Spectrum Computing

I'm not sure why Kobyashi Naru is listed as being written with PAW in the database...

https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... 96&id=6545

Unlike its sequel, it wasn't created using PAW. It was produce with Les & Clive's own system.

Game Over + Game Over 2 (15451)

- this is the UK release of Phantis (3676) and is already listed on that page

St Bride's School (UK) (13696)

- should be St Bride's School (Ireland) and is not owned by CRL Group (2122)

The Snow Queen (6991)

- originally released by St Bride's School (13696) with the Mosaic Publishing (10034) re-release in 1986
source 1: advert for St Bride's version: https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/mag.php ... 87&page=81
source 2: re-release confirmed by Mike Gerrard in YS June 86: https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/mag.php ... 27&page=65

Journey's End (2644), Sinbad and the Golden Ship (6976)

- were released by Mastertronic Ltd (9371) not Mastervision (9373) (source: covers)

Blade Software (1746)

- not from, or owned by Mythos Games (10087)
(source: https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2010 ... iew?page=2 )

Laser Squad (2813)

- original publication is by Target Games (14284) in 1988
- Blade Software (1746) re-released the game in 1989 (first Blade Software ads appear in Oct 1989, earlier ones are all Target Games)

Energy Warrior + Molecule Man (11299), Rockford (4214)

- are not published by Mastertronic Added Dimension (9370), but by its replacement "MAD X"
(source: https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/mag.php ... 71&page=23)
- Rockman should be listed as a compilation because it has 2 games like Energy Warrior + Molecule Man, and renamed "Rockford + Rockman"

Tank Trax + Bullseye (11300), Gnasher + Spectipede (11301)

- original release year should be 1985 (source: inlays)

Motorbike Madness (3292)

- published by Mastertronic Added Dimension (9370) not Mastertronic Ltd (9371) (source: cover)

Into The Abyss (11808), Minister for Alien Affairs (11907), Time of the End (7101)

- published (or planned to be published) by Mandarin Adventures, not Mandarin Software (UK) (8972) which doesn't exist until 1988
(source: https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/mag.php ... 93&page=10

Super Glooper also FROGS (31822)

- should be a compilation with contents Super Glooper (29682) and Frogs (31626)
- the author of Super Glooper is Steve Kelly (UK) (13892) (source: https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/mag.php ... 740&page=9)
- inlay scans available at http://www.zx81stuff.org.uk/zx81/tape/SuperGlooper

StooB wrote: ↑Tue Dec 11, 2018 6:30 pm The Snow Queen (6991)
- originally released by St Bride's School (13696) with the Mosaic Publishing (10034) re-release in 1986
source 1: advert for St Bride's version: https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/mag.php ... 87&page=81
source 2: re-release confirmed by Mike Gerrard in YS June 86: https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/mag.php ... 27&page=65

Well, while we're at it... the date for the GI Games re-release is wrong too (see the document in the Dogboy thread)...

Should be 1991 for the GI Games re-release.

And 1992 for the Zenobi re-release.

And potentially 1992 also for the Northern Underground re-release.

Those dates also need to be altered to the same on the entries for...

Bugsy https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... 96&id=6050
The Dogboy https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... 96&id=6191
Jack the Ripper https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... 96&id=6497
The Secret of St. Bride's https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... 96&id=6951
Silverwolf https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... 96&id=6974
The Very Big Cave Adventure https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... 96&id=7161
The White Feather Cloak https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... 96&id=7180

ie. GI Games (1991)
Zenobi (1992)

and possibly...
The Northern Underground (1992)
...although I do want to quickly check which GI Games titles were included in that arrangement.
(edit: Just found a review in From Beyond of one of the St. Bride's games distributed by The Northern Underground... So I'm pretty confident the St. Bride's games were included in the 24 GI Games titles that they republished)

(see the Dogboy thread for the supporting documentation which references sources for all these dates)

Cybertanks, by Star Dreams.

https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... 96&id=1201

A strange case, as not many info about this game. No inlay and no instructions. No author. Just the publisher and it was sold at 5,50 GBP and some short references on magazines.

According to the entry info, It was also included in the WOW compilation so I look it up and found in the compilations info:

CYBERTANKS Count: STAR DREAMS
PROGRAMMING - PAUL JEFFRIES

So Paul Jeffries should be included in the database as the author of this game.

If anyone could have the original inlay would be great! Not a bad game.

This is not necessarily a bug in the database and could well have been researched in the past and found to be incorrect.

Sophistry (https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... 96&id=4648) is currently allocated to Authors TFMG and TEBS which is what is displayed on the loading screen.

However, there's a Games Machine review (https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/mag.php ... 95&page=49) that specifically mentions Roderick McSarquar as the author, which is very specific.

I've managed to do some Google-digging and found another sort-of confirmation. Some OCRing of ZZAP on archive.org has the following in https://archive.org/stream/Zzap044Dec88 ... 8_djvu.txt

"CRL's writer of Sophistry, Roderick Mcsarquar translates as 'I've seduced another Scotsman'." Whatever the hell that means...!

