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calc.org Updates, Heads Roll
Posted by Nick & Eric on 10 February 2001, 08:41 GMT

In a surprising twist of fate for all those involved, calc.org (formerly Dimension-TI) decided to actually update today, according to sources close to the calc.org administrators.

"When we actually realized that one could 'update,' or overwrite older files with newer, more complete versions, we went to work at trying to 'update' the site as much as possible," reports calc.org founder and editor-in-chief, Adam Berlinsky-Schinesteinbergiel. "We proceeded to 'update' all of the pages on our site, and finally we're all done. More or less, anyway. We're still trying to figure out how to 'update' that programs section of ours."

Prior to this calc.org "updating," no current members of the site had done any work whatsoever, instead using calc.org as a springboard for other more interesting jobs (*cough*, see Eric's profile). Comments a current calc.org staff member: "There's still a Dim-TI? I thought it died in the last round of dot-com layoffs."

Former ticalc.org editor Nick Disabato was unavailable for comment at the time, as he was reportedly last seen holding a half-empty glass bottle in a paper bag in an obscure alley on Lower Wacker Drive. When questioned, he threw the bottle at reporters, saying to "get off [his] porch."

As usual, our Security Chief did absolutely nothing to mark the occasion. "Crazy Americans," reports the hardcore Swede.

 


The comments below are written by ticalc.org visitors. Their views are not necessarily those of ticalc.org, and ticalc.org takes no responsibility for their content.


Re: calc.org Updates, Heads Roll
Donovan Smith  Account Info
(Web Page)

Well I'll be damned, they really did update it. They did a nice job. And there's actually new news there too! I thought for a while they might be going the way of TI-Files...

     10 February 2001, 08:52 GMT

Re: Re: calc.org Updates, Heads Roll
MathJMendl  Account Info
(Web Page)

Hey, I see that ti89.org also updated...slick design, although most of the content seems to be missing. =-)

     10 February 2001, 21:39 GMT


Re: Re: Re: calc.org Updates, Heads Roll
Donovan Smith  Account Info
(Web Page)

Thanks :)

About the only part of the site set in concrete yet is the news and news archive sections, the rest I'm still thinking about what to do with. I may add a general message board section to replace the downloads section, since I really don't want to make yet another TI-89 program archive (ticalc.org has an excellent archive already). The message board I've been promising on there for a while should be going next weekend. Once I get a real plan together for Integrata Solutions, I'll be splitting TI89.ORG from it, too. For now they're together mostly because I don't have time to maintain too separate sites (that's the reason TI89.ORG went stale in the first place).

     11 February 2001, 06:31 GMT


Re: Re: Re: Re: calc.org Updates, Heads Roll
Donovan Smith  Account Info
(Web Page)

I doubt anyone will even see this, but with my new site design TI89.ORG bit the dust. I didn't renew the domain name, either. My interest in calculators is waning, and I just don't have time to focus on them. I might stick in an article or two about calcs, however. My new site is at http://www.integratasolutions.com. Thanks to all those that visited TI89.ORG over its short and troubled life.

     14 May 2001, 02:20 GMT


Re: Re: calc.org Updates, Heads Roll
RLH015  Account Info

TI-Files isn't dead! They just got back up but their server forbids access to people.

     16 February 2001, 18:21 GMT

Re: calc.org Updates, Heads Roll
DWedit  Account Info
(Web Page)

Seeing this red news at 2:44 AM almost gave me a heart attack!

But finally, ticalc.org has made a formerly useless account feature active once again!!!

     10 February 2001, 09:44 GMT


Re: Re: calc.org Updates, Heads Roll
Paul Marks  Account Info
(Web Page)

I agree. See, I use Mozilla 0.7 to browse, and ever
since I've been using ticalc.org I haven't seen fake
news. So when I saw the red "fake news" today, I was
almost ready to submit a bug report to
bugzilla.mozilla.org

lol ;)

     10 February 2001, 18:48 GMT

Re: calc.org Updates, Heads Roll
Shiar  Account Info
(Web Page)

Wow, they (Adam) said they were gonna change their site "shortly" (that was october 2000.) But who would've though they actually would... :)

     10 February 2001, 12:57 GMT


Re: Re: calc.org Updates, Heads Roll
raw33 Account Info

Four months? Way to stay on top of things.

