Little bugs in the database 3

[Einar Saukas]

They're all book/software packs so should really be Bookware, but don't fit the current definition: "Bookware means the game was based on a novel(la), which is included in the distribution."

This definition is similar. So I'm not sure if this definition must be changed... Any suggestions?


EDIT: Perhaps this:

"Bookware means the program was based on a book, which is included in the distribution."


EDIT: On second thought, this new definition suggests that an attached tape containing type-ins from a book would be a bookware. It's certainly not...

[R-Tape]

As per 8BitAG's chats with the author Jack Gibbons, can the following corrections be appled pleez:

Personal Banking System (ID 8542)
Was never released for the Spectrum 16K. The system should be Spectrum 48K.

And therefore could the comment be changed to:

Hilton to become the first UK home computer software company to distribute a program as Freeware.

Later versions, with the Bank Reconciliation module built in, were sold by Hilton Computer Services Ltd (£9.95) and re-released by Micromega.

And could it be given the AKA: Sistema Bancario Personal

Personal Bank Account Management System (ID 31752)
Was *not* written by Jack P. Gibbons, so can we please remove his name from that entry.

And could the ZX81 version (ID 31751)
Be given the AKA Gestion de Compte Bancaire

✓ Reviewed

[StooB]

They're all book/software packs so should really be Bookware, but don't fit the current definition: "Bookware means the game was based on a novel(la), which is included in the distribution."

This definition is similar. So I'm not sure if this definition must be changed... Any suggestions?


EDIT: Perhaps this:

"Bookware means the program was based on a book, which is included in the distribution."


EDIT: On second thought, this new definition suggests that an attached tape containing type-ins from a book would be a bookware. It's certainly not...

Any definition would need to cover:
Spectrum Bookware which is the book The ZX Spectrum and How to Get the Most from It and a completely unrelated game
The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole from Mosaic Bookware which didn't come with the book the game was based on but with a diary
The Saga of Eric the Viking, again from Mosaic Bookware, but doesn't actually come with the book, just excerpts from it

So, if it doesn't have to be a novel, or complete book, or even have the software based on the book, I don't think you can be anymore specific than:
"Bookware means software that was published with a book or novella."

[PeterJ]

Please now start using 'Little bugs in the database 4' for new bug reports.

Thanks

[Einar Saukas]

Any definition would need to cover:
Spectrum Bookware which is the book The ZX Spectrum and How to Get the Most from It and a completely unrelated game
The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole from Mosaic Bookware which didn't come with the book the game was based on but with a diary
The Saga of Eric the Viking, again from Mosaic Bookware, but doesn't actually come with the book, just excerpts from it

So, if it doesn't have to be a novel, or complete book, or even have the software based on the book, I don't think you can be anymore specific than:
"Bookware means software that was published with a book or novella."

What about this:

"Bookware means the program was based on a story from a book, which is included in the distribution."

This away, it doesn't have to be a novella, not even a fictional story. It can be a book describing events from the World Cup soccer, and a quiz game about it. Or a fictional diary as a way to tell a story, and a game based on the same story.

However I don't agree that Spectrum Bookware is a bookware! Just tying together a book and a game completely unrelated to each other (the game is actually based on a story from a different book) doesn't magically turn them into a bookware.

[Stu]

"Bookware means the program was based on a story from a book, which is included in the distribution."

I don't think this definition would quite cover things like Starglider and Knight Orc (both currently marked as Bookware) which were bundled with specially-written novellas -- ie. the story was written in conjunction with the game, rather than the game being based on the story.

[cherkasy]

I recently added Legends Of Bytes to ZXDB. This magazine is an excellent source of information about Speccy game authors! Someone fluent in Russian should be able to obtain lots of useful information still missing from our database.

It's currently published by a guy called Gennadiy. If someone has his contact information and could invite him to our forum, I bet he would enjoy participating in this thread

Greetings. I wrote to Your email (einar@ime...), but probably You already have a different email.
04 june 2020, I made a new issue of my magazine (#8) and there my version of Hewson Consultants softography.

