ioccc/1991

1991 marked the "The Eighth International Obfuscated C Code Contest"

Look at the README.md file for the given winner for information on how to compile the winner and how to run the winning program. Look at the winning source and try to figure how it does what it does! You may then wish to look at the Author's remarks for even more details.

Instructions for use: Run make to compile entries. It is possible that on BSD or non-unix systems the makefile needs to be changed.

This year, we did not single out an entry that was better than all of the rest. We selected 3 entries that were, in our opinion, went beyond all of the other entries this year:

Grand Prize			by Brian Westley
Most Well Rounded		by Diomidis Spinellis
Best Of Show    		by Daniel J. Bernstein

Name and address information are separated from the actual program prior to judging. This eliminates any chance that we would bias our judging for/against any person or group. In the end, we are surprised as you are to see who as won. Even so, it is worth noting that Brian Westley has submitted a winning entry for the past 5 years!

A few notes regarding possible changes to the contest:

We did not give awards to some traditional contest categories such as "Best Layout" or "Worst Abuse of the Rules". We felt that to do so would deny awards to more deserving entries. These categories have not been eliminated, and will likely be considered in future years.

A number of entries made use of the following C pre-processor feature:

#define X define
#X foo bar

This is not permitted under ANSI C. Some ANSI C compilers do allow this. In the future, we do not want programs to use this feature. Because this request was not stated in the 1991 rules, we did not reject entries of this type. However we provided more portable versions so that more people could compile these programs.

This year we received entries that made use of the X Window System. This functionality is now available on many systems, we feel that programs that use these are now portable enough to be valid entries.

We may allow programs to make use of the X Window System libs and include files, provided that they can operate with a system running at the level of at least X11r4. Requiring the use of imake, a specific window manager, specific display hardware, or a specific user interface (Openl**k, M*tif, ...) is likely not to be allowed. We will provide a more detailed explanation of our viewpoint in next year's rules.

In order to encourage more 'normal' looking C programs, we are considering the following change to the maximum size rule:

Your source, not counting any <space>, <tab>, and a <newline> character,
and not counting any ';', '{' and '}' character followed by a <newline>
character, must be 1536 bytes or less.  The entire source, counting all
characters, be 4096 bytes or less.

Some thought has been given to adding some c++ categories, however this is not likely to happen soon. We are waiting until c++ compilers become common place on a wide number of systems. We also need time to brace ourselves for what obfuscation c++ could wield!

Be sure to wait until the 1992 rules are posted before submitting entries. We may fine tune the rules to reflect the some ideas above.

Please send us comments and suggestions what we have expressed above. Also include anything else that you would like to see in future contests. Send such email to:

...!{sun,pacbell,uunet,pyramid}!hoptoad!judges
judges@toad.com

Credits:

We would like to thank Barbara Frezza for her role as official chef of the contest. Landon Noll appreciated the opportunity to serve as assistant pizza chef. Larry Bassel was official taste tester. Yummo!

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Copyright (c) 1991, Landon Curt Noll & Larry Bassel. All Rights Reserved. Permission for personal, educational or non-profit use is granted provided this this copyright and notice are included in its entirety and remains unaltered. All other uses must receive prior permission in writing from both Landon Curt Noll and Larry Bassel.