Omnimaga
Omnimaga => News => Topic started by: DJ Omnimaga on September 01, 2014, 08:54:02 pm
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In this new age of tablets, smartphones and causal gaming such as Minecraft, calculator programmers have become increasingly sparse. The few that still ventures into calculator programming now usually stick to Github, Facebook, their personal blogs or IRC to showcase their projects instead of forums. As a result, the days of the calculator community have been counted for well over 8 years now, despite a few waves of newcomers resulting from calculator-related novelties every now and then, and the day when smartphones will no longer be banned from any class nor exam in the world, calculators could possibly either become a thing of the past or be adopted by vintage computer programmers and the like.
No matter what, Omnimaga still get new members from any school age, some who were not even born when it originally started. Because yes: Today it has now been 13 years since Omnimaga as a group was founded (the site itself started two and an half years later)!
(http://www.omnimaga.org/images/omniold.jpg)
Hundreds of calculator games and programs have been released by its staff over the years, as well as many PC programs and several electronic songs. It went through ups and downs, including a 6 months shutdown in 2008, reaching record TI community activity levels during its glory days and today the forums is slowly approaching 400,000 posts!
So basically, thanks to everyone who have allowed Omnimaga to last this long and let's hope it lasts even longer in one form or another! There is no 13th anniversary Youtube video available to celebrate Omnimaga's birthday (maybe for the 15th?), but for people who have missed some of the past Omnimaga releases, here are the 6th through 10th anniversary videos, as well as the HP Prime, TI-Nspire and Axe tribute videos below:
6th anniversary (2007) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ylP5lbeWL4)
6th anniversary (unused) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0O3Vj05O1hc)
The Resurrection (2008) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtX5NnLBHSs)
8th anniversary (2009) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kjVK2FAEcI)
9th anniversary (2010) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SJ6MP2-WYs)
10th anniversary (2011) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01nk87z_ezo)
Axe Parser Tribute (2010) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OA-Z1DcjBSg)
Ndless: Nothing's Gonna Stop us Now (2010) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpmbEsbhhHk)
The first ever TI-Nspire Lua games (2011) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dP9dfKIejQE)
HP Prime Tribute (2014) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJwkoDKlh8Q)
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Happy birthday Omniamga!
(http://img.ourl.ca/muffin.png)
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Long Live Onmi! One year older then me!
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Testing something. Also long live omni. I cant believe how old it is now.
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It's now old enough to sign up on forums! With the permission of its parents! How cool is that?
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Omni signs up on Omni :P
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Heck yes! Happy Birthday Omni!
(http://img.ourl.ca/muffin.png)
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I was four. Never knew.
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I was -1 :P
perhaps the only member that was not born :P
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I was -1 :P
perhaps the only member that was not born :P
I'm sure there are many younger members, just maybe not very frequent visitors.
Omnimaga is quite huge after all.
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How about mostly-active-every-day members?
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How about mostly-active-every-day members?
I would not know that lol
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Testing something. Also long live omni. I cant believe how old it is now.
I pretty much stopped bothering about its age after the 10th anniversary, waiting patiently for its 15th. But then came the day where Omni became as old or older than some of our newer members :P
Also yeah not everyone shows their age so perhaps we have more 12 years old lurkers than we think. Also plenty of regulars are like 13-14, a few of which are even contributing stuff like contests and notable looking programs
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out of interest, What's about the average age of Omni members?
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Normally they join around 14-16 but we sometimes get 12-13 years old members too as well as adult ones who programmed calcs for ages before joining or older people in their 40s who are just interested in old school hardware. People who join past 14 usually stay until they start college and turn 18 and the 12-13 years old members usually stay for less than 6 months since at this age they have a much shorter attention span.
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I can't believe I had an attention span that long for Omni >.>
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Normally they join around 14-16 but we sometimes get 12-13 years old members too as well as adult ones who programmed calcs for ages before joining or older people in their 40s who are just interested in old school hardware. People who join past 14 usually stay until they start college and turn 18 and the 12-13 years old members usually stay for less than 6 months since at this age they have a much shorter attention span.
I shall try to stay for my entire life! (or if Omni collapses/is swallowed by Cemetech :trollface:, whichever comes first )
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Normally they join around 14-16 but we sometimes get 12-13 years old members too as well as adult ones who programmed calcs for ages before joining or older people in their 40s who are just interested in old school hardware. People who join past 14 usually stay until they start college and turn 18 and the 12-13 years old members usually stay for less than 6 months since at this age they have a much shorter attention span.
