The RISC OS Awards poll for 2015 officially drew to a close in mid-February, with the votes being counted and initially announced on the @RISCOSitory Twitter feed about a week later – and those results have now been published on the RISC OS Awards website, and – where possible – the winners will be formally notified by email today.
As with the 2012/13 and 2014 polls, the process of counting the votes was partially automated, using a small BBC Basic program and Colton Software’s Fireworkz – both this year running on an ARMX6 computer.
The poll was open from 9th December, 2015 until the morning of 12th February, 2016, so a little over two months, and the final tally was 161 valid votes – a significant increase on last year, when the total was just over one hundred votes, and a small increase on the year before, when it was around 150. While this number is still not as high as it could be, it is a welcome improvement on last year in particular, in which the format the poll took may have been a significant factor in the low number.
This year’s format combined the methods of the two previous years, offering both a set of up to six nominations, along with an option to nominate and vote for something else (with an accompanying text field), and an option to not vote at all in that category. This approach will be used again for the 2016 vote, when the time comes – and with the format now ‘stable’ a little more automation can go into setting it up in the first place!
So, all that remains is to say congratulations to the winners – who are as follows:
Best commercial software
The nominations in this category were Impression-X (no website), Ovation Pro, Artworks 2, SystemDisc, RiscOSM, and Organizer.
And the winner, with 32% of the vote, is RiscOSM, from Sine Nomine. An application that brings OpenStreetMap data to the RISC OS desktop.
Best non-commercial software
The nominations in this category were NetSurf, GCC, Otter Browser, RiscLua, Fireworkz 2, and an updated version of Ovation.
And the winner, with 49% of the vote, is NetSurf, from the NetSurf developers, an open source and very popular web browser.
Best game or diversion
The nominations in this category were Star Fighter 3000, Overlord, Legends of Magic, and QuizMaster.
And the winner, with 58% of the vote, is Star Fighter 3000, originally from FedNet and now free from Christopher Bazley.
Best hardware
The nominations in this category were a 105 key mechanical keyboard, the ARMX6, the RapidO Ig, the Titanium motherboard, and the Raspberry Pi 2.
And the winner, with 33% of the vote, is the Raspberry Pi 2, from the Raspberry Pi Foundation, a credit card-sized, low cost board on which RISC OS runs extremely well.
Best solution for backwards compatibility
The nominations in this category were RPCEmu, VirtualRiscPC, ArchiEmu, Aemulor, and ADFFS.
And the winner, with 34% of the vote, is Aemulor, from Adrian Lees and Spellings.net, a solution originally designed for the IyonixPC, allowing incompatible 26-bit software to run on the 32-bit system, and now updated to address incompatibilities with newer systems on which RISC OS runs.
Best new development
The nominations in this category were development of the Titanium motherboard, the news that Pi-Top would be available with RISC OS, Ultra-HD support coming to ARMX6, Otter Browser being ported to RISC OS, and the release of the newer, cheaper Raspberry Pi Zero.
And the winner, with 41% of the vote, is development of the Titanium motherboard, by Elesar Ltd.
Best show of initiative
The nominations in this category were RISC OS Open Ltd for Bounty matching in January 2015, Elesar Ltd for developing the Titanium motherboard, R-Comp for developing PiFi, and the Archimedes Software Preservation Project by Jon Abbott.
And the winner, with 38% of the vote, is Elesar Ltd, for developing the Titanium motherboard, a system based around a 1.5GHz Cortex-A15, designed from the outset with RISC OS in mind.
Best website or online resource
The nominations in this category were the Archive-online mailing list, the Acorn News Service mailing list, the APDL tribute website, the Archimedes Software Preservation Project forum, the RISC OS Open Ltd forum and source code repository, and the Stardot/Stairway to Hell forum.
And the winner, with 69% of the vote, is the RISC OS Open forum and source code repository, the home of and discussion forum for RISC OS 5 and new developments relating to the operating system.
Best publication or offline resource
The nominations in this category were Drag ‘n Drop, Archive, GAG-News, the updated Style Guide, and Raspberry Pi RISC OS System Programming.
And the winner, with 34% of the vote, is Archive magazine from Abbey Press. Although its publishing schedule has become a little sporadic, each new issue of the magazine continues to be a fulfilling read.
Best foreign language resource
The nominations in this category were RISCOS.fr website, Steffen Huber’s RISC OS blog, the Big Ben Club website, and German news website ArcSite.
And the winner, with 46% of the vote, is French language website RISCOS.fr, run by David Feugey.
Best show or event
The nominations in this category were the main shows of 2015: The Southwest Show, the Wakefield Show, the RISC OS Experience, Recursion (incorporating the MUG Show), and the London Show.
And the winner, with 45% of the vote, is London 2015, organised by ROUGOL, which saw the first public appearance of Elesar’s Titanium motherboard, announced to the world only the night before.
Most innovative or interesting project
The nominations in this category were a nautical GPS system, graphics enhancement Rasterman, a ‘tablet’ form factor RISC OS computer, the Advanced Music Construction System, the Archimedes Core for the MiST FPGA, and ADFFS.
And the winner, with 51% of the vote, is ADFFS from Jon Abbott, an element of the Archimedes Software Preservation Project, allowing disc images to be opened and seen as though they were a floppy disc in drive 0.
Best overall contributor
This category had no nominations, and instead relied on voters suggesting who – individual or company – they felt deserved recognition as having made a worthy contribution to RISC OS. Of the 161 valid voting forms received, only 64 included an entry for this category and, of those 64, one individual was named in almost a third of the entries, with two companies claiming second and third places respectively. In reverse order, then:
- Third place goes to RISC OS Open Ltd, with 16% of the vote.
- Second place goes to R-Comp, with 20% of the vote.
- And the winner, with 31% of the vote, is Jeffrey Lee.
Broken cog of the year
The nominations in this category were David Bradforth for not finishing and publishing his ‘A Potted History of Acorn Computers‘ book, all the RISC OS users who didn’t bother voting in last year’s awards poll, Chris Evans of CJE Micro’s for his approach to show theatre presentations, RISCOSitory for a number of reasons, and 3QD/VirtualAcorn for being unhelpful towards a customer.
And the winner, with 43% of the vote, is 3QD/VirtualAcorn for being particularly unhelpful towards a customer in need of help.
