Spectrum Computing

YEAAAHH!!! Petercanweinstallitcanweinstallitwhencanweinstallitisitinstalledyet?

Doing it now [mention]R-Tape[/mention]

You can explain to Mrs J why I went straight into the study when I arrived home!

Woot! is here! Yipppeee

https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... 6&id=34609

Sorry for the delays update fans. We're still getting used to ZX-Ed and fixing a few bugs. We'll start with some small but regular test updates as soon as we can.

A new ZXDB update is available!

This is a small partial update, created with the aid of ZX-Ed for the first time.

Einar Saukas wrote: ↑Sat Jan 12, 2019 6:09 pm This is a small partial update, created with the aid of ZX-Ed for the first time.

YEAAAHHHH!! Thanks Einar.



Small steps, but we're getting there!

A minor ZXDB update has been released.

In this update, 4 database columns related to product prices ("spanish_price", "microdrive_price", "disk_price", "cartridge_price") are being moved from table "entries" to table "releases". For now, these columns still exist in both tables, so any site referencing these columns at table "entries" can have time to make the proper adjusts. But in next update, they will only exist in table "releases".

There were no major content changes this time. Therefore if SC prefers to skip this release and wait for the next one, that's fine!

Einar Saukas wrote: ↑Wed Jan 16, 2019 5:57 am In this update, 4 database columns related to product prices ("spanish_price", "microdrive_price", "disk_price", "cartridge_price") are being moved from table "entries" to table "releases".

That's not going to work for titles like Combat School where there are two Spanish releases but only one Spanish price in the entries table.

Also, wouldn't it make more sense to have a single price per release with an additional field for "release_format" (cassette, disk, microdrive, cartridge)?
There's already a "release_price" and a "budget_price" for each release - which should be mutually exclusive - but leads to things like Gryzor where the "Original" release also has a budget price of £2.99, while the actual budget release has it's own price of £3.99.

StooB wrote: ↑Wed Jan 16, 2019 10:10 am

Einar Saukas wrote: ↑Wed Jan 16, 2019 5:57 am In this update, 4 database columns related to product prices ("spanish_price", "microdrive_price", "disk_price", "cartridge_price") are being moved from table "entries" to table "releases".

That's not going to work for titles like Combat School where there are two Spanish releases but only one Spanish price in the entries table.

You are right. I should have given more thought to this. Thanks for pointing this out!

We shouldn't really have a "spanish_price" column anywhere. Instead, I must identify the correct Spanish release on each case that had this specific price, then assign it as the release price.

OK, I'm working on it now...

StooB wrote: ↑Wed Jan 16, 2019 10:10 amAlso, wouldn't it make more sense to have a single price per release with an additional field for "release_format" (cassette, disk, microdrive, cartridge)?

No, because a single release may have multiple formats. For instance "Knight Orc" was originally released as both cassette and disk.

StooB wrote: ↑Wed Jan 16, 2019 10:10 am
There's already a "release_price" and a "budget_price" for each release - which should be mutually exclusive - but leads to things like Gryzor where the "Original" release also has a budget price of £2.99, while the actual budget release has it's own price of £3.99.

Perhaps this name is misleading. The "budget price" refers to a release that was originally launched at a certain "release price", then some time later had the price reduced on stores for the same release.

For instance, Gryzor was originally released in 1987 by Ocean for £7.95. A while later, the price of this release was eventually reduced to £2.99. Then 4 years later, Gryzor was re-released under the budget label Hit Squad, for the re-release price of £3.99.

Einar Saukas wrote: ↑Fri Jan 18, 2019 3:05 am

StooB wrote: ↑Wed Jan 16, 2019 10:10 am There's already a "release_price" and a "budget_price" for each release - which should be mutually exclusive - but leads to things like Gryzor where the "Original" release also has a budget price of £2.99, while the actual budget release has it's own price of £3.99.

Perhaps this name is misleading. The "budget price" refers to a release that was originally launched at a certain "release price", then some time later had the price reduced on stores for the same release.
For instance, Gryzor was originally released in 1987 by Ocean for £7.95. A while later, the price of this release was eventually reduced to £2.99. Then 4 years later, Gryzor was re-released under the budget label Hit Squad, for the re-release price of £3.99.

Yes, perhaps "clearance price" or "reduced price" might be clearer. However, this doesn't seem to have been transferred consistently from the original WoS data.

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.

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!

Einar Saukas wrote: ↑Fri Jan 18, 2019 3:05 am

StooB wrote: ↑Wed Jan 16, 2019 10:10 amAlso, wouldn't it make more sense to have a single price per release with an additional field for "release_format" (cassette, disk, microdrive, cartridge)?

