History
The Java 4K Game Programming Contest came into being on August 28, 2002 when a user by the handle of codymanix posted the suggestion to the Sun Microsystems Java forums. After a bit of argument over how feasible a game would be in 4K, a user by the handle of mlk officially organized the contest on August 29, 2002.
Slowly but surely, entries began to trickle in for the contest. The majority of these entries were Applets, as it was believed that separating the images from the class files would help reduce the size of the file. Future contests would see a reversal of this as game creators utilized compressed JAR files to reduce the size of their code.
One of the most interesting points about the first contest was that non-game applications were allowed. One contestant produced a telnet server in 4K of Java. However, this artifact of the first competition did not survive, and was most likely allowed because of the loose handling of the first contest. While no winner was officially declared the first year, the 4K Racing game submitted by Robin Chaddock (aka Abuse/AbU5e) was generally agreed upon to have "won".
Successive competitions became more and more organized, with many of the contestants pitching in to handle administration and promotion of the contest. All contests received official judging, with the method of judging being refined each year. By the third year, the contest was officially transitioned over to the JavaGaming.org forums. The fourth year saw the introduction of the JavaUnlimited website as the official repository for the contest. The site had been used the previous year to track entries that had been posted to the official threads on JavaGaming.org and forum.java.sun.com.
Read more about this topic: Java 4K Game Programming Contest
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