CBSRMT: [ my CBSRMT homepage | CBSRMT timeline | RMT title dupes | collecting RMT | RMT FAQ | EG Marshall contract | links ]  
CBSRMT database (RMTdb) Project: [ view or search RMT db | about the RMTdb | how to contribute data to the RMTdb | Episode Guide errata | RMTdb MVP contributors ]  
CBSRMT cassette tape encoding project: [ Do you have RMT cassettes? | Encoding projects ]  
OTR and trades: [ my OTR collection | search my CDs | OTR I need | OTR FAQ | my favorite shows | OTR by Geography | Collecting and organizing | trading for newbies | 70s-80s radio revival ]  
getting OTR on the Net [ OTRCat Old Time Radio Show Catalog | downloading OTR | Xnews newsreader | OTR binaries | binary posting tips | using Xnews to complete OTR binaries | OTR on peer to peer (p2p) | OTRnap! | yEnc encode/decode ]  
Rio: [ RioVolt review | burning RioVolt firmware CDs | Rio PMP 300 review ]

CBS Radio Mystery Theater open database project

The aim of the RMTDB project is to build a useful, freely-available, and searchable database for the RMT community.

User-provided information

Although I've put a good chunk of time into parsing and importing the original dataset, the RMTDB depends on internet users for the bulk of data. For information on how to help, see the RMTDB data contributors.

Accessing the Data

Users can access this database in different ways:

  1. via these webpages
  2. by linking to URLs that contain the desired search criteria (notice the URL next time you do a search). All searches are linkable and bookmarkable.
  3. by downloading the most recent db dump and using it to build your own database. I encourage the downloading of these dumps so that widest dissemination and usefulness is achieved. The database is distributed as Free Documentation, under the GNU Free Documentation License. This way if my house burns down the data is distributed around the world...
  4. by connecting to the PostgreSQL server directly by TCP/IP (selects only - email me if you want access)

Technical Notes

20030503: Finally got a copy of the Episode Guide off eBay. I'm using it to correct actor names, show titles, etc. I'll eventually put in another table in the database to allow lookups by the EGaH numbering scheme. This would also show repeats.

20021015: Got data back from the first completed adopted disc, shows 1101-1150. Thanks, nlevin! The data is in place.

20020831: Just noticed that a few plots had a corruption when I ran conversion scripts on them. Both "real" and "double" were read as column types and were subbed with "DOUBLE8". I think I've repaired all the occurrences.

20020830: Holy moly. I must be crazy: I stayed up half the night and migrate the db MySQL -> PostgreSQL. The benefits to the programmer (me): referential integrity, sub-SELECTs, etc. Cascades upon foreign key update is a real win, since I don't know the exact spelling of most of the people's info.

Moved scripts, actors, and credits to their own normalized tables. Dropped the writer, star*, etc, fields.

20020829: Been messing with PostgreSQL more recently, and may eventually migrate to that back-end. This would enable better referential integrity via foreign keys, etc. I'm experimenting with import/export scripts, but don't expect any big moves until Fall or Winter.

20020829: The current "Star" column, inherited from previous data, is being largely ignored in the current database. Expect it to go away or change. Right now the stars are separated into separate columns. I suspect I'll combine them into a set (ie, star,another_star,some_star) later. Still thinking it out.

$Id: rmtdb.orb,v 1.54 2004/04/29 17:59:03 mouse Exp $

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