No, because a single release may have multiple formats. For instance "Knight Orc" was originally released as both cassette and disk.

Knight Orc is a very straightforward case though. You'll need to think about these problems:

• None of the Spanish +3 re-releases have disk prices, but you could work out whether there was a disk release by looking in the downloads table and put "Unknown" against the disk price for the Spanish release. This doesn't work for 'denied' titles like Barbarian by Melbourne House - WoS shows that there is a Spanish +3 disk release, with no price, that isn't shown here.

• Alien Research Centre by Zenobi (this one applies to lots of Zenobi releases) - this was originally released on cassette and +3 disk but there's no disk price. Not only that, there's also a re-release on a +D disk, so do you need a +3 disk price column and a +D disk price column?

• Back to ACE 2, and again there is an original +3 disk release without a price, but there are also a differently priced 48K and 128K cassette releases, so you'd also need a 48K Cassette price column and a 128K Cassette price column.

• Worst of all is The Artist II where there is an original 48K cassette release at £14.95, an original 128K cassette release at £17.95, there are original +3 and +D disk releases but only one disk price given which may or may not apply to both!

Thanks for this list of (possible) issues! It's going to take me some time to check each one, I will report later my findings here.

In the meantime, I have just released a new ZXDB update!

Technically columns disk_price, microdrive_price, and cartridge_price were moved to table "releases". It makes more sense to store these values per release, instead of just once per title. Unfortunately there's no way to determine what's the specific release for previously existing information imported from Martijn's WoS that didn't make this distinction, so the only options here are either storing the same information in all releases or in original release only, then manually adjusting it later case-by-case whenever possible. At least this way, every price we store from now on will be more accurate.

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 will let R-Tape describe what else he included in this update.

There's yet another ZXDB update now, containing credits for cover artists.

Einar Saukas wrote: ↑Sat Jan 19, 2019 1:19 pm 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

Einar Saukas wrote: ↑Sat Jan 19, 2019 1:04 pm Thanks for this list of (possible) issues! It's going to take me some time to check each one, I will report later my findings here.

and while you're looking at the releases table, I've found another problem! Everything has a release, whether it happened or not.

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)

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!

Hi [mention]StooB[/mention]

The prices I'm taking are from the first release, so I believe the price showing for Duet us the price of the compilation it appeared on.

Peter

PeterJ wrote: ↑Tue Jan 22, 2019 1:16 pm Hi @StooB

The prices I'm taking are from the first release, so I believe the price showing for Duet us the price of the compilation it appeared on.

Peter

The compilation price is £9.95 though, not £7.95!

6 Pak compilation:
https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... 6&id=11197

Good point! I need my eyes tested...

StooB wrote: ↑Tue Jan 22, 2019 10:15 am

Einar Saukas wrote: ↑Sat Jan 19, 2019 1:04 pmThanks for this list of (possible) issues! It's going to take me some time to check each one, I will report later my findings here.

and while you're looking at the releases table, I've found another problem! Everything has a release, whether it happened or not.

The problem is not the information itself. We shouldn't omit the information that Beyond Software was the publisher behind "Eye of the Moon" for instance, although this game was never published therefore it didn't have a publisher!

The problem is how to present this information, to avoid misunderstandings. SpectrumComputing has just updated this section, please see if it works for you now.

StooB wrote: ↑Tue Jan 22, 2019 10:15 ameg: 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?

StooB wrote: ↑Tue Jan 22, 2019 10:15 amUnfortunately, 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?

jpablo wrote: ↑Tue Jan 22, 2019 8:24 am

Einar Saukas wrote: ↑Sat Jan 19, 2019 1:19 pm 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 just sent you a PM

StooB wrote: ↑Fri Jan 18, 2019 12:33 pm 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!

StooB wrote: ↑Fri Jan 18, 2019 12:33 pmAlso, 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!

Einar Saukas wrote: ↑Wed Jan 23, 2019 4:25 am

StooB wrote: ↑Tue Jan 22, 2019 10:15 amUnfortunately, 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!

Einar Saukas wrote: ↑Wed Jan 23, 2019 4:25 am

StooB wrote: ↑Tue Jan 22, 2019 10:15 ameg: 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?

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.

StooB wrote: ↑Wed Jan 23, 2019 9:30 am

Einar Saukas wrote: ↑Wed Jan 23, 2019 4:25 am Do they look correct now?

All good!

Einar Saukas wrote: ↑Wed Jan 23, 2019 4:25 am 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.