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Site Name
United-TI
Site URL
Founders
David Lindstrom
Justin Birkhofer
Bryan Thomas
Glenn Lee
Founding Date
May 20, 2003
Years Active
2003 to 2012
Aliases
UTI
Tagline
Affiliations
CalcBasic
Cirrus Programming
Outer Limit Software
Prokul Interactive
Obsidian Programming
Omnimaga
Cemetech
Site Genre
Forum
Archives
Programming Group
United-TI (UTI) was a popular TI community site and programming group. It had a forum that discussed programming, the TI calculator community, computer advice, and anything else of interest. There also was an #unitedti IRC channel on irc.unitedti.org (later irc.netham45.org) and a large program archive. The site was really active from 2003-2009, at one point even being the top TI community, and the program archive and programming group were regularly updated from 2005-2009.
The site has slowly become stagnant since 2009, however, and near the end only featured a few new posts and sign-ups every week. Similarly, the program archive and programming group ceased to be updated with new programs and members, and subsequently became inactive. The sub-domain hosting service was discontinued in mid 2011, and the site itself shut down in April 2012 due to disinterest from the administrators. The entire forum has been archived and merged into Cemetech in read-only mode to preserve the forum contents for posterity, as it contains a rich history of TI community information.
Site Significance and Controversies
In 2009, the United-TI forum was involved in the cracking of the digital keys for the TI-83+ operating system. In particular, Benjamin Moody posted a message on the United-TI forum providing the keys, and then subsequently shared his brute force method of how he obtained it. The TI community then worked together to crack the rest of the keys for the other TI graphing calculators.
This story received considerable attention not only in the TI community, but also in the larger technology community. Of course, a big reason why is because of TI's response — TI sent a DMCA take down notice to United-TI and the other sites that posted the keys. The story was picked up by several technology sites including the infamous Slashdot, and the keys were posted all over the Internet; the keys even got posted on WikiLeaks.
(See Cracked OS Keys for more information)
UTI openly encouraged a discussion environment free of hostility, via its rules page, although to a lesser extent than Omnimaga. However, starting in 2008, a slow change in direction happened among the remaining staff members and less emphasis was put on this. By the end of 2009, some incidents also occurred where moderation was beginning to be seen as biased by various members. This culminated into increasing clashes between members and staff, to the point where many of its active members migrated to Omnimaga, in one case with several users reducing their UTI activity almost overnight. This, combined with several downtimes, controversial site changes (such as the shutdown of the downloads section) led to a dramatic decline in posting activity and traffic. Omnimaga faced the same problems a few years later, with the only difference being that instead of the users migrating to an existing site, they created a new one called CodeWalrus. In April 2012, the remaining United-TI administrators announced that the site would close shop after 9 years of operation and its topics were absorbed into a read-only archive located on Cemetech.
Major Projects
- By far the most famous programming project by a United-TI member is Bryan Thomas's port of Contra to the TI-83 Plus. This platform game was programmed entirely in TI-BASIC without the aid of an assembly library, which was considered impossible until then. It can be found here.
- Sonic (a port of the famous video game). This project is still being worked on by several of United-TI's members. A progress site, with screenshots, ads, and a list of the programmers working on the project, can be found at .
- Robot War, an RPG in z80 assembly for the TI-82 by DigiTan. It's your job as the player to stop a powermad scientist and his deadly weather control system with your telepathic control over war robots. Released November 15, 2005, the final version can be obtained here.
- Sigma released a functioning operating system for the TI-83+ called CSX.
- Iambian Zenith released Celtic for the TI-83+, an assembly utility program for TI-Basic programmers.
Programming Contests
- Asteroid Belt (z80 assembly). United-TI's first programming contest, it began on March 1, 2005, and ended on June 14 (after a two-week extension from June 1). A total of 17 contestants registered, and four programs were submitted before the contest deadline. On July 28, Sigma was declared the winner and received a brand-new TI-84 Plus Silver Edition. His entry, as well as another entry (submitted by Leofox), are available for download from United-TI's program archive.
- Strategy Game (TI-BASIC). United-TI's second programming contest, it began on September 1, 2005, and ended on January 9, 2006. Over 100 contestants registered, and 12 of them submitted finished programs. The results were announced on March 20. The winner was alexrudd, with his entry "Pathways."
Site Milestones
2007: First english-speaking calculator forum to reach 100000 posts
2008: Site leads the entire TI community in activity
Site Staff
- Jon Johnson (AlienCC)
- David Lindstrom (David)
- Brady R. Mayes (DigiTan)
- Justin Birkhofer (JBirk/ NETWizz)
- Kenneth Hammond (Weregoose)
- Mikhail P. Lavrov (DarkerLine/ Sir Robin) — retired
- Arcane Wizard — retired
- Bryan Thomas (Breemum) — retired
- Glenn Lee — retired
- Alex Ruddick (Alexrudd) — retired
- Joe Pena (Brazucs) — retired
- Justin Wales (Justin W.) — retired
Site Hosting
(Taken from United-TI hosting rules page)
Who is eligible for hosting?