Lol I was 14, but I came back!
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It's now old enough to sign up on forums! With the permission of its parents! How cool is that?
I give it permission. Let the meta begin.
out of interest, What's about the average age of Omni members?
I could run a query of all the members who actually record their age.
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I think the average age of omni members (the active ones, that is) is slowly moving up and I think the average is 14-15 right now. Just some guesstimations.
Happy birthday, Omni!
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Now to get all the younger members to move up into calc programming so they eventually release new games that rival 2011-13 Axe featured games :P
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out of interest, What's about the average age of Omni members?
I could run a query of all the members who actually record their age.
Just hope they don't have a false age.
Now to get all the younger members to move up into calc programming so they eventually release new games that rival 2011-13 Axe featured games :P
move up? from TI BASIC into axe?
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out of interest, What's about the average age of Omni members?
I could run a query of all the members who actually record their age.
Just hope they don't have a false age.
Now to get all the younger members to move up into calc programming so they eventually release new games that rival 2011-13 Axe featured games :P
move up? from TI BASIC into axe?
No, just hope I can actually filter out enough false ages. Currently with what I've filtered out (like born in 1337) the average is 44. Going to filter more later.
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Well congratulations on keeping the website going. I do not think that phones will overtake calculators.
You see phones will never make it in for serious testing there will always be a market for calculators.
Also I do not own a phone believe it or not, yes I have seen them and they look cool but I like a calculator better for serious math. I have no inclination to touch the screen every time I want to type a number.
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out of interest, What's about the average age of Omni members?
I could run a query of all the members who actually record their age.
Just hope they don't have a false age.
Now to get all the younger members to move up into calc programming so they eventually release new games that rival 2011-13 Axe featured games :P
move up? from TI BASIC into axe?
No, just hope I can actually filter out enough false ages. Currently with what I've filtered out (like born in 1337) the average is 44. Going to filter more later.
You all know my age :P
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out of interest, What's about the average age of Omni members?
I could run a query of all the members who actually record their age.
Just hope they don't have a false age.
Now to get all the younger members to move up into calc programming so they eventually release new games that rival 2011-13 Axe featured games :P
move up? from TI BASIC into axe?
Nah people can stick to whatever language they want. I meant moving up from quadratic solvers towards the bigger, more original games (although of course stuff like Supersonic Ball requires something else than TI-BASIC unless removing scrolling).
No, just hope I can actually filter out enough false ages. Currently with what I've filtered out (like born in 1337) the average is 44. Going to filter more later.
Yeah even 44 seems quite high. Somebody possibly just entered some weird number without necessarily entering the max or some popular number like you mentionned.
A lot of the older less active members are now way past 18 but the newer ones mostly joined at a younger age in general. It would be interesting to see what's the average age of only the users who have posted within the last month.Well congratulations on keeping the website going. I do not think that phones will overtake calculators.
You see phones will never make it in for serious testing there will always be a market for calculators.
Also I do not own a phone believe it or not, yes I have seen them and they look cool but I like a calculator better for serious math. I have no inclination to touch the screen every time I want to type a number.
It depends. Eventually, TI could simply release a proprietary tablet based on Android on which wi-fi and many other features are locked down or restricted. But perhaps their best bet would be releasing advanced Android and iOS Apps that are compliant with exams, so basically the class could connect to the teacher phone and the teacher phone would warn the teacher if a student exits the calculator app.
But even if calcs were to disappear entirely from the hi school and college landscape, look at what happened to the Atari 2600, ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64 and Sega Genesis development scene in the last decade or so. Pier Solar, for example, was released for the Sega Genesis in 2010, 12 years after the console was discontinued, and they're still planning to do a 3rd print run for that console.
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Here's to another 13 years!
*cheers*
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We need more nethams.
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Just move the server to the coast :P
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Netham, your sig makes fx nightly to glitch out (for me)
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Same for fx normal.
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now not more, fail xD
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Normally they join around 14-16 but we sometimes get 12-13 years old members too as well as adult ones who programmed calcs for ages before joining or older people in their 40s who are just interested in old school hardware. People who join past 14 usually stay until they start college and turn 18 and the 12-13 years old members usually stay for less than 6 months since at this age they have a much shorter attention span.
