The 2016 Awards Poll
This was the fourth annual awards poll run by RISCOSitory, along with a survey, on the RISC OS Awards website.
Continuing the policy started for the 2014 poll, while the poll was nominally for 2016, the period covered was from November 2015 until December 2016, providing a two month overlap.
The poll was opened for votes on 18th December, 2015, and was closed on 29th February, 2016, giving people around two and a half months to make their choices. And in that period, there were 147 valid entries - a slight decrease on the 2015 poll, which is disappointing given the notable increase last year.
As before, the whole process has run smoothly. The interim votes were accessed on a variety of systems, but a RISC OS computer was used to perform all of the processing and counting, using a combination of a small program written in BBC BASIC and Colton Software's Fireworkz.
And the results of that processing can be found below - congratulations to all the winners!
The 2016 RISC OS Awards Results
Best commercial software
The nominations in this category were:
- CloudFS - Elesar Ltd
- Fireworkz Pro - R-Comp (originally from Colton Software)
- Impression-X - Richard Keefe (originally from Computer Concepts)
- Organizer - North One Communications (originally by Chris Morison)
- PhotoDesk - CJE Micro's (originally from Photodesk Ltd)
- RiscOSM - Sine Nomine
And the winner, with 33% of the vote, is:
RiscOSM, from Sine Nomine.
Best non-commercial software
The nominations in this category were:
- DplngScan - Chris Johnson (originally from David Pilling)
- Ovation - Rick Murray (originally from David Pilling and Beebug)
- Pluto - Martin Avison and Rob Sprowson (originally by Jonathan Duddington)
- PS2Paper - Steve Fryatt
- SatNav - Chris Hall
- StrongED - Fred Graute (originally by Guttorm Vik)
And the winner, with 24% of the vote, is:
StrongED, from Fred Graute.
Best game or diversion
The nominations in this category were:
- Darkplaces Quake 1 engine - Ported to RISC OS by Chris Gransden
- Final Doom with high quality MP3 music - R-Comp
- Moptops - Amcog
- Star Fighter 3000 - Chris Bazley (originally from Fednet)
- Oh no! More Lemmings! - JASPP (originally from Krysalis)
And the winner, with 27% of the vote, is:
Moptops, from Amcog Games.
Best hardware
The nominations in this category were:
- Micro One - Ident Computer
- pi-topRO - CJE Micro's
- PiSSD - RISCOSbits
- Raspberry Pi 3 - Raspberry Pi Foundation
- RISCBook Go! - R-Comp
- Titanium - Elesar Ltd
And the winner, with 44% of the vote, is:
Titanium, from Elesar Ltd .
Best solution for backwards compatibility
The nominations in this category were:
- ADFFS - Jon Abbott
- Aemulor - Adrian Lees and spellings.net
- ArcEm - Various
- ArchiEmu - Jan de Boer
- RPCEmu - Matthew and Peter Howkins
- VirtualRiscPC - 4QD / VirtualAcorn
And the winner, with 35% of the vote, is:
Aemulor from Adrian Lees/Spellings.net.
Best new development
The nominations in this category were:
- Cheaper downloadable VirtualRiscPC - 4QD / VirtualAcorn
- CloudFS - Elesar Ltd
- HDMI audio on ARMX6 - R-Comp
- Micro One - Ident Computer
- Ability to use GPS - Chris Hall
- Completion of JPEG bounty bringing improved support in RISC OS - RISC OS Open Ltd
And the winner, with 38% of the vote, is:
Completion of the JPEG bounty - RISC OS Open Ltd (and the developer(s) involved)
Best show of initiative
The nominations in this category were:
- For deciding to get GPS running on RISC OS - Chris Hall
- For coming up with CloudFS - Elesar Ltd
- For his BBC Media preservation efforts - Paul Emerton
- For giving away a computer on a magazine cover - Raspberry Pi Foundation
- For setting up and maintaining a RISC OS events calendar - Tim Hill
- For running an ongoing Raspberry Pi contest to encourage development - David Feugey / RISC OS FR
And the winner, with 35% of the vote, is:
David Feugey/RISC OS FR, for the Raspberry Pi competion.
Best website or online resource
The nominations in this category were:
- Archive-online
- Acorn News Service
- RISC OS Open website and forum
- RISC OS Packaging Project and repositories
- riscos.info
- PlingStore
And the winner, with 62% of the vote, is:
The RISC OS Open forum and source code repository.
Best publication or offline resource
The nominations in this category were:
- Archive magazine
- Drag 'n Drop magazine
- GAG News
- Mobile Unleashed (a book about the first 25 years of ARM)
- DDE Manuals box set - RISC OS Open Ltd
And the winner, with 44% of the vote, is:
Archive Magazine, from Abbey Press.
Best foreign language resource
The nominations in this category were:
And the winner, with 57% of the vote, is:
RISCOS.fr.
Best show or event
The nominations in this category were:
And the winner, with 40% of the vote, is:
The London Show.
Most innovative or interesting project
The nominations in this category were:
- PiPOD - RISCOSbits
- Titanium dual head work - Elesar Ltd
- GPS on RISC OS - Chris Hall
- Wavebox-esque synth project - Tony Bartram
- ADFFS / Archimedes Software Preservation Project - Jon Abbott
- AMCS - 3rd Event Technologies
And the winner, with 28% of the vote, is:
GPS on RISC OS - Chris Hall.
Best overall contributor
This was the one category that didn't have any nominations, and instead relied on those people voting to suggest which individual, team or company they feel deserves recognition as having made a worthy contribution to RISC OS.
Of the 147 valid voting forms received, only 70 voters entered something for this field - slightly more than last year - and of those, one individual was named in just short of half of the entries.
The top three, results, are:
- In third place, with 6% of the vote: Rob Sprowson/Elesar Ltd.
- In second place, with 10% of the vote: RISC OS Open Ltd.
- In first place, with 47% of the vote: 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 - anyone who doesn't send announcements to RISCOSitory.
- Archive magazine for its publishing schedule.
- Anyone who persists in using old hardware when we have such a wide choice of new at all price ranges.
- Chris Evans - for continuing to eschew the use of the projector at show talks.
- Richard Keefe / Impression-X - for not setting up even a basic web page, leaving the site showing the host's holding page.
And the winner, with 33% of the vote, is:
All those people clinging on to old hardware, rather than upgrade to something new.