From VM Sun Feb 11 17:24:33 1996 Content-Length: 702 Message-Id: <9511181022.AA24858@sen18.ida.liu.se> From: David Byers To: ipd@lysator.liu.se Subject: IPD Mailing list Date: Sat, 18 Nov 1995 11:22:22 +0100 The address ipd@lysator.liu.se should forward mail to: chick@mt.net byers@lysator.liu.se flaugh@ix.netcom.com gdd@tezcat.com mark@cix.compulink.co.uk Please drop me a note when you receive this mail so I know that it works. If anybody who receives this does NOT want mail to this group, please let me know and I will remove you from the distribution list. Mail to owner-ipd@lysator.liu.se or ipd-request@lysator.liu.se will reach only me, and those are the addresses to use for mail concerning list administration. -- David Byers Rydsvagen 90A byers@lysator.liu.se S-58248 Linkoping davby@ida.liu.se SWEDEN From VM Sun Feb 11 17:24:37 1996 Content-Length: 605 Message-Id: <199511181144.EAA24467@lewis.MT.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From: Chick To: owner-ipd@lysator.liu.se Subject: RE: IPD Mailing list Date: Sat, 18 Nov 95 04:44:49 -0700 ---------- From: David Byers[SMTP:davby@ida.liu.se] Sent: Saturday, November 18, 1995 3:22 AM To: ipd@lysator.liu.se Subject: IPD Mailing list The address ipd@lysator.liu.se should forward mail to: chick@mt.net byers@lysator.liu.se flaugh@ix.netcom.com gdd@tezcat.com mark@cix.compulink.co.uk Please drop me a note when you receive this mail so I know that it works. If anybody who receives this does NOT want mail to this group, please let me know and I will remove you from the distribution list. Nice job, David. Maybe now my blank message rate will drop :). From VM Sun Feb 11 17:24:39 1996 Content-Length: 191 Message-Id: <199511181706.JAA12331@ix4.ix.netcom.com> From: flaugh@ix.netcom.com (Frank E. Laughlin ) To: owner-ipd@lysator.liu.se Subject: Re: IPD Mailing list Date: Sat, 18 Nov 1995 09:06:22 -0800 David, If you receive this back then we'll know everything works. Soounds like a great idea to share info. I'm working on a reply to all the things mentioned in the last messages. Frank From VM Sun Feb 11 17:24:40 1996 Content-Length: 6052 Message-Id: <951119160038_86456626@emout04.mail.aol.com> From: FrankLaugh@aol.com To: ipd@lysator.liu.se Subject: IPD Date: Sun, 19 Nov 1995 16:00:38 -0500 You have asked each of us to indicate what we have contributed to IPD and what future plans we have. I furnished Chick the portion of my more complete coin machine database which pertained to pinball. That consisted of about 3500 records which he incorporated with his to make much of the initial database. I have continued to review those listings in particular to release dates and model (project) numbers, plus any other errors have I have found. I plan to continue this function as further described below, although I would suggest that we set up areas in which we work to prevent duplication of effort where possible. My personal area of interest is in the EM games. Aside from the IPD my plans are to research games in the 1940-1949 vintage for more accurate information including wartime conversions, etc. All wood rails are of special interest. STEERING GROUP. This is a good idea, and the mailing list is great in that we will all get the same information as to where we're going. ID NUMBER. Although I can live with it as it is now, I would prefer that it be just a numeric field so that a sort works right in a numeric field. If we leave the letters they should remain the same "CPD-" but the number portion should be filled out for four digits, again so a text sort would work correctly. Another reason is fewer keystrokes. The suggestion that this be linked to a relational database is an excellent one, and when we have finished our planning I will do that within Microsoft Access 7.0 which will allow me to get my own database plus IPD displayed on a one page screen. This will make it easier to spot differences. SERIAL NUMBERS. Adding the two projects together makes sense to me. So my comment is "Why not?". SPECIFICATION OF DATA FIELDS. I'll leave this to the rest of you. What we have seems to work well, but suggestions would be welcome. DATABASE REVIEW. I have been giving this a lot of thought since reading Mark's comments regarding duplications. The database I gave Chick did intentionally have some duplications because of the "find" features available in the earlier programs. An example is "Bally Beauty" and "Beauty", both the same machine. It was known by both names, but Bally lists it in their records as the former. I had two entries since my earlier programs would only find one or the other depending on the search specification. I now believe that these should be combined to one entry, and usually the longer one since a search for "Beauty" would now find both of them. as does David's program. Since I probably caused the original duplication, I'll gladly go thru and eliminate the duplications caused