Oscar Night 2012 had one big surprise: Meryl Streep. Twenty-nine years after her last Best Actress award for Sophie's Choice, she finally won again—this time for her spot-on portrayal of Margaret Thatcher in Iron Lady. Her victory surprised most folks who entered Tom's Oscar Contest, too, because it knocked three people and a computer-generated contestant out of first place, vaulting Denny Atkin into the top position with 118 points.

The result was an unprecedented four-way tie for Second Place: Julia Vosper, Kathy Yakal, Tim Midkiff, and Computer Average (a virtual contestant created by Tom's OscarCalc program) all finished with 108 points.

At the bottom of the scoreboard was another crowd—a three-way tie for the last-place Booby Prize. Amy Johnson, Leslie Mizell, and Computer Booby (another computer-generated contestant) all finished with a perfect zero score.

Denny Atkin is a Compute! Magazine alumnus, having joined the magazine too late to engage Tom in heated Amiga versus Atari ST debates. Nowadays he manages the Xbox website for Microsoft, despite having written things like "As the Magic 8-Ball said, 'Outlook not so good'" in his days as a technology journalist. He lives in the Pacific Northwest with his wife Dawn and son Carter, who is looking forward to being nominated for Best Supporting Actor sometime in the early 2020s. Read Denny Atkins' acceptance speech.

Amy Johnson, a freelance writer in Seattle, won the Booby Prize in 2011, 2007, and 2008 and finished second in 2001. Amy has also appeared on TV's Jeopardy. Read her acceptance speech.

Leslie Mizell, a writer in Greensboro, North Carolina, has won or tied for the Booby Prize in 2012, 2009, 2006, 2005, 2004, 2002, 2001, 1999, 1998, 1997, 1996, 1992, 1991, and 1989. (She has also won First Place twice.) Read her latest acceptance speech.

• Check the real-time scoreboard that was continually updated during the Academy Awards show on TV. Tom's OscarCalc program automatically calculates the scores after each Oscar is presented, then posts the results online within seconds. You can also view any contestant's ballot.

• See the Oscar predictions made by OscarCalc, the miracle program behind Tom's Oscar Contest. Each year, in addition to automatically tabulating the scores, OscarCalc predicts with uncanny accuracy who will win an Oscar in each award category. (These predictions form the basis of the computer-generated virtual contestants.) This year, OscarCalc correctly predicted the winners in 20 of 24 Oscar categories.

• See the final scores from last year's contest. The top winner was David English.

• Visit the Hall of Fame for Tom's Oscar Contest. You can see the names of all winners from 1989 to 2012. (Sorry, earlier years are not available.)