-82/83/83+ BASIC should be one category because these calculators are almost identical (except if you're an asm programmer or a stats student).

TI83 Basic has Strings, which allow smaller tilemaps and Fast ASCIIGraphics, the ti82 lacks that. Ti83 also has zes...

Oops. I forgot about that. You're right, the 82 is too different: it would be very hard to write a string-intensive program like SOLID on the 82. But I do think that 83/83+ BASIC should be one category and also 85/86 and 89/92.

I do see your point, but, although the 82/83/83+ have very similar BASIC languages, they should all be separated. The 82 does not have strings, a VERY good benefit for programming 83 BASIC. And since the 83+ has considerably more memory than the 83, BASIC games could be much larger on the 83+, and would not work on the 83. I stay where I stand, in that each calculator gets to nominate five programs in both ASM and BASIC, based on which five programs have the most downloads out of that catergory.

-Fil and his worthless 2/5 of a nickel

On the other hand, in many cases, the same code can be used on the 82, 83, and 83+. In fact, many programmers (including myself) actually do upload identical code to all three folders. But why should such a program be eligible for 3 POTM nominations?

to solve that problem.....a program can only be nominated for 1 potm......

PsySpy the Chosen and his few cents......

But how will we choose for which caclulator it gets nominated?

If a prog can be for a few different calcs....it should be nominat for the first calc it was uploaded to or whatever one the programmer wants....

PsySpy the Chosen

I agree too

I agree that each category should have its own programs but I disagree about using the top five. When you think about it, aside from the news items, the only reasons that programs will get downloaded more than others is mostly their titles and a bit because of their screenshots (which are all that are posted when they are shown on ticalc.org). You'll have no way of knowing whether the programs are good because you won't be able to tell until after downloading them. I think the only way to accurately measure how good a program is is to have a little dropdown item that lets people *who have used the program* to give it a rating from one to ten.

Yes, yes, very good idea. I think Dimension TI used to have a system like that, where each program would have a rating based on user-inputted ratings. I think this is a better idea than my top-five, seeing as how people will download based on names and screenshots. Your way makes it much more fair. I just hope ticalc is reading this and taking some advice, I guess we'll just wait and see.

-Fil's not-so-good 1% of a nearly-shredded two-dollar bill

>> I just hope ticalc is reading this.

What makes you think that ticalc would NOT be reading this? Do you think Andy posted this survey just for the hell of it?

lol

like screenshots are ever posted...
ok, there's a lot more now, but take the ti-86 for example. very few screen shots. is it because the authors don't upload them & the staff haven't gotten around to making them? no, i've uploaded ss with my progs and they never get there. ¦þ

And then there's games like "The Game Of Life," which I found in one of the TI-86 Games Archives (I think ASM) that I downloaded pretty quickly, but it turned out to be a stupid animation.

well, gee, that's what the "Game of Life" is. Why would you download this one if you didn't know?

Maybe because the person in question thought that the game of life was a board game based on the board game "Life", like I did when I downloaded it. Or have you even heard of Life?
------------------------- -----------------------------
Me and my 1/50 dollar.

Your post has reminded me of days from years past when I was much younger than I now am. For that I thank You.

Thought: How much different from the Game is Life really?

-JrJinfinity

it's not an animation, it's a simulation.
the one under games is there because the people doing filearchives when it was uploaded saw "game" in the title and (appearantly) never bothered to actually see what it was
and when they finish screen-shotting everything, this sort of problem will go away.

11 calculators
-3 (no good programs for 73, 80, and 81)
--
_8
x2 languages (asm and basic)
--
16
+1 (computer utilities)
--
17 categories
x5
--
85 POTM nominees

Isn't that a little too many?

It should only display nominees for calculators that the user claims to own. And there's more than one computer platform, so we might separate for those. But then again, we wouldn't need five Unix nominations each month or, for that matter, Windows, DOS, or whatever other directories they have like that.

Although not everyone would have all 17 categories displayed, there would still be 17 awards, which imho is too many. I would prefer:

1. TI-82/83/83+ games
2. TI-82/83/83+ nongames
3. TI-85/86 games
4. TI-85/86 nongames
5. TI-89/92/92+ games
6. TI-89/92/92+ nongames
7. computer utilities

I don't think there is a need to make a further distinction between asm and basic because the game/nongame distinction pretty much takes care of this.

After reading this and the two comments following it, I think that 85 nominees seems like too many, if it's a monthly thing. Perhaps we should use this system, but change it from Program Of The Month to Program Of The Quarter, or Program Of The Season. I think that with 85 or so nominees a system like this would work better. It would also help to solve that "but what if no good programs come out in (insert randomly generated month here)??" problem. Anyway.

-Fil's four half-cent coins

Since half-cent coins were discontinued 143 years ago, wouldn't your 4*(1/2) cents be worth more than 2 cents by now?

Yes, Yes they would.

They are only worth more than 2 cents to collectors. The bank/U.S government would redeem them for one half-cent each.

And then the government would go and sell them to collectors for big bucks, and probably raise taxes to help support coin-collectors or something.

-Fil and his two pennies

The government wouldn't sell them. As soon as the bank teller received them, he/she would probably buy them from his/her coin tray with his/her own money. Bank tellers can do that, they see a coin they want such as a quarter, they can just exchange it with a quarter from their pocket. Your half cents would never leave the bank teller. (Unless they are hiring stupid people because of the low unemployment rate and lack of help)

But how would they be able to? If you took one of these coins to your bank, how could they credit half a cent to your account?

They would probably force you to give them to them in pairs.

Or, you could buy a stock. Despite the decimalization of our currency in 1792, stocks are still priced in bits ($(1/8) or 12.5¢) and half-bits (6.25¢). If a stock is priced at something and 1/8, you can spend that half-cent coin by buying one share.

However, the stock exchanges are starting to convert to decimals. Already, a few major stocks have made the switch, and in a year or two (or more!) all stocks will be priced just like our currency. So you better spend those half cents now! :)

What about brokerage commissions, too? I'm sure they round up to the nearest cent for the total charge. You probably would need to buy the stock yourself. I don't think you have enough money to buy a seat on the exchange, though.

i prefer to make my own. i have a quarter cent piece right here, in fact.

just use one of those things they use to cut copper-clad circuit boards to chop a penny in half.

How about just scraping the copper coating off a newer penny, and just disolve the zinc out of it? It is pretty cool, because I have done it myself. Unfortunalty the copper shell left over is pretty brittle, and cracks/breaks pretty easily.

Or how about electroplating a nickel with copper, it looks pretty cool.

This may sound stupid, but how do you electroplate a nickel?