Link with pdf - https://www.dropbox.com/s/1zlulz0saba6t ... nt.7z?dl=0

Regards, Gennadiy.

p.s. I carefully read the forum threads and tried to combine everything results. I adds some new info from developers (Draughts Genius, C64; Herobotix and Subterranea, ZX; and something else on the little things as releases or unreleases and so on). Jonathan Court and Coxsoft (Ian Cox) did not answer me, although they received letters.

[Einar Saukas]

I recently added Legends Of Bytes to ZXDB. This magazine is an excellent source of information about Speccy game authors! Someone fluent in Russian should be able to obtain lots of useful information still missing from our database.

It's currently published by a guy called Gennadiy. If someone has his contact information and could invite him to our forum, I bet he would enjoy participating in this thread

Greetings. I wrote to Your email (einar@ime...), but probably You already have a different email.
04 june 2020, I made a new issue of my magazine (#8) and there my version of Hewson Consultants softography.

Link with pdf - https://www.dropbox.com/s/1zlulz0saba6t ... nt.7z?dl=0

Regards, Gennadiy.

p.s. I carefully read the forum threads and tried to combine everything results. I adds some new info from developers (Draughts Genius, C64; Herobotix and Subterranea, ZX; and something else on the little things as releases or unreleases and so on). Jonathan Court and Coxsoft (Ian Cox) did not answer me, although they received letters.

Welcome to this forum!

I added Legends of Bytes #8 to ZXDB, it will be in the next update. Thanks!

Your magazine is excellent. There's a lot of useful information I never saw anywhere else. Have you considered also translating all issues to English? This way, a lot more people would be able to read them! You would probably find someone willing to translate them for you, if you ask around here.

I was hoping you would join us here. I'm sure you will like it, and I'm sure you will be able to provide a lot of useful information too!

Since your main interest are developers of classic games, I will provide a quick summary about our work in this area. Besides identifying the authors of each game, we also try to identify all different roles of each author. You can see all authors and their roles in each game page, for instance Target Renegade. Also you will find a list of all identified musicians, load screen artists, and inlay/poster cover artists here. If you think it helps to provide full lists for other roles too, I can ask Peter to add them.

There are a few sections in this forum specifically about identifying authors and roles, especially this and this. There's some variable delay between someone posting an information in this forum, and it appearing in the archive, because there's a lot of work involved, but we are getting there...

Enjoy it!

[Einar Saukas]

"Bookware means the program was based on a story from a book, which is included in the distribution."

I don't think this definition would quite cover things like Starglider and Knight Orc (both currently marked as Bookware) which were bundled with specially-written novellas -- ie. the story was written in conjunction with the game, rather than the game being based on the story.

Good point.

What about:

"Bookware means the program is distributed with a book containing the program's story."

[cherkasy]

Thank You very much, I will read Your forum, Present day's, I communicate with one very famous developer who has not been interviewed for many years. Since he answers in English, I will post an interview with him here.

As for the magazine in English. I take most of the information from English sources, I simply combine all this into one whole. My level of English is not very good

We are doing a very useful job, because in 10-15 years there will be almost no developers left and no one will know the exact information about the video games of the 80s.

[Einar Saukas]

As for the magazine in English. I take most of the information from English sources, I simply combine all this into one whole. My level of English is not very good

Exactly. Most of your magazine content is already in English, especially interviews. You only need someone that can translate the rest.

Please think about it. Then if you decide you want to translate it, either create a new thread asking for volunteers to translate it, or let me know and I will post it for you.

[8BitAG]

Corrections and links connected to...
Kevin Maddocks

King Software
https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... el_id=8082

shares the same postal address as (the later) Sigma-Soft/SigmaSoft
https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... l_id=13268

See the early advert, which also lists J. Maddocks [Kevin's father?] as the contact name & cheque recipient...
https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/mag.php ... 91&page=50

So King Software and SigmaSoft [2] need to be linked in the database in some way.


