New Database Model ZXDB

[Einar Saukas]

eg: Combat School at WoS had a release price of £7.99 and a budget price of £2.99, while the same entry here has a original release price of £7.99, with the £2.99 having moved to the Hit Squad re-release.

Similarly, ACE 2 at WoS has a budget price of £2.99 which has moved on to the Gamebusters re-release in ZXDB.

These prices also came from SPOT/SPEX.

Those are budget prices associated to these specific publishers in SPOT/SPEX. Although WoS used SPOT/SPEX internally, it presented a simplified view of prices on screen, without identifying the publishers for each case.

ZXDB imported all data directly from the internal files of WoS and SPOT/SPEX, so it contains more detailed information than we can see at WoS pages. The drawback is, in ZXDB you can also see any incorrect information that couldn't be seen in the simplified view presented by WoS pages. Hopefully exposing all information will allow us to find out these issues and fix them, so we will end up with an even better, more accurate archive in the end.

BTW let me take this opportunity to thank everyone, one more time, for all their contributions! Please notice that our delays in processing all corrections doesn't mean lack of interest, it's just lack of time. But we fully intend to process everything sooner or later!

[Einar Saukas]

Also, some prices seems to have been lost in the WoS/ZXDB conversion:
One of Corn Cropper's prices has gone.
The Damned Forest's budget price is missing.
Both prices for Airline have vanished completely!

They are not really gone. If you download any version of ZXDB and look at table "spex_entries", you will find all these prices there.

This table contains the remaining information from SPOT/SPEX that I was not able to "merge" into the main ZXDB tables yet. To be honest I got overloaded with other aspects of ZXDB so I forgot about that!

I will get back to this ASAP. Thanks for reminding me about it!

[StooB]

Unfortunately, it's not just titles that were only released on compilations...

The Eye of the Moon was released by Beyond.

Mire Mare was released by Ultimate!

even Bandersnatch!

Do they look correct now?

All good!

eg: Duet was only released on the Hit Pak compilation, but apparently it was released in 1987 at £7.95
(where this price comes from is a mystery as it's not on the original WoS entry or the price of the compilation either)

This price came from SPOT/SPEX.

And SPOT/SPEX took this price from Your Sinclair #13. Look at the bottom of this page:

https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/mag.php ... 34&page=10

It seems the game was announced as a standalone release for £7.95 but never released this way. Therefore this price should be removed. Right?

Wouldn't it be better to change the Elite release from "Original Release" to "Never Released" and keep the intended price information?

[Einar Saukas]

A new ZXDB update is available!


EDIT: Internal definition of table "relatedlinks" was changed. I'm sure this won't affect SC but it may affect other sites like ZX Info.

[Einar Saukas]

Do they look correct now?

All good!

This price came from SPOT/SPEX.

And SPOT/SPEX took this price from Your Sinclair #13. Look at the bottom of this page:

https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/mag.php ... 34&page=10

It seems the game was announced as a standalone release for £7.95 but never released this way. Therefore this price should be removed. Right?

Wouldn't it be better to change the Elite release from "Original Release" to "Never Released" and keep the intended price information?

ZXDB adopts the convention (inherited from Martijn's WoS) that only actual releases are stored, for released games. Only if a game was never released, then it stores the publisher that was behind it, although it's not really a "publisher" since it wasn't really "published".

Mixing information about real and imaginary releases for the same game would be confusing IMHO.

If a certain game was intended to be published in a different way, this information can be mentioned as comment if it's considered worthwhile. For instance here.

In the case of Duet, sorry but I don't think the intended release price is an information interesting enough to even deserve a comment.

[Einar Saukas]

Column spanish_price wasn't moved. This is typically the release price of the Spanish release of each game, so I'm now working to identify the proper release for each case and assign this value properly. Approximately a thousand games had a spanish price, I have just reassigned about half of them. I will try to sort the rest in the next update.

I just read this. Please don't waste time on this - this information came in from the SPA2 database, and the prices are mapped on a per-release basis there.

I can send you a copy of the current (provisional) state of the SPA2 datase, so that you can work from this. Please pass me an e-mail address so that I can send a database dump to you.

Cheers

Thank you!!! I received your material, it will be included in the next update!

[PeterJ]

A new ZXDB update is available!


EDIT: Internal definition of table "relatedlinks" was changed. I'm sure this won't affect SC but it may affect other sites like ZX Info.

Hi [mention]Einar Saukas[/mention]

Thanks for the update. I think it has broken the RZX section. I will contact you offline.

Peter

[druellan]

ZXDB adopts the convention (inherited from Martijn's WoS) that only actual releases are stored, for released games. Only if a game was never released, then it stores the publisher that was behind it, although it's not really a "publisher" since it wasn't really "published".
Mixing information about real and imaginary releases for the same game would be confusing IMHO.

I'm trying to understand this so I can improve the contributions to the ZXDB, tell me if I'm wrong but I understand that:

Not a publisher:
A game developed in the '80/'90 just for fun, they didn't have any intention to publish the game, but they created an imaginary software house.
Same as above, but they have several titles developed.

A publisher:
A game developed in the '80/'90, they HAD intention to publish the game, but that never happened.
A modern developer that sells physical copies of their games.
A modern developer that distribute digital copies of their games on their own page.
A modern developer that distribute digital copies of their games but does not have any proper Internet webpage or identity.

[8BitAG]

Not a publisher:
A game developed in the '80/'90 just for fun, they didn't have any intention to publish the game, but they created an imaginary software house.
Same as above, but they have several titles developed.

I wouldn't disappear down that rabbit hole if I were you... a lot of "software houses" were "imaginary" and still published games.

[druellan]

I wouldn't disappear down that rabbit hole if I were you... a lot of "software houses" were "imaginary" and still published games.

