Little bugs in the database

This is the place to request ZXDB corrections (add missing data or fix incorrect information)

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PeterJ
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Re: Little bugs in the database

Post by PeterJ »

druellan wrote: Fri Dec 21, 2018 12:00 pm
PeterJ wrote: Wed Dec 19, 2018 8:56 pm Also should the releases include the MicroHobby type-ins too.
Not sure if this is a question or an affirmation :D but I can upload the Spanish version (and better screen capture).
Hi, it was a question, but please send the files over. Thank you.

Was it normal for magazines to swop listings across countries?
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druellan
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Re: Little bugs in the database

Post by druellan »

PeterJ wrote: Fri Dec 21, 2018 4:38 pm Was it normal for magazines to swop listings across countries?
Kind of, because not only the magazine might reprint the code (with permission or not), but also the readers started to contribute, and back then there was no way to check if the game had a legitimate author.

In this case, seems that Hobby Press, the editor, was in contact with EMAP Publications, so, we can assume everything was legal.

Image

I'm going to start paying attention to this type-in games, in case I can certify they got (legally) republished on another magazine and can contribute with the translated version.
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Rorthron
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Re: Little bugs in the database

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Rorthron wrote: Thu Dec 20, 2018 3:25 pm A few proposed corrections to the entry for Apocalypse:

1. It has an AKA that is not listed: "Apocalypse: The Game of Nuclear Devastation"

2. It was officially licensed from a boardgame by Games Workshop. No licence is shown in the entry (though there is a link to the relevelant Wikipedia page). I presume the licence should be listed.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apocalypse_(board_game)

3. The Command Software release is from 1987, not 1983.

https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/mag.php ... 19&page=12

4. Expansion packs are mentioned in comments. Should they not be included as part of a series?

5. The authors are listed in SC as "Dino" and "Joey", which is confirmed by the in-game credits. However, the Dino on SC is labelled "(Denmark)" and only otherwise associated with much later demos. The Dino behind Apocalypse was apparently based in England. They could be the same person, but I suspect two different people might have been conflated. Does anyone know more about who Dino and Joey were?

6. Dino and Joey are listed as working for Games Workshop. I think this is incorrect and should be deleted.

At some point they did work in the SLUG cooperative. Crash 9 suggests this was after they worked for Red Shift, but that might not be entirely accurate:

"A series of problems at Red Shift earlier this year [198x] led to the departure of most of the programmers to the SLUG co-op."

SLUG did subsequently do work for Games Workshop, but it seems that at the time of Apocalypse's original release, there was no formal association.

The authors of Apocalypse are stated to be SLUG on the Talisman box, but this might be a retrospective rewrite:
https://ia600604.us.archive.org/zipview ... x-Back.jpg

(SLUG are also authors of Rebelstar Raiders according to the Talisman box, but are not listed in SC.)

6. The link to PCN p370 does not work (and I am fairly sure PCN never had 370 pages!):

https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/mag.php ... 0&page=370

7. The Your Computer link is also not working: https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/mag.php ... 6&page=134

8. The labels for the Crash magazine references are an inconsistent mixture: some say LivingGuide and some Review. They are all to the same Living Guide comment, so should have a consistent label.
Another amendment to the Apocalypse entry:

9. Add to magazine references a review in White Dwarf 54, p18 (June 1994)

https://archive.org/stream/WhiteDwarf05 ... 7/mode/1up

There are several Spectrum references in White Dwarf. They don't seem to be included in the archive. I will trawl through archive.org and collate them.

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Last edited by Rorthron on Sat Dec 22, 2018 9:01 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Rorthron
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Re: Little bugs in the database

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PeterJ wrote: Thu Dec 20, 2018 7:08 pmIt looks like the paging for some of the weekly magazines was set-up in the magazines database in some unusual way which I will need to investigate.
There are quite a few oddities in SC/ZXDB magazine references. I'll try to put a list together.
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PeterJ
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Re: Little bugs in the database

Post by PeterJ »

Hi [mention]Rorthron[/mention]

You will find the source for Spot and Spec here. This the the magazine's database the ZXDB and other sites use as it's source. Though [mention]Einar Saukas[/mention] has made quite a few updates following feedback from this thread.

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~jg27p ... efault.htm

They are just delimited text files.

