Spectrum Computing

druellan wrote: ↑Tue Jan 29, 2019 9:10 pm

Einar Saukas wrote: ↑Tue Jan 29, 2019 12:34 pm 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...

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

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.

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).

Thanks [mention]Einar Saukas[/mention]

We will get SC updated on Monday evening.

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.

Einar Saukas wrote: ↑Tue Feb 12, 2019 3:41 am 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!

Juan F. Ramirez wrote: ↑Tue Feb 12, 2019 6:41 am
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.

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

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?

Ralf wrote: ↑Tue Feb 12, 2019 12:13 pm

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.

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!

Keep the good work Einar !

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.

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.

[mention]Einar Saukas[/mention] is the database tracking games sound capabilities, like Covox, Currah or General Sound? I see the Currah support mentioned sometimes on the comments, but there is still no structure to flag the entries based on the supported hardware, right?

druellan wrote: ↑Mon Feb 25, 2019 12:33 pm @Einar Saukas is the database tracking games sound capabilities, like Covox, Currah or General Sound? I see the Currah support mentioned sometimes on the comments, but there is still no structure to flag the entries based on the supported hardware, right?

There's already a tag for "Currah Microspeech Support". Here's a list of games marked with this tag:

https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... up_id=1003

There are so few games supporting these other devices, that it's probably not worth it creating tags for them.

There are a few games with General Sound support but they are mostly Russian mods of existing, standard games and they aren't present in ZXDB

You can check them here, General Sound emulation is supported by Spectaculator for example:
https://vtrd.in/gs.php

Einar Saukas wrote: ↑Mon Feb 25, 2019 4:42 pm There's already a tag for "Currah Microspeech Support". Here's a list of games marked with this tag:
https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... up_id=1003
There are so few games supporting these other devices, that it's probably not worth it creating tags for them.

Oh, I missed the Currah tag, great! About the games using the other interfaces, well, recently I was researching some MODs on TOSEC, and found that some of them have GS support just by chance, and I was thinking that if in the future we add them to the database, a way to indicate they have GS support could be interesting.

druellan wrote: ↑Tue Feb 26, 2019 12:14 am

Einar Saukas wrote: ↑Mon Feb 25, 2019 4:42 pm There's already a tag for "Currah Microspeech Support". Here's a list of games marked with this tag:
https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... up_id=1003
There are so few games supporting these other devices, that it's probably not worth it creating tags for them.

Oh, I missed the Currah tag, great! About the games using the other interfaces, well, recently I was researching some MODs on TOSEC, and found that some of them have GS support just by chance, and I was thinking that if in the future we add them to the database, a way to indicate they have GS support could be interesting.

Sure!

Right now It seems we have only 3 games that support GS in ZXDB. A tag is not worth it. However if we later add more titles, please remind me to create a tag for this.

Einar Saukas wrote: ↑Fri Feb 15, 2019 7:36 amAlso technically, I'm now working on some internal improvements to the ZXDB schema (I will detail them later).

I recently mentioned I'm working on ZXDB improvements. Let's talk about it!

According to the old WoS model, each game in the archive could be either a mod of one other game, or inspired by one other game. However there are quite a few exceptions to this rule. For instance, Ku-Ku is a mod of 2 different games: Project Future (game code/engine) and Sabre Wulf (graphics). Miner Willy's Nightmare is a mod of Atic Atac, and at the same time inspired by Manic Miner. A few other titles were inspired by two different games, combining ideas from both. And so on... Since ZXDB schema was originally based on the old WoS site, it also had the same restrictions. Not anymore. ZXDB now contains a new table "relations" to store all kinds of NxN relationships between titles, so each game can now have multiple inspirations, and it can be a mod from multiple titles.

The old WoS site didn't have a proper place to store information about game editors. Instead, this information was simply stored in comments. For instance, Chaos has a comment "There also was a Chaos Editor. There is a patch (Additional material) to create a 256-colour edition for the ULAPlus", and Chaos Editor has a comment "An editor for Chaos". This information was mixed with other comments, and harder to search. Now this information will be also moved to the new table "relations".

This table "relations" will also store graphics engines (like Churrera and NIRVANA), game engines (like PAW and AGD), libraries (like FZX and ZX7), and other development tools currently displayed under the description "authored with". This information was previously stored in "frameworks", but we don't need a separate table anymore since "relations" is much more flexible.

Technically, this new table "relations" will replace table "framework", and columns "entries.is_mod" and "entries.original_id". As usual, I didn't remove the old table and fields yet, so websites based on ZXDB can have time to make the proper changes. But they will be removed in the next ZXDB update.

A new ZXDB update is available!

Einar Saukas wrote: ↑Tue Feb 26, 2019 3:11 am The old WoS site didn't have a proper place to store information about game editors. Instead, this information was simply stored in comments. For instance, Chaos has a comment "There also was a Chaos Editor. There is a patch (Additional material) to create a 256-colour edition for the ULAPlus", and Chaos Editor has a comment "An editor for Chaos". This information was mixed with other comments, and harder to search. Now this information will be also moved to the new table "relations".

Cool. I was checking that recently and found that it was very confusing, since there are games that have external non-official tools, but others with the editor included on the code or on the side B of the cassette. Now we can have a better classification for those cases too.

Column "entries.spanish_price" will be removed in the next ZXDB update. I just finished moving this information to the proper releases, using SPA2 as reference. Many thanks to Juan for providing access to SPA2!

Thus if you run a website based on ZXDB, please make the required changes in your queries before the next update.

A new ZXDB release is available!

This update contains a few new titles, lots of new inlays, and the database structure improvements described in my latest posts