CalcGames

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calcgames-logo.png

Site Name

CalcGames

Site URL

http://www.calcgames.org
http://www.calcg.org
http://calc.games/

Founders

Barrett Anderson
Konstantin Beliakov

Founding Date

May 2, 2002

Years Active

2002 to Present

Aliases

CalcG

Tagline

None

Affiliations

None

Site Genre

Archives
Forum
News

CalcGames was one of the most popular TI sites in the community from 2003 to 2008. The site has declined over the last couple years, however, in terms of both activity on its forum and the number of programs being uploaded to it, and is now basically inactive, although in early 2020 it switched to a new URL (calc.games).

Site Content

Like the other community sites, CalcGames has an assortment of features. Its most prominent feature is its archives, which while not as expansive as ticalc.org, includes many of the same high-quality games and programs. The site also was running a newsletter for a while, which included community news, an interview with a notable person from the community, and a programming section.

While not as active anymore, the forum used to be quite lively and one of the better forums in the TI community. There were new members popping up all of the time, the site staff had their own projects that they were working on, and overall it really had a community feel to it.

Site Staff

Some of the staff members were involved with other TI community sites including Nikky Southerland (ticalc.org), Morgan Davis (ticalc.org), George Limpert (TI-Files, Dimension-TI, TI-News), and Daniel Thorneycroft (TI-Freakware).

  • Barrett Anderson (Barrett) — founder
  • Konstantin Beliakov (zkostik) — founder
  • Jason Lo (spiral)
  • Morgan Davies (Morgan)
  • Nikky Southerland (allynfolksjr)
  • Michael O'Brien (Digital)
  • George Limpert (redux)
  • Hanze Studenbach (Zinearety)
  • Daniel Thorneycroft (tifeak8x)

Site Significance

(Taken from comment by Kevin Ouellet)

CalcGames used to be very great, though, because it was easy to find up to date tutorials at the time (on ticalc, everything was from 1997-98), file archives were updated much faster than on ticalc (even after Nikky/Travis joined their staff), you would upload a file on the site, tell tifreak on IRC and it would be added within minutes, plus they did not allow games that lacks any documentation. Also I think they filtered out guessing games and other crappy stuff.

Site Milestones

Site Hosting

Here is a list of sites that were hosted by CalcGames for various periods of time:

  • 4ce_labs — http://4celabs.calcgames.org
  • TI-Freakware — http://tifreakware.calcgames.org
  • CDI Games — http://cdi.calcgames.org
  • #tcpa — http://tcpa.calcg.org
  • Cody Moats Programming — http://cmp.calcgames.org

Site History

CalcGames was founded in May of 2002 by Barrett Anderson (Barrett) and Konstantin Beliakov (zkostik). Both of them had collaborated on a couple games for the 68k calculators (including the graphical Super Alien Strike and the much-beloved Tankers), and decided to start a site together.

The site goal was to be an alternative to ticalc.org, which at that time had become quite unwieldy. The site was literally flooded with TI-Basic programs and games, and it would take a month or more before you would see your programs uploaded to the site. In fact, at one point there was a six month backlog. Trying to find a program on the site was rather difficult, as there were many crappy, low-quality programs to sift through before you would find a worthwhile program to use.

CalcGames began with a blank slate for its archives, and took the approach of having people upload their programs to the site. This not only helped to keep the quality of programs good, but also made it much easier to find programs.

Site URLs

calcg-logo2.png

The original CalcGames was started in 2001 as Barrett Anderson's own personal TI site where he posted his games and programs, and the URL was http://ti89calcgames.homestead.com. In 2002, he was working with Konstantin Beliakov on the games Super Alien Strike and Tankers, and they decided to work on the site together; the http://www.calcgames.org domain was then purchased. As can be seen from the screenshot below, the site utilized frames quite extensively, and had a dark, black look and matching logo. This version of the site is still available online at the original URL, but it has ceased being updated and some of the pages no longer work.

In 2007, the site was given a facelift and a new, shorter name and URL (CalcG and http://www.calcg.org, respectively). A new version of the site was created, replacing the dark look and logo with a predominantly white and blue color scheme and blue logo. In addition, the frames were removed and the site adopted a modern centered, 2-column layout. This is the current design that you will see when visiting the site. In 2020, the URL changed to http://calc.games, although the previous two domain names still remained operational.

  • http://calc.games
  • http://www.calcg.org
  • http://www.calcgames.org
  • http://ti89calcgames.homestead.com

Site Screenshots

calcgames-screenshot.png
(Screenshot of CalcGames circa 2007)
calcgames-screenshot2.png
(Screenshot of CalcG presently)

Miscellaneous