With the weeklies I believe what happens is (and I'm very happy to be corrected on this) the issue is stored as the month and the page is for the month. So if the first issue of a month had 100 pages, the first page of the second issue for that month would be 101.
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Rorthron
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Re: Little bugs in the database

Post by Rorthron »

PeterJ wrote: Sat Dec 22, 2018 9:10 am Hi @Rorthron

You will find the source for Spot and Spec here. This the the magazine's database the ZXDB and other sites use as it's source. Though @Einar Saukas has made quite a few updates following feedback from this thread.

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~jg27p ... efault.htm

They are just delimited text files.
Sorry, I'm a little confused. Is the data not stored in ZXDB? Do I need to get SPOT corrected (which seeems not to have been updated since 2011)? Or can I post corrections here?
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Re: Little bugs in the database

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Hi [mention]Rorthron[/mention]

Sorry, yes post here. I was just letting you know where the source data came from. It's useful if you want to load it into Excel or similar.
Note. I have edited my last post to include information about the weeklies.
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Rorthron
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Re: Little bugs in the database

Post by Rorthron »

PeterJ wrote: Sat Dec 22, 2018 9:31 am Hi @Rorthron

Sorry, yes post here. I was just letting you know where the source data came from. It's useful if you want to load it into Excel or similar.
Note. I have edited my last post to include information about the weeklies.
OK, thanks.
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Rorthron
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Re: Little bugs in the database

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Here are some White Dwarf (WD) magazine references to be added to ZXDB. They start with the ZXDB ID (except one which is a uMIA type-in). Is this sort of format OK?

10361 Usurper review WD52 (April 1984) p22
https://archive.org/stream/WhiteDwarf05 ... 1/mode/1up

9579 Caribbean Trader review WD52 (April 1984) p23
https://archive.org/stream/WhiteDwarf05 ... 2/mode/1up

uMIA Type-in program listing, title: "Warp Speed! Captain", by: d7 Software, author: MJM, type: utility (board game play aid), year: 1984 WD52 (April 1984) p23
https://archive.org/stream/WhiteDwarf05 ... 2/mode/1up
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Rorthron
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Re: Little bugs in the database

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Rorthron wrote: Sat Dec 22, 2018 8:54 am
PeterJ wrote: Thu Dec 20, 2018 7:08 pmIt looks like the paging for some of the weekly magazines was set-up in the magazines database in some unusual way which I will need to investigate.
There are quite a few oddities in SC/ZXDB magazine references. I'll try to put a list together.
For example, the links to archive.org (eg Crash, SU) are all out by 1 page. They link to the page after the correct page. This seems to be because archive.org does not count the cover as a page.

In the links above I have linked to the correct page.
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Rorthron
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Re: Little bugs in the database

Post by Rorthron »

More White Dwarf magazine references to be added:

222 Apocalypse review WD54 (June 1984) p18 (This duplicates the one I mentioned for Apocalypse in point 9, above)

https://archive.org/stream/WhiteDwarf05 ... 7/mode/1up

448 Battle 1917 review WD54 (June 1984) p19

https://archive.org/stream/WhiteDwarf05 ... 8/mode/1up

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Rorthron
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Re: Little bugs in the database

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Another batch of White Dwarf references:

6604 Lords of Midnight mention WD56 (August 1984) p46
https://archive.org/stream/WhiteDwarf05 ... 5/mode/1up

6604 Lords of Midnight review WD60 (December 1984) p31
https://archive.org/stream/WhiteDwarf05 ... 0/mode/1up

3925 Psytron review WD56 (August 1984) p46
https://archive.org/stream/WhiteDwarf05 ... 5/mode/1up

7126 Tower of Despair review WD60 (December 1984) p30
https://archive.org/stream/WhiteDwarf05 ... 9/mode/1up

1276 D-Day review WD60 (December 1984) p30
https://archive.org/stream/WhiteDwarf05 ... 9/mode/1up

1661 Eureka! review WD60 (December 1984) p30
https://archive.org/stream/WhiteDwarf05 ... 9/mode/1up

467 Battlecars review WD60 (December 1984) p31
https://archive.org/stream/WhiteDwarf05 ... 0/mode/1up

BTW there is a clear pattern of Games Workshop reviewing their own games, plus those of Beyond, who happened to advertise in White Dwarf. A coincidence? ;)

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Re: Little bugs in the database

Post by StooB »

IJK Software (6058) is not from or owned by the BBC (1484).