K. Maddocks
https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... el_id=7796
and
Kevin Madocs
https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... el_id=8029

are both actually
Kevin Maddocks

("Kevin Madocs" was misspelled on the Gilsoft's Characters packaging. He was later credited correctly in the Gilsoft PAW manual; as the fonts were reused in that utility. The character sets in the SigmaSoft Characters Collection are the same as the ones in Gilsoft's Characters)

Kevin Maddocks is a missing credit from the
Professional Adventure Writer
https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... 96&id=6825
where he should be credited for graphics (as mentioned in the manual)
along with...
Dicon Peeke
[who really should have a database entry... Dicon appears to be missing off some games too, so I will address that at another point]
and...
A. Williams

Kevin Maddocks' text adventures...

Dwarfs Domain
https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... 96&id=6238

and

Elfindor
https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... 96&id=6244

are almost identical.

The later game, Elfindor, has some changes to a few parts of the map, tweaked message text, the inclusion of a help command, and a more generous inventory limit.
http://8bitag.com/temp/dwarfs-elfindor.pdf

As a further addition to this... The game, as Elfindor, was mentioned in a Popular Computing Weekly magazine issue from November 1985... So the date of release needs to be altered appropriately.
https://archive.org/stream/popular-comp ... 1/mode/2up
(also linked to already on the game's page)

Kevin's surname is misspelled in a completely different way in this mention... ie. Maddox

✓ Reviewed

[druellan]

Skyfox

Not released in 1985, but on January 6th 1986.

I'm still investigating this. What I found interesting is that there are adverts on the Spanish Microhobby from back November 1985 (https://microhobby.speccy.cz/mhf/050/MH050_35.jpg Dro Soft, including pricing), and another from December 1985 (https://microhobby.speccy.cz/mhf/055/MH055_32.jpg Serma). This seems like a move to promote the game before Christmas, and also, from two different distributors, but since they are promoting a translated version of the game (and +2a compatible), I wonder if this might be true and the game was published in Spain early. The proper review of the game didn't come out until May of the same year, so, perhaps it was delayed.

[Rorthron]

Mobygames says Skyfox was released in Feb 86. The scanned inlay on that site has copyright messages of 1984 for Ray Tobey (presumably the C64 version) and 1985 for Ariolasoft. Make of that what you will.

I can't help but feel a lot of this analysis of release dates is wasted effort. Evidence like adverts, reviews, copyright dates, magazine news stories, etc are all unreliable. Much of the time I suspect we just can't reach the level of precision sought.

Incidentally Skyfox is another instance where the .txt instructions in SC are lacking. Mobygames has good scans, however.

[druellan]

Mobygames says Skyfox was released in Feb 86. The scanned inlay on that site has copyright messages of 1984 for Ray Tobey (presumably the C64 version) and 1985 for Ariolasoft. Make of that what you will.

I can't help but feel a lot of this analysis of release dates is wasted effort. Evidence like adverts, reviews, copyright dates, magazine news stories, etc are all unreliable. Much of the time I suspect we just can't reach the level of precision sought.

Probably, but there are also reasonable clues, the problem is that often you don't know if you're going into a rabbit hole until you are well into it
In this case the "Jan 6th, 1986" figure on the magazine seems fair, the problem is that on doing the change I'm indirectly stating that Spanish versions were published first.
In any case, even when we don't reach consensus, there is usually enough material for a quick note.

[druellan]

Scuba Dive

Re-release #5 has an empty publisher field and should be removed.

In fact, the problem seems to be a tape image from unknown origin that seems to be from the Spanish version, and for some reason was decided to create a new release, but without a publisher. The only known publisher for Spain is Grupo de Trabajo de Software, so I think it is safe to link the image to that release and remove #5. Also, the release list is not properly sorted.

EDIT: Ops, there is also a Spanish release from Intelligent Program, now we are in trouble

[druellan]

Also, re Eureka, there is this Big-K feature on the game, which mentions Katalin Matsa as having worked on the game (not sure which version)
https://archive.org/stream/12-big-k-mag ... 9/mode/2up

On the game source, there is a message:

GREETINGS FROM HUNGARY¡***EUREKA'84**ªPROGRAMMERSºKATALIN MAJSA ZOLTAN HORVATÈANDRAS FORDOS TIBOR HORVATÈIMRE JAKOBICZ DONAT KISÓ

So, I think it is confirmed, and also, we have other names.

