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*********** THE DOCTOR WHO DATABASE ***********
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V 3.0
Now with images.
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********** Written by T.R Williams ************
********** Helped An Awful lot by ************
********** Mr Jay Cornwall ************
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For updates http://www.btinternet.com/~asimov
This program is based on a book called "Doctor Who - The Universal Databank",
by Jean-Marc Lofficier. The information is also stored on Jean-Marc's
webpage for all to see. I asked him for permission to use the info
in my program and he wished me good luck.
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** Copyright Notice *********
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Right I was dead worried about the copyright of the pictures I was using
until I found a webpage which used pictures which could be used as long
as no money was made from them. It states on this page that all pictures
can be used for any purpose as there is no profit involved.
Right now for the long disclaimer bit.
Doctor Who and associated names, titles, logos and screen captures are
owned by © BBC Worldwide LTD.
No copyright infringement is intended. No profit is made, no money is
collected from the use of this program.
All images used have been reduced to low resolution 32 colour pictures,
downloaded from the Doctor Who Image Archive http://www.shillpages.com.
Further copyright information can be found on this site.
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INTRODUCTION.
Hello to all you Doctor Who fans out there, or even non-Doctor Who
fans as well (I'll talk to you whether you're a fan or not). This as the
title suggests is a Doctor Who Database. Almost all the characters from
the first Doctor to the Seventh are included.
I've always loved the idea of having a massive database of my
favourite all time program, with all the information I ever need about it.
This original project took about a year to complete. There have
been many changes since the original 1.2 version. In fact it seems like
I have taken a step backwards, as the original version had a nice gui,
graphics and pictures. The problem was that the original program was
written in Amospro which is a nice language but has the problem of not
working too well with graphics cards and interacting with other software.
Right run the program and type help. That is all you need to do.
THE TECHNICAL BIT (Or the Boring bit nobody reads, I don't know why I bother).
The actual text data for this program originally took a whole
880k. Obviously this is quite a lot, and wouldn't leave much room on the
disk for the program. It took me about 3 months to work out a way of
actually compressing the text down so that I could fit the program and
data onto one disk.
I think the whole project took me about a year to complete,
and by the end I was desperate to get it finished. It took so long
that I've probably memorised half the information it displays and I
don't really need the program.
I'm sorry if this history is quite short, as I'm not the sort
of person to write down every date I did a new modification. And I
suppose you couldn't careless as long as the program actually works.
Note for the non Doctor Who Fans : I suppose you think that I'm
really sad, but I don't really care.
Anyway enjoy my Doctor Who Database.
**** History ****
Doctor Who Database v1.2 Yes there was a few versions before this too but I won't go
into that. This version had it all, sound pictures and a nice
graphical interface. The downfall was that is was written in
Amospro and even though did the job and was very well done,
some people refused to even look at it because it was done in
Amos.
Doctor Who Database v2.1 Well after about 2 months of learning C and giving Jay Cornwall
a huge headache, v2.1 was released. It had no gui and only worked
via the cli/shell environment. I have since found a few mistakes
in the program since, but it is solid and will work on all amigas
I should imagine.
Doctor Who Database v2.2 Now we are getting back to a workable program. I have added a gui.
You can now enter a file by clicking on it's name, or by using
the powerful search engine, by typing in part of a name.
Doctor Who Database v2.3 Added new buttons for browsing through the files.
You can also use the arrow keys to do the same.
Many thanks goto Amimon for this suggestion.
Doctor Who Database v3.0 Right someone who goes under the nick of Drwho (coincidence or
what) suggested I add alphabet buttons. So I added them.
Unfortunately I had to fix the font on this version to topaz.
This was necessary to get this out on release. This will change
in the MUI version (when I learn MUI). Had lotsa problems with
this version. Took ages to get the pictures to work. Took ages
to find some decent pictures. Then the beta testing began.
Most people had no trouble with the program including me. But
for some reason one person with the nick of _ELF_ continously
had crashes with it. After about 2 weeks I found out what the
problem was and put it right. Thanks to _ELF_, Abbadon, Mudbucket
and Amimon for beta testing my program. By the way Amimon is now
known as Boofuls. If he changes his nick again he can edit the
docs for me heh heh. I just have to add _ELF_ must have tested
about 20 versions of my v3.0 beta, thanks alot _ELF_.
Also added a 100 pictures. I am coninually adding more pictures
but this first release of v3.0 will start with a 100.
******* What I intend to do in future versions *******
Right I hope the next version will be in MUI.
Basically v3.0 is the last gadtools version and is finished.
MUI will allow more configuration.
Not sure what else I can do with it now except for adding more pictures.
Any comments,
please feel free to email me at asimov@btinternet.com
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