NS BASIC Corporation is pleased to announce the results of the second NS Basic/Palm Programming Contest. This was by far the most popular contest NS BASIC has had. We were surprised by the number of entries, several times more than we have ever had in a contest. We were also surprised at what people did: they are doing much more ambitious things than we imagined. The apps all looked very professional.

The entrants came from 5 continents. They were divided almost evenly between Business, Games and Open, with Business having the most entries.

Significantly more apps that were commercial or shareware. A number of authors noted that their package was being downloaded thousands of times from sites such as PalmGear.

We've posted the winners and honorable mentions at http://www.nsbasic.com/Palm/info/contest2/, along with screen shots. In most cases, authors posted their programs and even their source code, so you can see how they did some of the neat things in their programs. Checks for $100 are on their way to each of the winners.

The winners in the 3 categories are:

Business

PicuTools by Michael Verive
PICU Tools is a collection of 10 databases and calculators for use in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit. The PRC and all necessary data files are included, as is the documentation in PDF format.

Judge's Comments: This is really 10 apps in one, each clean, practical and easy to use. The graphics are good, and the attention to detail makes this a professional tool that inspires confidence.

Games

MineBot by Christien Lee
MineBot is a major variation on the traditional "MineSweeper" game. To be more specific, MineBot is a clone of a game called "Mined Out" that was written for the ZX Spectrum (Timex Sinclair) back in the early 1980's. The program is free. Source code can be bought from the author.

Judge's Comments: This one won because of its great presentation. The graphics are perfectly suited to the game.

Open

kHiTeAnim by Edward Green
This is a stunning program that has to been seen. It has short video clips of kites flying, showing various aerobatic moves. Great graphics on the splash screen, too! Ed did this within a week of getting NS Basic/Palm, after 9 years of not programming at all.

Judge's Comments: Not only did this program do stuff we didn't know could be done in NS Basic, we didn't know it could be done on a Palm!

More about NS Basic/Palm

NS Basic/Palm is a complete, powerful development environment. You can write and test your BASIC program on the desktop, then download it to your device to run it.

• Easy to use, standard and structured BASIC
• Over a dozen screen objects
• Create buttons, fields, popups and more
• Serial Communications
• Math and trigonometric function support
• Produces standard Palm apps
• Built in database support
• Test on the Palm OS Emulator
• Lots of sample code
• 150 page Handbook
• $99.95, royalty free distribution