     10 February 2001, 14:45 GMT

Re: calc.org Updates, Heads Roll
barich Account Info
(Web Page)

I wouldn't be making fun of calc.org. Ever since Nick left you guys haven't exactly been updating much either. I used to check ticalc.org every day for updates, but now once a week is more than enough.

Hypocrites, anyone?

     10 February 2001, 15:41 GMT

Re: Re: calc.org Updates, Heads Roll
Bear Grubb  Account Info
(Web Page)

Yeah, I agree fully, ticalc.org has been slower than ever lately.

     10 February 2001, 16:11 GMT


Re: Re: Re: calc.org Updates, Heads Roll
JaggedFlame Account Info

Well, I don't think you can blame it on them... after all, it is user-based, and if you see anything on the Internet that's relevant, you e-mail it to them and they post it. It's like saying a newspaper is posting violent news, even though what's happening out there is violent.

And, you have to admit ticalc.org has been updating a heckuva lot more than Dimension-TI has lately.

     10 February 2001, 17:42 GMT


Re: Re: Re: Re: calc.org Updates, Heads Roll
Donovan Smith  Account Info
(Web Page)

It seems that in the last few months the whole TI calc community has been dragging their feet for who knows what reason. But now things are starting to pick up again.

     10 February 2001, 18:55 GMT


Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: calc.org Updates, Heads Roll
Donovan Smith  Account Info
(Web Page)

"Donovan: open mouth, insert foot"

I guess I shouldn't be talking too much 'cause I'm one of those that have been dragging their feet :P

     11 February 2001, 06:16 GMT

Re: Re: calc.org Updates, Heads Roll
nyall  Account Info

You might have noticed that ticalc has picked up the work ethic again with the file archives.

     10 February 2001, 17:42 GMT


Re: Re: Re: calc.org Updates, Heads Roll
Daniel Bishop  Account Info
(Web Page)

Also, I've noticed that they've added the red screenshot icon to the links in the author profiles. And 42/65 of my programs have screenshots now!

     15 February 2001, 04:22 GMT


Re: Re: calc.org Updates, Heads Roll
torrenttrue  Account Info
(Web Page)

What happened to Nick?

--NATE

     17 February 2001, 03:34 GMT

Re: calc.org Updates, Heads Roll
Binky  Account Info
(Web Page)

Wow I haven't seen fake news in a loong time.



=Sherman C.
http://www.cahaltech.com
http://soundoffnow.cjb.net

     10 February 2001, 15:46 GMT


Re: Re: calc.org Updates, Heads Roll
Nick Disabato  Account Info
(Web Page)

This would be partly to do with the fact that I have someplace called college, where I spend my time fighting off various diseases and cramming for large exams involving vector calculus and philosophy.

So it goes.

I'm not turned into a homeless alcoholic... yet. Give it time.

-n.

PS: I wrote that entire thing to Eric in an IM, completely improv. Yeah, I'm pathetic.

     10 February 2001, 18:19 GMT


Re: Re: Re: calc.org Updates, Heads Roll
AuroraBoriales

I find that the prime time for people to drop in and join the TI community is between the ages of 12 and 20, or, in their late middle and high school years. As older members leave and pursue carreers or goto college, etc, they will be continusly be replaced almost two-fold by newer members due to the higher tech state of classrooms. I had never imagined there was such a large community of people supporting TI-calcs when I first saw a TI-82 graphing calc in sixth grade. But now I know, and I tell new graph calc onwers of the large supporting community.

What is particularly worring is that most people merely "leech" off of the developers. There are very few people that are developers. As older developers fade away, newer developers get less and less, always thinking that someone else will do it. I myself am sorta based on this thinking, and I have only submitted 3 or 4 files to Ticalc, all of them E-books. I encourage everyone to download TI-GCC or use the BASIC interpreter on their calculators not only to make programs for their own use, but to also submit their programs to Ticalc or Calc.org and let everyone else benefit from it.

     10 February 2001, 21:35 GMT


Re: Re: Re: Re: calc.org Updates, Heads Roll
Nicholas Bendler  Account Info
(Web Page)

(puts on flame-retardant underwear)

Yeah, like we need more basic programs.