UK Software (14896), owner of Strobe (14006) should be IJK Software (6058).
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Re: Little bugs in the database

Post by PeterJ »

[mention]StooB[/mention] I find it fascinating that these little bugs have been sitting there for close on 20 years and they are now being found. Great stuff!
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Rorthron
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Re: Little bugs in the database

Post by Rorthron »

More White Dwarf:

5122 Talisman review WD66 (June 1985) p6
https://archive.org/stream/WhiteDwarf05 ... 5/mode/1up

894 Chaos review WD68 (August 1985) p12
https://archive.org/stream/WhiteDwarf05 ... 1/mode/1up

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Re: Little bugs in the database

Post by PeterJ »

I'm continuing my exploration of type in games and have come across classics (in the loosest sense of the word) that never appeared in the databases.

The latest find is Cigarette Dowser from Sinclair Programs Issue 20. The aim of this 'classic' is to shoot water at cigarettes being smoked by your chain smoking friend to save him from death. It's actually rather impossible to play as you need to hit the tip of the cigarette.

Image

Image

Big thanks go to the Type Fantastic (Battle Bunny) for preserving these.

I will start collating these titles missing from the database as I find them.
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g0blinish
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Re: Little bugs in the database

Post by g0blinish »

https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... l_id=15733
from "Running screen" for FilloMania
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Re: Little bugs in the database

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g0blinish wrote: Sun Dec 23, 2018 10:41 am https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... l_id=15733
from "Running screen" for FilloMania
Hmm. It shows up correctly on the main page for FilloMania. [mention]4thRock[/mention], any idea?
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Re: Little bugs in the database

Post by g0blinish »

Image
Opera 57.0.3098.106

*sorry, I forgot to say about browser*
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Re: Little bugs in the database

Post by StooB »

R-Tape wrote: Sun Dec 23, 2018 2:14 pm
g0blinish wrote: Sun Dec 23, 2018 10:41 am https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... l_id=15733
from "Running screen" for FilloMania
Hmm. It shows up correctly on the main page for FilloMania. @4thRock, any idea?
It's a .png but it expects a .scr:

Code: Select all

<img src="SCRtoImage.php?SCR=zxdb/sinclair/entries/0034605/0034605-run-1.png" alt="FilloMania screen">
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Re: Little bugs in the database

Post by 4thRock »

StooB wrote: Sun Dec 23, 2018 3:31 pm It's a .png but it expects a .scr
Yes, that the problem. The frontend code is OK, it's just expecting a SCR.
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Einar Saukas
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Re: Little bugs in the database

Post by Einar Saukas »

R-Tape wrote: Sun Dec 23, 2018 2:14 pm
g0blinish wrote: Sun Dec 23, 2018 10:41 am https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... l_id=15733
from "Running screen" for FilloMania
Hmm. It shows up correctly on the main page for FilloMania. @4thRock, any idea?
Dave, you registered this file in ZXDB as "screen dump" although it's a PNG image. That's the reason SC isn't rendering it properly! :)

It will be fixed in next ZXDB update. Although it would be better to replace it with a proper screen dump.
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Re: Little bugs in the database

Post by R-Tape »

Ah sorry. I even made a mental note of it, but must have forgotten.

I chose g0blinish's png in this case because it looked much better than the .scr I made.
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Re: Little bugs in the database

Post by 8BitAG »

Missing game...

Doctor Goo and the Wobegon Affair
1988
William Young
Spectrum Adventure Exchange Club

Created using the Quill

Parts one and two were published on Issue 22 and 23 of the SAEC's Spectrum Adventurer tapezine. The remaining parts don't appear to have been completed.

"Dr Goo has been summoned by an intergalactic distress signal to the planet Wobegon. Can you help the Wobies to rid their planet of the awful Thugs?"


Image

Image

Image
8-bit Text Adventure Gamer - games - research.
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Rorthron
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Re: Little bugs in the database

Post by Rorthron »

1. Runestone. The original Games Workshop version was released in 1985, not 1986. (The Firebird release is from 1986.)
2. Runestone, Key of Hope, Tower of Despair, Talisman, Chaos and D-Day. Ad in White Dwarf 65 (Jun 85) p55: https://archive.org/stream/WhiteDwarf05 ... 4/mode/1up.
3. The Secret River, The Wizard's Citadel. Ad in WD62 (Feb 85) p4: https://archive.org/stream/WhiteDwarf05 ... 3/mode/1up
4. Micro Adventurer magazine. Ad in WD63 (Mar 85) p45: https://archive.org/stream/WhiteDwarf05 ... 4/mode/1up
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