Anyone who is part of United-TI meaning your forum group reads UTI Member, UTI Super Moderators, and UTI Staff.
What are the content restrictions?
You are not allowed to have illegal content in your space. This includes but is not limited to copyrighted material, Illegal software, Warez, Music, Movies, offensive content such as pornography, etc. Anyone found to be in violation will lose the ability to access their files, additionally we will not withhold information from law enforcement agencies if it is requested because of a violation of these terms.
What are the content recommendation?
We encourage you to make use of your space with a blog, but if you would rather have a traditional page that is also ok. You are allowed to host anything in your space that does not conflict with the restrictions already listed.
What do I get?
If you are a United-TI member, you are given 500MB of diskspace, along with 500MB of transfer per 30 days. 1 Mysql database, and up to 5 email addresses off your subdomain. Staff members are given 1000MB of diskspace and 1000MB of transfer per 30 days. 1 Mysql database, and up to 10 email addresses off your subdomain. All users are given the ability to upload files via ftp over ssl only.
How to take advantage of hosting?
You need to contact me Via PM, Email, or IM, and I will get you set up.
Here is a list of sites that were hosted by United-TI for various periods of time:
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Site History
(Taken from United-TI about page)
Around midst December of 2002, many members of Cirrus, CalcBasic, and The Calc Site realized that the Webmasters David, Justin, and Alan (in respective order) were really acting as one large group because we were as active at other sites as our own. Site Visitors and members posted on our discussion forums and sent email telling us that we should join forces since we already have an indirect affiliation.
It did not take long for us to agree that consolidation would improve the efficiency of our sites by optimizing the presentation of information. One of the first things we decided to do is consolidate our discussion forums into one to prevent having identical threads at each website. We finally all came to the conclusion that we would call the new site United-TI, and each affiliate site would be granted one administrator.
Not everything went to plan. The original plan was to merge Cirrus Programming, Calcbasic, and The Calc Site into one efficient, consolidated group; however, the webmaster of The Calc Site pulled out to commit to personal obligations, and Outer Limit Software requested to join.
It was agreed the best way to handle the drop of The Calc Site was to accept The Outer Limit Software with Bryan, its webmaster. Realization that another problem stood in the way of success sunk in: there was not a web host for the new merger. However, as luck would have it, there was another calculator website who wished to join: Prokul Interactive founded by Glen. Prokul also came with Justin W. as a co-founder, and they knew of a good host (RedElf.net).
On May 20, 2003, United-TI officially came into existence. The first step was to consolidate the discussion forums from all sites into a single forum to prevent having duplicate threads at multiple sites to maintain the same posted information. It didn't take long before the forum started gaining momentum. After a couple of weeks on, Jon Johnson, a member from Prokul, became quite active (after taking a 3 year vacation from the TI scene) and, being completely behind hosting, was quickly promoted from member to moderator of the Open Topic and Web Design forums and shortly thereafter to full administrator.
At this point, UTI still did not have a domain registered so a vote was held as to what it should be out of a few choices featuring the name United-TI. Once the majority decided United-TI.org, Jon registered it and quickly set everything up. We are now hosted by RedElf.Net. We like our new host very much because the security is better, the server is faster, the servers internet connection is faster, they have PHP, Perl/CGI, and MySQL installed (among other things), and their service has been exemplary in that they helped us with every step. They set up our domain name, set up our email at our domain, helped us configure MySQL, and immediately answered questions. We would ask a question, and get an answer and assistance the same day.
Although not exactly as planned, everything was starting to fall into place. Unfortunately, one great stumbling block stood in the way: the main page was merely a blank white page with a link only to the forum and the forum contained a couple of threads talking about what the main page soon would be. A thread was started to get feedback on this item, and post the ideas the United-TI Staff had for what should be made for the main page. After a few months, Jon put his project Zabotage in place of the homepage, as it was certainly better than a near-blank white page. As updates have come out for Zabotage, they have been added to the United-TI main page, more so then even on the official Zabotage project page.
Over the course of time, changes occurred. On December 14, 2003, Glen resigned as an administrator. This action was followed a few months later by David who saw it fit to retire from United-TI for personal reasons (he returned a year and three days later, on May 23, 2005, however not acting as an admin despite still bearing the title. He apparently vanished after November 9, 2005, although his profile indicates he has been online recently.). Both of these great men have contributed with their time to further help UTI. In order to keep the future of United-TI alive, on May 31, 2004 Chris was appointed as an Administrator with the primary responsibility of global forum moderation, however he stepped down on October 5, 2005 for personal reasons, naming Sir Robin (now Darker Line) his successor.
Miscellaneous
(Taken from United-TI news page)
New UnitedTI Members News
AlienCC 2004-04-26 15:39:41
United TI, welcomes our newest members from Obsidian Programming to the team.
This exciting addition includes Jedd, Keith Pierce, pcdthebum, and Will.
Welcome to the team guys.
If you want to get your member webspace and email accounts setup you can either contact JBirk, or myself and we will get you going.
Update: (Apr 30 2004, 06:15 PM) We are pleased to announce the addition of Kevin to our team as well, and look forward to the talents and skills he has to offer us.