RISC OS Awards

At some point in the near future, I need to start thinking about the next Awards poll. I’m not at the point where I can compile my own list (for one thing, I need to work through my unread feeds etc and compile a snippets post for RISCOSitory of bits and pieces that haven’t been sent to me).

But rather than my usual method of listing my nominations, then post it here and asking for comments and suggestions – why not start making suggestions now? So suggest away, folks.

My initial list, when I get to that point, will as ever be based on things that have been posted on RISCOSitory – and there may very will be some degree of overlap with what’s suggested here and what I come up with.

Related to that, the surveys: I have (at long last) spent a little time on the the 2014 (!) responses; I now have a draft page sitting on my hard drive with the numbers and pie charts. I just need to think about adding some words, then I can put it online. (2014, of course, was the year when the number of responses was only around 100.)

Well, if RO on Pinebook doesn’t get an award there are no working braincells around this neck of the woods…
Drop into a category and then forget about adding anything else in that category so nothing else suffers.

Ah, yes “Best new RO laptop”

Drop into a category and then forget about adding anything else in that category so nothing else suffers.

Hmm, that’s Brexit style democracy.

While I can’t afford one, I’m very pleased to see RISC OS on a proper laptop style device. I think “about bloody time” sums it up. I mean, Acorn only ever produced one laptop profile machine, way back when dinosaurs roamed the land and duked it out with Viking gods just for amusement…

Stick it into “Best new hardware” and let the people decide. After all, we have what else in there that would compare with “A PROPER RISC OS LAPTOP”? ;-)

BTW, Vince, did you ever actually post the results of the 2017 awards? ;-)

Stick it into “Best new hardware” and let the people decide.

This is an interesting dilemma. As yet, it hasn’t been released – so it can’t go in the “Best hardware” category (note there’s no “new” in there). It’s more appropriate for the “Best new development” category – where it would compete with some other recent big news. :)

I suppose at a stretch, it could go in “Most innovative or interesting project” – but I think that would be a stretch.

BTW, Vince, did you ever actually post the results of the 2017 awards? ;-)

Umm… do you mean these results? Also posted on this other little site I run. :p

While I can’t afford one, I’m very pleased to see RISC OS on a proper laptop style device.

Isn’t it a Pinebook? I thought those were very inexpensive for a laptop, something like $99 if I remember correctly.

Isn’t it a Pinebook? I thought those were very inexpensive for a laptop, something like $99 if I remember correctly.

I’m afraid dollars don’t “cut must mustard” in Europe – at least for the moment!

Rick does what he does to survive in his family home in France, but he ain’t what you could call over-endowded with wealth!

He contributes a lot – but … obviously, within constraints, many of which may be financial!

So cut him some slack!

I apologise if I came across as rude. My intention in asking was because I wasn’t actually sure of what the price actually was. I was actually interested in buying a Pinebook some time ago, long before the news about RISC OS being ported to it, but I couldn’t find anywhere that was selling it so I gave up. I’ve become interested again after hearing the recent news.

I absolutely didn’t mean to suggest that Rick was somehow failing to contribute by not buying a pinebook, I didn’t expect my post to be taken that way.

I wasn’t thinking about Rick’s financial situation at all, now that you’ve said that I can understand that a lot of people can’t simply spend $99 at any random moment, and I apologise again.

And despite the $99 hardware price, I think I saw £399 mentioned at the show for a RISC OS model. Developing the drivers etc isn’t cheap!

at least for the moment!

What do you mean “for the moment”? I dream of a day when the price of something on this side of the ocean takes into account exchange rates, and isn’t simply a case of switching currency symbols.
[that said, the UK is no stranger to this con – I’ve been watching some stuff on Amazon and as the pound fell post Brexit, the price in Euros went up (even though a weaker pound would mean a euro buys more)]

Rick does what he does to survive in his family home in France

Oh yes, it’s hard living here – Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My!

he ain’t what you could call over-endowded with wealth!

Is anybody “normal”?
The poor stay poor​, the rich get rich. That’s how it goes, everybody knows.

obviously, within constraints, many of which may be financial!

Let’s not forget the psychological – you know, that part where I dress up as a little girl and run around screaming about jazz police shooting poison custard. Well, I’m not a walrus perched upon this broken hill so it stands to reason. Simply whisper words of wisdom in the hope that I may hear you. But, can you hear me, through the dark night, far away?

So cut him some slack!

…and have fun deciphering what you just read.

Unfortunately life on earth is kinda expensive but at least it does include a free trip around the sun every year.

And more whizzily still, a free trip around the world every day!