by this type of problem. Mark also commented about games of different names having the same model (project) number. I immediately went thru the database and did find about 40 cases of this situation. After checking each of these I found that perhaps 4-5 of them were really errors. Some of the cases involved not including a "-A" suffix for one of the pair, again due to my earlier sort deficiencies. Most of them are games which really do have the same model number. These are almost always Gottlieb games. In making games to be sold in Italy, due to their restrictions, Gottlieb nearly always changed the name (therefore the backglass) because it was necessary to remove the word "flipper" as well as usually very minor other modifications. But usually they did not change the model number. Although some of this was picked up in the October update in the NOTES column, I'm going to review what we know about each Italian version game and provide further revised data for many of these to be included in NOTES. David suggested that we compare our information with Don Mueting's and Diana Petit's list of machines. I have a copy of Diana Petit's list but have never really gone thru it, but I have checked a lot of my database with Don Mueting's list. Don't fall into the "if it's written it must be correct" syndrome. The Mueting/Hawkins book is a great work, but it does have lots of errors. Some of them may be due to the printer also. In 1993 Don sent me a printout of model numbers which was helpful, but had a large number of obvious errors. I do routinely compare my data with the book but don't use anything unless I can find another source that confirms the accuracy. I also use the other books and journals for information, as we all do as well. Example, much of the release date listing for Williams contains the exact day of release, which was printed in Herbert Eiden's book "Pinball Machines". My confidential source at Williams suggested I use those dates as they were more accurate than the official WMS data, having been researched by Steve Kordek personally. I don't think I have a problem with that, especially since we have no possible financial gain from any of this. Does anyone disagree? SOFTWARE REVIEW. As mentioned, I use Microsoft Excel 7.0 (as does Chick) and Microsoft Access 2.0 (or 7.0) but we need to be compatible with many others if possible. However, I would think the more recent versions would be able to handle the type of file we now use. I'll leave this to others. DATABASE REDESIGN. I would suggest a column to contain the date of the last update to that record. Or this could be a version number. With this anyone could do a sort on that date/number and determine what records contain new information. Also I would like suggestions on the best way for all of us to make additions/corrections. It is one thing to update 1-10 records, another if you have minor changes to a couple of hundred. Do we need to provide anything beyond the IPD key number, the column name and the new entry? What do we need? Can we make it any easier? If we can come up with a method to make it easier on Chick and to make updates fairly often it would be well worthwhile. I don't know how he does it now so it's hard to make constructive comments. Let's keep it fun! Frank Laughlin franklaugh@aol.com flaugh@ix.netcom.com From VM Sun Feb 11 17:24:41 1996 Content-Length: 66 Message-Id: <305365DD.163C@tezcat.com> Organization: Geeks R Us X-Mailer: Mozilla 2.0b2 (Windows; I; 32bit) Mime-Version: 1.0 References: <9511181022.AA24858@sen18.ida.liu.se> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From: Greg Dunlap To: owner-ipd@lysator.liu.se Subject: Re: IPD Mailing list Date: Sun, 10 Sep 1995 17:25:33 -0500 Hey David, just letting you know I got the ipd list message. GDD From VM Sun Feb 11 17:24:42 1996 Content-Length: 3276 Message-Id: <30536A68.5BE1@tezcat.com> Organization: Geeks R Us X-Mailer: Mozilla 2.0b2 (Windows; I; 32bit) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From: Greg Dunlap To: IPD Mailing List Subject: IPD stuff Date: Sun, 10 Sep 1995 17:44:56 -0500 Hi there, I'm Greg Dunlap. I originally contacted Chick about IPD because I had been contemplating a similar project on my own for some time. I do database application programming and development for a living (mostly in the Borland products - Paradox For Windows, Delphi and Interbase) and while learning Delphi, I had put together a Windows pinball database application. I shelved it when it was through because I decided that amassing the data would be just way too much work. When Chick put out IPD, I contacted him and asked him if he would be interested in combining my Windows application with his shell and releasing it as freeware. He was very interested and I have been developing the system since. Anyone interested in seeing it can get a beta copy from ftp://tezcat.com/users/gdd/pinball There