The 2012/2013 Awards Poll
This was the first annual awards poll run by RISCOSitory, along with a survey, on the new RISC OS Awards website, covering two years because no poll was carried out by anyone for 2012, and it seems to have been reasonably successful in a number of ways, from the whole process running smoothly once the website had been set up and the voting form written, through to the way the votes were checked and counted - and apart from the intial receipt of the votes being on a Windows computer, the actual processing was done entirely on RISC OS, using a combination of a small program written in BBC BASIC and Colton Software's Fireworkz.
The actual number of votes and survey entries was relatively low, at just under 150 - but we all know that the RISC OS community isn't particularly large and while a higher number would have been encouraging, at least the number isn't so low as to be entirely discouraging - especially considering that it was only in late September that the idea of RISCOSitory running an awards poll (and doing so on its own dedicated website) was formed, so there wasn't a great deal of planning or promotion.
With that in mind, and the growing interest around the Raspberry Pi - the cheapest hardware ever on which RISC OS can be run - let's hope this success can be built on, and that the 2014 poll will attract a higher turn-out!
And with the preamble out of the way, onto the actual results of the RISC OS awards poll 2012/2013 - which can be found on the below. Congratulations to all the winners - who have already been notified by email, and some of whom also saw the results published on the @RISCOSitory Twitter feed.
The 2012/2013 RISC OS Awards Results
Best commercial product
The nominations in this category were:
- Aemulor Pi from Spellings,
- CloneDisc from Piccolo Systems,
- Nut Pi from RISC OS Open Ltd,
- Fireworkz Pro from R-Comp and
- ImpEmail from Sine Nomine.
And the winner, with 40% of the vote, is Nut Pi, from RISC OS Open Ltd.
Nut Pi is a collection of commercial applications brought together for a single, low price by the boys from ROOL in conjunction with a range of RISC OS software companies.
Best non-commercial product
The nominations in this category were:
- Pluto from Jonathan Duddington
- NetSurf from the NetSurf developers
- PackMan from Alan Buckley
- ConvText from Paul Sprangers.
- SyncDiscs from Chris Johnson
And the winner, with 64% of the vote, is NetSurf, from the NetSurf Developers.
The open source web browser continues to be updated on a regular basis and just gets better and better.
Best hardware
The nominations in this category were:
- Solid state drives from R-Comp
- Raspberry Pi RTC modules from CJE Micro's
- ARMiniX from R-Comp
- PandaRO from 4D/CJE Micro's
And the joint winners, with 37% of the vote each, are Raspberry Pi RTC Modules from CJE Micro's and ARMiniX from R-Comp.
Designed in-house, CJE's real time clock module plugs into the Raspberry Pi's GPIO socket. And there's even an optional temperature sensor - because they could!
Building on the success of the BeagleBoard-based ARMini, R-Comp followed it up with a machine based around the PandaBoard - the ARMiniX, released at London 2012 - providing RISC OS users with a sleek looking, fast machine running RISC OS natively.
Best new development
The nominations in this category were:
- SD card support thanks to Ben Avison
- RISC OS 5 for old hardware by ROOL
- PlingStore, developed by R-Comp
- NetSurf gaining Javascript support
- ImpressionX being developed by Richard Keefe
And the winner, with 42% of the vote, is SD card support, thanks to Ben Avison.
Adding it to the RISC OS Open Ltd CVS repository, and initially released in beta form as part of the OMAP3 ROM initially, Ben developed a general purpose MMC/SD filing system for RISC OS.
Best show of initiative
The nominations in this category were:
- RISC OS Open for organising the Portsmouth Show
- R-Comp for developing the PlingStore system
- RISC OS Open for putting together Nut Pi
- Andrew Rawnsley and Richard Brown for taking over the organisation of the South West Show.
And the winner, with 34% of the vote, is RISC OS Open Ltd, for putting together Nut Pi
By putting together this collection of RISC OS Pi-friendly software and selling it at a much lower price than the combined cost of all the applications when purchased individually, ROOL have taken a valuable step towards making RISC OS on the Raspberry Pi an attractive proposition.
Best website or online resource
The nominations in this category were:
- risc/pi from North One Communications
- RISC OS News Network
- PiLearn from Martin Hansen
- Acorn News Service mailing list
- Archive-online mailing list
And the joint winners, with 27% of the vote each, are risc/pi from North One Communications and Archive-online.
The risc/pi site, run by the people responsible for Organizer, presents news from both the RISC OS and Raspberry Pi worlds,
A long-standing mailing list that was originally set up for subscribers to Archive Magazine, the Archive-online mailing list continues to be as popular today as it has ever been.
Best publication or offline resource
The nominations in this category were:
- VRPC in use ebooks from T.O.M.S./VirtualAcorn
- Archive Magazine from Abbey Press
- Drag 'n Drop Magazine from Christopher Dewhurst
- GAG News from the German Archimedes Group
- the WROCC Newsletter from the Wakefield RISC OS Computer Club
And the winner, with 52% of the vote, is Archive Magazine, from Abbey Press.
One of the last RISC OS magazines still printed and delivered to your door, Archive Magazine continues to be an interesting read, and something to look forward to.
Best show or event
The nominations in this category were:
- London Show 2012, organised by ROUGOL.
- South West Show 2013, organised by Orpheus Internet and R-Comp.
- Wakefield Show 2013, organised by WROCC.
- Portsmouth Show 2013, organised by ROOL.
- ROUGOL meeting, 15th October 2012
And the winner, with 49% of the vote, is Wakefield 2013, organised by WROCC.
Marking the club's 30th anniversary, the 2013 show at Wakefield was buzzing, and saw R-Comp launch the ARMicro and ARCimedes, and NetSurf gain JavaScript support, with version 3.0 of the browser being completed on the morning of the show.
Most innovative or interesting project
The nominations in this category were:
- Andrew Conroy's LED cube
- Martin Hansen's Power SupPi
- Steve Drain's Raspberry Pip
- Colin Granville and Dave Higton's ongoing work on USB audio
And the winners, with a massive 80% of the vote, are Colin Granville and Dave Higton for their work on USB audio.
Work on USB is still ongoing, but a particular focus which has been under discussion on the RISC OS Open forums is USB audio, with visible progress being made. One outcome in particular was demonstrated at the Portsmouth show - the ability to play audio using USB speakers.