Best antispam hardware: Dave Higton

Dave you must be sick of doing that by now.

Best antispam hardware: Dave Higton

I think Dave should be awarded the Golden Mallet for his unending Whack-A-Mole with the spambots.

Best antispam hardware: Dave Higton

Possibly a slightly ironic item, but Dave wrote the original !AntiSpam mail fetch application.

Best antispam hardware: Dave Higton

:-)

It’s nice to be appreciated – thank you.

Dave you must be sick of doing that by now.

I think Dave should be awarded the Golden Mallet for his unending Whack-A-Mole with the spambots.

My wife is fed up of me being constantly on my phone deleting this stuff. She thinks I have a smartphone obsession. But really I have a thing (and have had for some years) about cleaning up spam – as Steve P points out.

The little bastards seem to be getting in thicker and faster these days. We may have to take some more measures to foil them.

Dave, if it’d help, I’d be quite happy to delete any spam posts I see during my regular visits to the site but I don’t have the admin power. I often see them and want to help, but… I promise to use the power only for good ;)

More cleaners can only be helpful, I’m sure – but I can’t give you admin powers, you would have to request them from the ROOL guys.

More cleaners can only be helpful, I’m sure – but I can’t give you admin powers, you would have to request them from the ROOL guys.

There were a number of offers back at the time they gave you access.
ROOL made a judgement then which I think left a lot of work for few hands.
Perhaps they’d like to reconsider.

I finally did that final ‘snippets’ post today, so I’ll finish working through the year on RISCOSitory to produce my draft list of nominations, er, “RSN”.

I’ve been kept a bit busy over my Christmas ‘break’ unfortunately – and I’m back to normal work tomorrow, so I’ll hopefully finish that job this weekend, if nothing comes up.

I was being a bit crafty by starting this thread, hoping it would bring to light other news items that I’d not seen. Ah well. :)

I don’t know how practical this is, but given this timing means the SW Show will take place during the time the poll will be running, I wonder if I can set up a way for people to cast their votes at the show? (Really, I just need to set up a computer with an internet connection – if I have the space.)

Something came up and I became a bit busy – and for various reasons, I’ve since become busier still. :( But I’ve plugged away at it when I could, and now have a draft list:

Discuss, suggest, complain… whatever. As usual, I’ll weigh up what’s said, explain my reasoning if necessary, change my mind, stick with my original ideas, ignore suggestions, take suggestions on board, etc., and eventually produce the poll.

(Includes some edits on 22/1/2019 and 8/2/2019)

Best commercial software

• FamTree – Chris Hall
• NetFetch 5 and Messenger Pro 8 – R-Comp (Although these are two distinct products, recent development work and features saw some overlap, so this time around it seems reasonable to nominate them jointly)
• ArtWorks2 – MW Software (It’s been pointed out to me that the last new version was late 2017, and if it’s included it’s likely to be the ‘default winner’ – so better to give a chance to things that have been released or updated)
• Prophet – Elesar Ltd (for Apricote / Accountz)
• RiscOSM – Sine Nomine
• Organizer – North One Communications

Best non-commercial software

My full list for this one is still way too long, but glancing down it, I’m thinking:

• MapView – Thomas Milius
• USB joystick driver – Richard Walker
• Tamarc – Fred Graute
• RDSP – AMCOG
• TextSeek – Harriet Bazley
• Uptime – Chris Mahooney Mahoney

Other contenders include CPUClock by Chris Johnson and Pi-TopUtils by Jon Abbott – but in both of those cases the audience is platform-limited, which may in turn affect the numbers likely to vote for them; they’d be starting out with a disadvantage.

Also suggested in the thread below: NetSurf

Best game or diversion

• Island of the Undead – AMCOG
• Super Methane Brothers – Cameron Crawley (update)
• Dickie Brickie – Jeroen Vermeulen
• Manic Miner – Latest update by Rob Sprowson
• Quake Resurrection – R-Comp
• Koi-koi – Rick Murray

Best hardware

• Ident CE – Ident Computer
• Raspberry Pi 3B+ – the Foundation
• Wispy CE – Ident / RISCOSbits
• RaspberryRO Lite OR Pi-TopRO v2 – CJE
• mini.m – R-Comp

Best solution for backwards compatibility

• The usual list – ADFFS, Aemulor, ArcEm, ArchiEmu, RPCEmu, VRPC

Best new development

• (Reinstated with modified wording) Work on a port to the ASUS Tinker Board, which has led laptop development work – Michael Grunditz
• Graphics Acceleration on ARMX6 – Adrian Lees / R-Comp
• RISC OS 5 being fully open sourced under the Apache licence – RISC OS Dev
• A new AcornSSL – ROOL
• (Possibly, depending on the flick of a coin…) RISC OS 5 being available from NOOBS again, in time for the open source announcement (ROOL/ROD)

