PT Journal Index

[Bill Ballard]

On Sun, 03 May 1998, John Baird <jbaird@fgi.net> wrote:
>Frank used his index for his own research purposes, and he gave it to a
>handful of others. Eventually he wrote software for searching the index
>with the intention of marketing it. However, he advertised only once in
>the Journal before he realized he that he didn't want to get into the
>software support business.

I think this notion that the raw data has to have an app (or a file, where
the raw data already exists in a commercial app) created has slowed us down
a little bit. Given the text file, searches can be done by any
self-respectiing word processor, as I'm sure those of you with your own
copy of Ted's file are already doing (beginning with Gina). Don Rose, I
don't know what you had in mind for a shareware presentation of the data,
but Ted's tabdelimited text is easily imported into any database capable of
working up a sheet of mailing labels. (From there, it's just a little time
put in to clean up the data, where the transfering of the text file from
app to app resulted in the addition of spurious ¶'s and ¬'s, as well as to
combine the month and year text fields into a single "issue date field. If
your database has a good macro language, the amount of manual work is cut
down tremendously.)


>Sometime later Frank graciously turned his index over to the Electronic
>Communications Committee (ECC) for PTG use--zero cost to PTG for several
>thousand dollars worth of Frank's effort and time!

I hereby nominate Ted Simmons for the 1998 Man of Note award for his making
this significant piece of work on his part, to PTG. Of course as soon as I
get my own copy of Frank Emerson's larger file, I'l nominate him, but I
probabl;y won't have to make both nominations in the same year. I do feel
bad for Barbara Boone and the PTG Board, that she should have proceeded
with the completion of her late husnand's index, not knowing that beside
what the Home Office had already been publishing and selling there were
(actually now are) two other versions out there, and not knowing that these
other version would be donated to PTG, thus deflating any compensation she
might be counting on. Accident of history.

Just as a community effort to make sure that each of us doing any
modulating to Ted's text file (and assumedly, his original FileMuckerPro
file), are not gentting at too much variance from it, I'd like to weigh in
with some notes.

After cleaning up the data, the # of PTJournal records in my file is 4696,
out of a total 5033. I also corrected on error:
	Cracked Soundboards	, SUM, 1992,  p. 63, in  PTJournal	 by
Delwin Fandrich
is actually from the Piano Quarterly of SUM/92. (I happened to have that
issue.)

There is a pair of anomlaies (which may be one in the same):
	(No Date)--Tuning Pin Tightening With Epoxy--JUL--p.8--PTJournal
	JAN/72---Tuning Pin Tightening With Epoxy--JAN --p,6--PTJournal
Ted (or someone esle with issues that old). Are these the same articel, and
which one is correct.

Bill Ballard, RPT
New Hampshire Chapter, PTG

"We mustn't underestimate our power of teamwork."
 Bob Davis