are install instructions in there too. When I imported Chick's data I broke it all out into separate tables in a relational format. The tables are Machines, Designers, Companies, Themes and Years. This way I could join the tables in several ways with several views of the data. For instance, You can look at a machine and all its designers, or a designer and all his/her machines (a Many:Many link) or you can look at a Company and all its games, all the games for a Year (all One:Many links) and so on. Navigation through the system is very easy and intuitive and abides by Windows GUI standards. I've been sidetracked by work recently but am planning on finishing WIPD (Windows IPD as I've been calling it) early next year. The question of a relational database obviously makes sense to me - and I've done it already! If you all want to see the nitty gritty details (data model, fields, table structures etc) I'll be more than glad to make that information available for discussion. There's no reason to work out a whole new relational model when i've already put one together and we can modify it as needed unless for whatever reasons it is deemed unworkable. I had intended to work in serial number information from the beginning, and I think its a great idea. I was also thinking about linking in rules sheets from the archive for the games which are available, although that would probably only be a part of the Windows project since it would be very unweildly to do in the main database. I have no opinion about the subject of ID numbers, as long as something is decided on and we keep to it religiously. In my experience, a simple ID number is an excellent way to go. And that should be a real number, not an alpha field with numbers in it. I like the idea of a steering committee too. The more people there are, the more ideas we can toss around and the more views we can have. This is always an excellent thing. I don't have any aprticular area of interest as far as types of amchines go, and would be mroe than happy keeping to the Windows application and other database-centric stuff if wished by the group. Frankly, I don't have the extensive knowledge you guys have for certain periods of games, and the only period of games I really know anything extensively about are the ones from the past 15 years or so. Lets keep this discussion rolling and hopefully make the IPD a better thing for everybody. Later, GDD From VM Sun Feb 11 17:24:43 1996 Content-Length: 283 Message-Id: <199511200036.RAA14392@lewis.MT.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From: Chick To: ipd@lysator.liu.se Subject: IDP Date: Sun, 19 Nov 95 17:37:22 -0700 Wow! Everybody on the list responded enthusiastically. I will be without a computer for a couple of days while I upgrade. After that I will do my best to synthesize everyone's comments and suggest an agenda for future efforts so you can provide comment/criticism etc. From VM Sun Feb 11 17:25:26 1996 Content-Length: 1771 Message-Id: <9602111621.AA27812@sen2.ida.liu.se> From: David Byers To: ipd@lysator.liu.se Subject: Blue ribbons and new interchange formats Date: Sun, 11 Feb 1996 17:21:48 +0100 I am reorganizing the Pinball Pasture (http://www.lysator.liu.se/pinball), removing old information and material I don't care about. One think I'm going to do is place a blue ribbon graphic on just about every page, both in the header (as a sort of bullet) and in the footer (together with a slogan.) You can see what I have in mind by viewing a copy of the new front page at http://www.lysator.liu.se/index.new.html (note that the links on that page are duds.) Since the blue ribbon is a political statement, I want to ask everyone involved in the IPD if there are objections to my placing these graphics on pages related to the IPD. Please let me know what you think! If you don't know what the blue ribbon stands for, point your favorite WWW browser at http://www.eff.org/blueribbon.html or by clicking on the blue ribbon graphics on the new front page I mentioned earlier. And in a completely unrelated story, the beta 1 version of the IPD is on line at http://www.lysator.liu.se/pinball/PinballDatabase.html. Drop in and make spot checks to see that it came out right (this is the first time the database was imported from a DIF file, so there may be unexpected side effects ...) A new feature is that searching for a production of zero will get you records for machines that were never produced. And in a story related to that, how do you feel about using DIF as an interchange format? It can easily be handled by Excel, has tagged fields (at least the file I got from Chick did, but perhaps that was simply tie first record) and is simple enough to support hand editing. I think that most database programs should be able to import DIF, and if you're writing your own software, reading DIF (at least to the extent needed for the IPD) is easy. David Byers.