Edit: looking around, Zoltan Horvath and Katalin Majsa are C64 developers, authors of Traffic for the C64. Tibor Horvath (14562) is in fact T. Horvath (14161), Andras Fordos is in base (849), also Donat Kiss (3930).

✓ Reviewed

[druellan]

California Games (1987)

Originally scheduled for September 1987, it wasn't released until 1988. The preview in Your Sinclair February 1988 says it's available "now". The PCW review states "It is the first week of cold January and US Gold have finally got around to releasing the Spectrum version of California Games."

The Spanish release also seems to take place around 1988. First mention of the game on January 1988, first review February 1988. The Kixx label started publishing on 1988, so all releases can be moved to 1988.

[druellan]

Human Killing Machine (1988)
was released in 1989. (C) 1989 on the back cover.

The only reference for a 1988 date is a preview. Also, features a dynamic load, so, can be added to that group.

[druellan]

Black Tiger (1989)

Originally scheduled for October 1989, the back of the box shows (C)1990, and the YS preview gives a date of February 1990.

First mention as a "news" on a Spanish magazine is from February 1990 (MicroHobby 196), so, Spanish release was also around 1990.

[druellan]

Pogo (1983)

was released in 1984. Reviews range from May to August 1984, there are no adverts for it until April 1984. Personal Computer News lists it as a new release in their 14th April edition (nb: the [url=https://spectrumcom uting.co.uk/mag.php?issue_id=4715&page=7]page link[/url] doesn't work for this, but the viewer link does)

Ocean was not particularly active on magazines prior to 1984, but I can confirm there is no information I can find about POGO before 1984. The 1983 figure was probably extracted from the copyright notice on the instructions, that is by the author, not Ocean. The author was also active in Ocean around 1984.

Also, Bob Wakelin is the author of the inlay. Source: signature.

[druellan]

Galaxian (1984)
Reviewed in April 1985, year of release should be 1985.

Ms Pac-Man (1984)
The Your Spectrum review of September 1984 is of Pac-Man, not Ms Pac-Man.
The other reviews are from March and April 1985, so the year of release should be 1985.

I'll probably leave this two unchanged for now. There are some AtariSoft adverts from 1983 stating "out now!" for those titles. Might be the case they dropped the release for Christmas, but let's roll with this.

[druellan]

N.O.M.A.D. (1985)
Cosmic Wartoad (1985)
Zoids (1985)
Benny Hill's Madcap Chase (1985)

are all 1986 releases, listed in the "This Week" section in Popular Computer Weekly 9th-15th January 1986 here and here.

Oh, boy! Let's see

NOMAD. No information about the game prior to January 1986, same for the Spanish release. First advert I can find on Sinclair User 46 (1986), and a full page one! So, seems like a big release.
Comsmic Wartoad. No information about the game prior to 1986. Spanish version advertised for the first time on January 1986.
Zoids. There are some ads for November 1985, probably for christmas. I prefer to leave this one alone for now.
Benny Hill. First Spanish review, April 1986. First english review April 1986.

[druellan]

"Again Again" is still listed as a Grandslam label when it's an Alternative one.

Looking at the database, we have Again Again listed as:


But looking at the adverts, it says that Again Again logo is trademark of Tiger Developments.


So, instead of "from Tiger Developments" and "owned by Grandslam" perhaps should be only "Owned by Tiger Development"?

[StooB]

"Again Again" is still listed as a Grandslam label when it's an Alternative one.

Looking at the database, we have Again Again listed as:


But looking at the adverts, it says that Again Again logo is trademark of Tiger Developments.


So, instead of "from Tiger Developments" and "owned by Grandslam" perhaps should be only "Owned by Tiger Development"?

The magazine references all indicate that Again Again is an Alternative label (here, here and here) and the address given for Tiger Developments on the adverts is the same as Alternative Software.

But in 1992, the Again Again label re-appears on a budget re-release of Spitfire 40 + Strike Force Harrier whose inlay is completely Alternative with no mention of Tiger. Tiger Developments seem to disappear after 1989.

So:
Tiger Developments should be owned by Alternative
and
Again Again should be founded by Tiger Developments and owned by Alternative.

✓ Reviewed