According to Google there are no other McSarquars in the world, so it's probably a name invented by Clement Chambers.

Vampyre wrote: ↑Tue Dec 18, 2018 12:30 pm "CRL's writer of Sophistry, Roderick Mcsarquar translates as 'I've seduced another Scotsman'." Whatever the hell that means...!

As an aside, there is a real person (a fairly famous politician and academic) called Roderick MacFarquhar

(Wikipedia actually lists his middle name as... Lemonade.... !?)

To add to the Laser Squad info above, I remember doing some poking around with the various releases and expansion pack etc. last year. I posted all my corrections/findings into this thread:
https://www.worldofspectrum.org/forums/ ... ion/55057/

It's a shame that there's probably a ton of other fixes that people have submitted over on the WOS forums during the post-handover period that'll eventually get lost as and when it finally sinks into the mire but whenever I see anything that I vaguely recall posting something about I try and post it here now instead. We should have some sort of Christmas appeal for people to resubmit info here and try and educate others to not waste their time posting on WOS. It's a shame as people genuinely want to help but since no-one other than a blurred circle knows what the Big Secret Plan™ is you'd be better off sending corrections to Santa.... or Einar as I think he now likes to be called

richl wrote: ↑Tue Dec 18, 2018 2:30 pm To add to the Laser Squad info above, I remember doing some poking around with the various releases and expansion pack etc. last year. I posted all my corrections/findings into this thread:
https://www.worldofspectrum.org/forums/ ... ion/55057/

It's a shame that there's probably a ton of other fixes that people have submitted over on the WOS forums during the post-handover period that'll eventually get lost as and when it finally sinks into the mire but whenever I see anything that I vaguely recall posting something about I try and post it here now instead. We should have some sort of Christmas appeal for people to resubmit info here and try and educate others to not waste their time posting on WOS. It's a shame as people genuinely want to help but since no-one other than a blurred circle knows what the Big Secret Plan™ is you'd be better off sending corrections to Santa.... or Einar as I think he now likes to be called

Well I'm certainly not posting any findings to WoS any longer which I have in the past. Doesn't seem to be any point, so my full support is now to ZXDB.

I've been trying to get my creative juices going by looking at magazine type-ins recently and noticed this one:

https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... 6&id=13252

In ZXDB the author is said to be from New Zealand (Same on WoS), but if you open up the listings page for Sinclair Programs it describes the author from being from Angus in Scotland.

Also should the releases include the MicroHobby type-ins too.

I don't know if a game can have more than one alias in the database but the game listed as...

Personal Computer Whirled! https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... 96&id=6788

was actually called Personal Computing Whirled!

Although it was called Personal Computer Whirled! enough, including when it was republished by Zenobi and on Amstrad, that Personal Computer Whirled! is probably now its "proper" name.

There is an 'alternative title' field.

Peter

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.

Correction for the Apocalypse expansion sets.

1. Delete all the magazine references to the first expansion set; they all refer to the main game and not the expansion set.

Hi [mention]Rorthron[/mention]

Thanks for the reports.

I know the scans of Your Computer magazine are not complete and never have been. Can you do me a favour and see if any of the Your Computer pages are working?

The magazine references come from 'The Type Fantastic' database. We can do changes to our copiy in ZXDB but we need to prioritise.

Cheers

Peter

[mention]Rorthron[/mention]

Sadly it looks as though September 1983 is one of those missing issues of Your Computer from the archive. I have most of the originals so will look at scanning it in the future or perhaps [mention]KenD[/mention] can help?

It 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.

Peter

Issue 7 of the Spectrum Adventurer tape fanzine, by the Spectrum Adventure Exchange Club...
https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... 6&id=23007

contains part 5 of the text adventure 'Space Odyssey' which is currently not listed in ZXDB.

I presume the previous four parts were in the earlier issues that are sadly MIA at the moment.

'Space Odyssey' needs its own entry in the database.

It was produced using the Quill. The copyright notice on the game lists the year as 1986.

Similarly, issue 8 of Spectrum Adventurer https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... 6&id=23008

features the Quilled text adventure: 'A Special Christmas Adventure'

which needs an entry in ZXDB

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 but I can upload the Spanish version (and better screen capture).

8BitAG wrote: ↑Fri Dec 21, 2018 11:58 am Similarly, issue 8 of Spectrum Adventurer https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... 6&id=23008

features the Quilled text adventure: 'A Special Christmas Adventure'

which needs an entry in ZXDB

Issue 19 of Spectrum Adventurer (the Spectrum Adventure Exchange Club tapezine) also features a game called...

A Special Christmas Adventure

!?!

This one is copyright 1987, and Quilled, and shares a similar plot (finding a key) but appears to be a completely different adventure game.

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 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?

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.



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.

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.

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.

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.