Subject: IPD

From: [email-masked]
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
[email-masked]
[email-masked]