The RISC OS Awards poll for 2016 was brought to a close on 29th February. As before, the results were processed and counted on a RISC OS computer (using a home-brewed program to turn the votes into a file for each category, ready to be loaded into Fireworkz), and initially announced on the @RISCOSitory Twitter feed. Those results are now online on the RISC OS Awards website and the various winners have been notified – where possible – by email.
The poll was opened on 18th December, so people had about two and a half months in order to cast their votes – and in that period, there were 147 valid entries, which is a decrease on the 161 votes received for the 2015 poll and therefore somewhat disappointing.
The format this year was exactly the same as last year, with each category offering up to six nominations, along with an option to vote for something else (with an accompanying text field), and an option to note vote in that category. This format has shown itself to be successful and will be used again – and to that end, this year a program was written to generate the voting form from a CSV file, making it that much easier to set up in future.
So, with the preamble out of the way, it’s time to say congrats to the winners and some notable runners up. And those are as follows:
Best commercial software
The nominations were CloudFS, Fireworkz Pro, Impression-X, Organizer, PhotoDesk, and RiscOSM.
And the winner, with 33% of the vote, is RiscOSM, from Sine Nomine – an application that brings OpenStreetMap data to the RISC OS desktop.
A notable second place goes to CloudFS, from Elesar Ltd, with 24%.
Best non-commercial software
The nominations were DplngScan, Ovation, Pluto, PS2Paper, SatNav, and StrongED.
And the winner, with 24% of the vote, is StrongED, from Fred Graute – a very comprehensive text and general file editor.
A close second place goes to DplngScan, from Chris Johnson (and previously a commercial product by David Pilling) with 21%.
Best game or diversion
The nominations were Darkplaces Quake 1 engine, Final Doom with high quality MP3 music, Moptops, Star Fighter 3000, and Oh no! More Lemmings.
And the winner, with 27% of the vote, is Moptops, from Amcog Games – a lemmings-inspired game from a relative newcomer to the RISC OS community.
A very close second place goes to Oh! No! More Lemmings, given a new lease of life thanks to Jon Abbott’s Archimedes Software Preservation Project, with 25% – and a notable third goes to Final Doom with MP3 music, from R-Comp, with 21%.
Best hardware
The nominations were Micro One, pi-topRO, PiSSD, Raspberry Pi 3, RISCBook Go!, and Titanium.
And the winner, with 44% of the vote, is Titanium, from Elesar Ltd – a platform designed by Rob Sprowson with RISC OS in mind.
Second place, with 26%, goes to the Raspberry Pi 3, from the Raspberry Pi Foundation.
Best solution for backwards compatibility
The nominations were ADFFS, Aemulor, ArcEm, ArchiEmu, RPCEmu, and VirtualRiscPC.
And the winner, with 35% of the vote, is Aemulor, from Adrian Lees and spellings.net, which provides a means to run old software that hasn’t been updated for new platforms.
Second place goes to RPCEmu, from Matthew and Peter Howkins, with 23%.
Best new development
The nominations were a cheaper downloadable VirtualRiscPC, CloudFS, HDMI audio on ARMX6, Micro One, the ability to use GPS, and completion of RISC OS Open’s JPEG bounty.
And the winner, with 38% of the vote, is completion of RISC OS Open Ltd’s JPEG bounty., which brings support to the OS for newer JPEG formats.
Second place goes to CloudFS, from Elesar Ltd, with 19%.
Best show of initiative
The nominations were Chris Hall for his GPS work, Elesar Ltd for CloudFS, Paul Emerton for his BBC Media preservation work, the Raspberry Pi Foundation for giving away a computer on a magazine cover, Tim Hill for his RISC OS events calendar, and David Feugey/RISC OS FR for the ongoing Raspberry Pi contest.
And the winner, with 35% of the vote, is David Feugey/RISC OS FR, for the competition, through which David is helping encourage development for the platform.
Joint runners up with 19% each were Chris Hall for his GPS project, and Elesar Ltd for CloudFS.
Best website or online resource
The nominations were Archive-online, Acorn News Service, RISC OS Open website and forum, RISC OS Packaging Project and repositories, riscos.info, and PlingStore.
And the winner, with 62% of the vote, is the RISC OS Open website and forum, the central repository for the OS itself (and sources), and the place those developing for the OS tend to be found.
Second place in this category went to PlingStore with 14%.
Best publication or offline resource
The nominations in this category were Archive magazine, Drag ‘n Drop magazine, GAG News, Mobile Unleashed (a book about ARM’s first 25 years), and the DDE Manuals box set from RISC OS Open.
And the winner, with 44% of the vote, is Archive magazine, which although suffering from a greatly reduced publishing schedule continues to be an engaging read.
The DDE Manuals box set from RISC OS Open came in second with 23%, closely followed by Drag ‘n Drop magazine with 22%.
Best foreign language resource
The nominations in this category were Arcsite.de, the Big Ben Club website, RISC OS FR, and Steffen Huber’s blog.
And the winner, with 57% of the vote, was RISC OS FR, a popular website run by David Feugey, which is mostly written in French, but also has English, Spanish, and German pages.
With 22%, second place in this category goes to Arcsite.de.
Best show or event
The nominations in this category were the 2016 editions of the London Show, Recursion, the RISC OS eXperience, the Southwest Show, and the Wakefield Show.
And the winner, with 40% of the vote, was the London Show. Always a busy show with lots to see, the 2016 event was no exception.
The Wakefield Show came second with a very respectable 36%.
Most innovative or interesting project
The nominations in this category were the PiPOD from RISCOSbits, Titanium dual head work by Elesar Ltd, GPS on RISC OS from Chris Hall, a Wavebox-esque synthesizer project from Tony Bartram, ADFSS and the Archimedes Software Preservation Project from Jon Abbott, and AMCS from 3rd Event Technologies.
And the winner, with 28.3% of the vote, is Chris Hall for his GPS project, which since the Awards poll has gained even more new features, with cyclic booting and an e-ink display.
To understand why I’ve specified the percentage to one decimal place here, rather than an integer, the joint runners up with 27.5% each were Elesar Ltd for the Titanium dual head work, and Jon Abbott for ADFFS and the Archimedes Software Preservation Project.
Best overall contributor
As ever, there were no nominations in this category, and voters were asked to simply nominate which person or individual best deserved to win. Despite the overall number of votes being slightly down on last year, the number of people who voted in this category was slightly up, with seventy people offering an opinion, compared to 64 last year – and this time almost half of those people gave the same name. In reverse order:
- Third place goes to Rob Sprowson/Elesar Ltd, with 6% of the vote.
- Second place goes to RISC OS Open Ltd, with 10% of the vote.
- And first place, with 47%, goes to Jeffrey Lee.
Broken cog of the year
The nominations in this category were anyone who fails to attend shows and user group meetings, WROCC syndrome sufferers, Archive magazine for its publishing schedule, anyone who persists in using old hardware rather than use something more modern, Chris Evans for not using the projector when giving presentations, and Richard Keefe for the lack of even a basic web page for Impression-X.
And the winner, with 33% of the vote, is everyone who persists in using old hardware when there is such a wide choice of new at all price ranges.
Second place goes to Richard Keefe for the lack of a web presence for Impression-X (er… website MIA!) with 21%, and 16% scores third place for Archive magazine for its irregular publishing schedule.
Where I have contact details, the winners in the 2016 awards have already been notified. The most notable exception to this being the winners of the Broken cog category. Unfortunately, however, I have been unable to notify the winners directly in this case because I do not know their individual addresses to send the pigeons to.