Best show of initiative

• Including a user guide with Titanium boards – Elesar (I was in two minds about this; it’s useful for new users to have a nice, printed manual – but on the other hand, how many people new to RISC OS are likely to buy something like Titanium?)
• For acquiring Castle, and with it RISC OS 5 – RISC OS Developments
• For deciding to move the SW show to somewhere more accessible for the next one (a few weeks time, folks!) – R-Comp / Orpheus
• For combining forces rather than compete – RISCOSbits / Ident
• For a series of announcements at the end of 2018, including a new programming contest – David Feugey/RISC OS FR
• For stepping in with a solution to the controversial ‘right click on the Switcher icon’ issue – Fred Graute (by highlighting this, of course, I’m just trolling ROOL ;) )

Best website / online resource

• WIMP programming video tutorials – James Hobson
• HTML to RISC OS colour conversion tool – Tim Hill
• Archive-online
• Acorn News Service
• ROOL website and forum
• Icon Bar

Also suggested below: Stardot, but what to pull? I’m thinking the video turotials

Best publication or offline resource

• The new RISC OS 5 User Guide
• Archive magazine
• Drag ’n Drop magazine
• GAG News
• Frobnicate (all issues of which are now online)
• The WROCC

Best foreign language resouce

• The usual suspects: Arcsite.de, Big Ben Club website, RISCOS.fr, Steffen Huber’s blog, GAG News

Best show or event

• As per: Acorn World, London Show, Recursion, RISC OS eXperience, Southwest Show, Wakefield Show

Most innovating or interesting project

• Andrew Conroy for his various LED / Pi projects (shown at SW Show)
• Richard Ashbery for updaing Jan Vibe’s graphics (also shown at SW Show – on my stand)
• R-Comp and Michael Grunditz for the native RISC OS laptop project
• Raik Fischer for starting work on a movie editing application
• University of Cantabria – for an unexpected programming resource (UCDebug) from an unexpected source!
• Michael Grunditz for the his work on the port of RISC OS to the ASUS Tinker Board moved from the best new development category Moved back to the best new development category with a change of wording.

Best over all contributor

• Text field as usual

Broken cog

• R-Comp for their GDPR notice (refer to my post on RISCOSitory to understand why I’ve highlighted this – sorry Andrew!)
• Archive magazine for its publishing schedule
• Me for being so behind (as usual)
• CJE for not appearing at the Southwest Show (I know Chris had his reasons, but I’ve still noted it as a contender for this)
• Andrew Conroy for trying to hide behind an piece of paper when I was wandering around with my camera at Wakefield.
• RISC OS Open for still not having a 5.26 (Apache licensed) version on the downloads page.

There are way too many categories. Some overlap, for example, “Best Show of Initiative” overlaps with just about every category except “Broken Cog”. One would expect all the winners in other categories to exhibit a good show of initiative. You will end up with as many categories as voters!

Why “Best foreign language resource”? Isn’t an OS supposed to be international, and so, at least, drop the “foreign”. Either all languages are “foreign” or none are. Better still, just delete this category.

I would also suggest dropping “Most innovating or interesting project” and “Best New Development” on the grounds of overlap with other, better defined, categories. this would still leave 10 categories.

Generally, people are put off surveys that are too long, asking too many questions and don’t complete them.

Best website has got to include StarDot, and maybe the Acorn Computers Enthusiasts group on Facebook (ick) too.

I know it’s been on there loads of times, but what about NetSurf in the non-commercial category.

Why “Best foreign language resource”?

It’s a nod to the fact that RISC OS is still extremely Anglo-centric and that, yes, the rest of the world exists…

Isn’t an OS supposed to be international,

Come back when I can call my mp3 “鬼束ちひろ – シンドローム” like I can on everything else (including my ancient Zen player).
Doubly so given that switching to UTF-8 under RISC OS breaks messages written in Latin1 because alphabet choice is a binary thing.
We won’t even mention the shortcomings of FontManager for more complex scripts…

and so, at least, drop the “foreign”.

I support the use of the “foreign” category. It gives a chance for non English resources to be considered.

but what about NetSurf in the non-commercial category.

I think the idea is to reflect the past year, hence why my Koi-Koi is listed this year but Manga (winner last year) isn’t.

Uptime – Chris Mahooney

Only one “O” :)

It’s good to hear that at least someone finds Uptime useful! I still need to get around to adding a SWI interface one of these days…