That sounds about right. I guess it starts going into high school where students get graphical calculators and begin programming, and they might join some forums along the way.
I haven't posted much in the last year, and at one point just forgot about calculators, but I have a secret project that I've recently resumed on.
Nevertheless, Omnimaga and other calc sites fill a niche of calculator development that is really unique and I hope it continues to live for many years to come. Because for me, and possibly for many others, calculator programming taught me the basic constructs of programming in general.
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@Jonius7: Nice to see you're back on again, every other year, i guess.
Well, "that" sounds about wrong for me, personally. But who cares, what counts is the majority of users and that seems about right. :P Anyway, long live Omnimaga!
Just curious about your secret project, i can't wait. Does it have any music, hmm ...?
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Jonius it would be nice to see you come back even if you don't do calc stuff. A lot of people here do non-calc stuff too :D
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Eyyo, happy burfday omni!
calculators could possibly either become a thing of the past or be adopted by vintage computer programmers and the like.
ehehe hehehe 8)
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Normally they join around 14-16 but we sometimes get 12-13 years old members too as well as adult ones who programmed calcs for ages before joining or older people in their 40s who are just interested in old school hardware. People who join past 14 usually stay until they start college and turn 18 and the 12-13 years old members usually stay for less than 6 months since at this age they have a much shorter attention span.
That sounds about right. I guess it starts going into high school where students get graphical calculators and begin programming, and they might join some forums along the way.
I haven't posted much in the last year, and at one point just forgot about calculators, but I have a secret project that I've recently resumed on.
Nevertheless, Omnimaga and other calc sites fill a niche of calculator development that is really unique and I hope it continues to live for many years to come. Because for me, and possibly for many others, calculator programming taught me the basic constructs of programming in general.
Ah I remember you Jonius7 only by your forum avatar I'm afraid... haha welcome back! (I myself just came back from a year leave)
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Yeah I just haven't been posing much, maybe 1 or 2 a month so it seems like I haven't been on for much longer.
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I noticed a bunch of the old users have returned lately, although if they eventually started posting again regularly like when Art of camelot came back from his hiatus a few years ago or certain members on Cemetech it would definitively fill the void left by the mass Minecraft exodus a few years ago while new users come in. Plus we lost pretty much most Nspire dev because of TI's actions against Ndless combined with other factors over the years so development on that platform is more scarce (most people still developing advanced tools for it are mostly on TI-Planet or keeping their progress private so that it doesn't fall under TI hands).
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What's the minecraft exodus?
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Since 2011 the TI community lost about 50% of its userbase (if not more) just because of Minecraft. The same thing happened in 2005 with World of Warcraft.
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O.O
So 50% was minecraft discussion?
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No that's not what I mean. Basically, when Minecraft became popular, half of Omnimaga userbase vanished entirely. Those people got so much into Minecraft that they stopped all calculator and programming development.
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Whoa...
That is a lot O.O
so they just stopped coming and their users are still here?
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No that's not what I mean. Basically, when Minecraft became popular, half of Omnimaga userbase vanished entirely. Those people got so much into Minecraft that they stopped all calculator and programming development.
LOL i did play minecraft for about half a year during the exodus, but I don't believe that's why I stopped coming to omnimaga back then.
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I did it the other way rouund: when I started programming my calculator I played less and less Minecraft :)
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I never played Minecraft
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I play minecraft for a while at night while coming on Omni during the day.
So I won't be gone too long :P
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I too have not played minecraft. I have seen it run and despite the fact that it was a fast computer that can run games of much higher quality in regards to graphics minecraft ran slow on the computer. Had I to come up with one word to describe the issue I would say Java.
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Lol this conversation has transitioned to who has played Minecraft XD
Happy 13 years!
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Minecraft < Omni
most of the time
I told my friend named Natham that he's a blue lobster :P
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I too have not played minecraft. I have seen it run and despite the fact that it was a fast computer that can run games of much higher quality in regards to graphics minecraft ran slow on the computer. Had I to come up with one word to describe the issue I would say Java.
And to think people wanted to port Java to the PRIZM and Nspire. That said, I bet it would be much faster than Nspire Lua, although perhaps not as much as LuaZM. Java can do the job sometimes but I would personally never use it for 3D games.