     10 February 2001, 23:10 GMT


Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: calc.org Updates, Heads Roll
Ted Burton  Account Info
(Web Page)

--puts on kevlar-nomex underwear--
As one who is certainly guilty of adding to the bloat and probably redundancy of the basic archives for the 83, 85, 86, and 89, I will probably come off as hypocritical, but am trying to avoid that. I myself have, IIRC, uploaded about 40 programs (all basic) to the file archives for math and science. I would be programming in assembly, or at least C, but have not had the time to learn either language because of my demanding school workload. I'm a junior in high school taking 5 AP/IB classes and 1 honors class. I am in one of the most difficult school systems in the nation (as well as the fourth-largest). My high school is somewhere around fiftieth in the US. I'm not trying to brag or gloat, just merely explain why I have not had time to learn assembly or C. In case anyone cares, the courses I'm taking are: AP/IB US History, German 1 Honors, AP Physics B, AP/IB English Language, IB Theory of Knowledge (basically philosophy), and AP Calculus BC.

Anyways...to keep this more relevant than it wound up being, I think the previous comment's intent was to encourage people to learn how to use the most powerful (yes, I do know the restrictions of several forms of TI-basic all too well...) parts of their calculators: the basic editor and (on the newer calcs, at least) third-party assembly and C tools.

One thing that the read-only part of the TI community needs to realize is that the _worst_ thing one can do about a program is to flame the author of a program for a calculator crash or other {user,programming} errors. It is one thing to kindly or emotionlessly (neither happy nor angry) inform the author of a bug or other error that is most likely on their part, but it is another to mercilessly flame the author under the implication on the receiving end that the user thinks the author intentionally created or left in the bug. Granted, the author does have a responsibility to try to either debug the program or clearly state in either internal documentation or the readme (or, better yet, both) that the software may still contain bugs. Often however, the user did something that the author (or most of the people who read the boards here even once a month should pick up from the discussions) would never think of occurring, such as trying to run a program with THE ENTIRE MEMORY FILLED. I have not received flames yet, most likely due to my own perfectionism and the fact that my programs are certainly not the most popular ones out there.

One thing that needs to be done more often (particularly for the people like Patrick Davidson, Jimmy Mardell, and the TICT, to name a few of the most popular programmers in TI calculator history) is for users to send encouraging emails to the authors of programs they like and/or use often. I admit I need to do this more. Most read-only users of TI calculators do not understand the amount of work it takes to write and sufficiently debug an assembly program, even on processors whose assembly language is old enough to vote in the US. I have not experienced that, so my best guess is that it is immensely more difficult than TI-basic. These programmers are doing all of that work and receiving nothing in return. Many of them even release the source code with their assembly and C programs, thereby making the TI community one of the first places where open source was the norm, rather than the shocking exception, even as recent as 3-5 years ago.

/me hopes that didn't come off as a rant:)

     11 February 2001, 02:50 GMT

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: calc.org Updates, Heads Roll
Robert Mohr  Account Info
(Web Page)

I agree. It is almost impossible to get every bug out of every program because of the individual settings on calculators. And I seem to remember that either Windows2000 or WindowsME crashed when Bill Gates was introducing it to the public for the first time. Think about that before flaming an author for a minor bug.

And don't flame me saying Microsoft sucks.

     12 February 2001, 00:03 GMT


Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: calc.org Updates, Heads Roll
Michael Vincent  Account Info
(Web Page)

Those OSs may have crashed; I don't know. But Windows 98 Beta crashed when Bill Gates first unveiled it. A Microsoft employee plugged in a scanner and the computer came up with a Blue Screen Of Death(tm). Then Gates made a comment, to the effect, "That's why we're not releasing it yet."

     12 February 2001, 22:48 GMT

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: calc.org Updates, Heads Roll
AuroraBoriales

For crying out loud, I'm in all IB classes(except electives), and do I still have spare time? The answer is usually yes. The stragity is to work efficently, and find shortcuts that don't effect your grades or what you learn(these "shortcuts" are very hard to find). I myself have submitted 2 or 3 programs, and NONE of them are basic. I hate TI-basic when it comes to games because it is slow. However, it is great for making math or science programs because it is easy to code in.

     17 February 2001, 21:13 GMT


Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: calc.org Updates, Heads Roll
86er

That's B.S. There is no way you are in calculus in 8th grade. Or AP physics. Or any of the classes you mentioned

     18 February 2001, 23:01 GMT

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