Haha, well, yes, that's why I made the distinction about intention. If they had the intention to sell or distribute the game (by mail, etc), even if in the end that doesn't happened, even if the name was a fantasy name, I think we can add the name as a publisher, since it was a commercial endeavor after all, but let's see what other people think about it

[Einar Saukas]

ZXDB adopts the convention (inherited from Martijn's WoS) that only actual releases are stored, for released games. Only if a game was never released, then it stores the publisher that was behind it, although it's not really a "publisher" since it wasn't really "published".
Mixing information about real and imaginary releases for the same game would be confusing IMHO.

I'm trying to understand this so I can improve the contributions to the ZXDB, tell me if I'm wrong but I understand that:

Not a publisher:
A game developed in the '80/'90 just for fun, they didn't have any intention to publish the game, but they created an imaginary software house.
Same as above, but they have several titles developed.

A publisher:
A game developed in the '80/'90, they HAD intention to publish the game, but that never happened.
A modern developer that sells physical copies of their games.
A modern developer that distribute digital copies of their games on their own page.
A modern developer that distribute digital copies of their games but does not have any proper Internet webpage or identity.

Martijn's criteria (that we still follow at ZXDB) was much simpler:

A publisher: whoever is named responsible for releasing the game. It could be a real company, or a fantasy name chosen by someone, or the main developer(s). This information is based on whatever evidence can be obtained from inlay, cover, poster, website, or simply mentioned by the author(s). Whatever was declared by the owner of the game is a much more reliable source of information than any guesswork about the developer's intentions...

[druellan]

Well, that fit exactly the example I posted above, so, yeah, I think I get it

[Einar Saukas]

Yet another ZXDB release is available!

This time it's just a minor update, modifying the licensing structure to support multiple inspirations or tie-ins per title.

[Einar Saukas]

Yet another ZXDB update was released!

Technically all game licenses are now stored in a new table called "relatedlicenses". The old columns "entries.license_id" and "entries.was_inspired" were kept for backward compatibility, but they will be removed in the next update. Therefore if you are running a website based on ZXDB, please modify it accordingly (just let me know if you require any assistance).

[PeterJ]

Thanks [mention]Einar Saukas[/mention]

We will get SC updated on Monday evening.

[Einar Saukas]

Another ZXDB update is available!

This update includes lots of RZX video links (thanks Daren!), lots of hi-res inlays (thanks Pavel!), lots of Spanish name corrections (thanks Juan!), lots of new interview links and several bug fixes.

Technically, old columns "entries.license_id" and "entries.was_inspired" were removed, as mentioned in the last update. Use the new table "relatedlicenses" instead. Also temporary tables "sscgc_authors" and "spex_magazines" were removed, since their content was finally integrated into other tables, as part of ZXDB continuous cleaning process.

[Juan F. Ramirez]

Another ZXDB update is available!

[...] lots of hi-res inlays (thanks Pavel!), [...]

First of all, again, thanks for the good work!

Second, I hope [mention]PeterJ[/mention] includes a list of these new inlays provided by [mention]pavero[/mention] in the updates section, if possible. Thanks a lot!

[pavero]

First of all, again, thanks for the good work!

Second, I hope @PeterJ includes a list of these new inlays provided by @pavero in the updates section, if possible. Thanks a lot!

I will do it myself when ZXDB will be updated at SC.

[PeterJ]

I will update the site on Friday. Apologies for the delay on this occasion.

[Ralf]

lots of hi-res inlays (thanks Pavel!)

By the way, are there any up to date rules/guidelines what is the preferred size for hi-res inlays? Or inlays in general?

[pavero]

lots of hi-res inlays (thanks Pavel!)

By the way, are there any up to date rules/guidelines what is the preferred size for hi-res inlays? Or inlays in general?

It was a compromise due to size per file vs. hosting server capacity.

Rules are following:
single jewel case - 900 pixel height
double jewel case / small boxes - 1150 pixel height
big boxes - 1900 pixel height

(all inlays are resized fully automatically by PHP script)

Of couser I still have all inlays in their original size (300 or 600 dpi).

So maybe in the future there will be two links per every inlay - the second would be external link (on Archive.org) with files in their max resolutions.

[Einar Saukas]

Yet another ZXDB update is available!

It contains lots of new inlays (thanks Pavero!) and many archive fixes reported in this forum.

Also technically, I'm now working on some internal improvements to the ZXDB schema (I will detail them later). In preparation for these upcoming changes, I have just renamed a couple tables and columns in ZXDB, as follows:

• Table "relatedlinks" was renamed to "webrefs"
• Table "origintypes" was renamed to "sourcetypes"
• Column "downloads.origintype_id" was renamed to "downloads.sourcetype_id", and now it's nullable
• Column "extras.origintype_id" was renamed to "extras.sourcetype_id", and now it's nullable

As usual, I have kept the old tables and columns, so websites based on ZXDB can update to this new ZXDB release without breaking anything, before making any changes. However if you have a website that uses these tables and columns, please make these changes ASAP, because old tables and columns will be removed in the next update.

Have fun!

[Ralf]

Keep the good work Einar !

[PeterJ]

The latest ZXDB has now been installed. I will let [mention]pavero[/mention] add the details about the new scans. Thanks [mention]Einar Saukas[/mention]

As far as I'm aware there are no new titles in this release.

[Einar Saukas]

A new ZXDB update is available!

It contains several new titles (thanks Dave!), several hires inlays from Proxima Software (thanks Pavel!), and several other fixes (thanks everybody!)

Technically table "aliases" now has a composite natural key, instead of artificial key "id". This is part of our ongoing process to improve the database structure. This "id" served no practical purpose in this table, so I doubt removing it will affect anybody.