Theatre Design & Technology - Fall 1990 - 57

Tour Management: Computers On the Road
JOHN

MACPHERSON

ne of my rasks while on rhe road
wirh The Hubcaps was rhe developmenr and mainrenance of several darabases. The Hubcaps are a '50s
rock-and-roll band playing primarily on
rhe Easr Coasr, averaging 250 ro 300
gigs per year, mosrly one-nighrers. The
band-which consisred of seven musicians and four rechnicians-played in
anyrhing from flrehalls ra hore! ballrooms ro ourdoor carnivals and fairs ro
convenrion cenrers and legir rhearres.
The Hubcaps have a repurarion for nor
doing rhe same show r\vice, and, wirh
rhe help of rhe darabases I developed for
rhem, rhis repurarion was easily mainrained.
]usr ro demonsrrare rhar you do nor
need expensive or exrensive equipmenr
ra accomplish "on-rhe-road darabase
managemenr," here is a descriprion of
rhe laprop and rhe programs used:
The laprop was an IBM PC
Converrible, Model I. For you compurer mavins our rhere, rhis has an 8088
processor chugging along ar 4.77 MHz;
512 Kb of RAM-wirh NO expansion
capabiliries; r\vo 3-1/2" 720 Kb floppies,
and an 80-characrer by 25-line LCD
screen-nor rhe backlir, super-rwisr
screens of raday's laprops, bur a generic
"digiral warch-rype" LCD screen. I also
used IBM's PC Converrible Prinrer as an
addirional ourpur device. This equipmenr was durable and I could ger abour
eighr hours of use before rhe barrery
needed recharging-and rhis included
prinring records! The laprap finally died
in 1990, bur nor before ir had survived
four years of hard use and abuseincluding being dropped several rimes!
The program used was PFS:First
Choice, Version 1.0 by Sofrware
Publishing Corp. Firsr Choice is an inregrared word processor/darabase/spreadsheer/communicarions program. [ did
nor use rhe communicarions porrion of
ir as I did nor have a modem nor did I
have any need for communicarion wirh
remore sysrems. The First Choice program is menu-driven and very easy ro

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Figure 1. Sample "GIG DATA" Record
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Figure 2. Sample "GIG BOOK" Record

Figure 3. Sample "DIRECTIONS" Record

ope rare. The darabase porrion is a "flarfile" rype darabase, and che user is able
ro define field names, field rypes and
lengrhs merely by enrering rhe fields on

che screen in rhe locarion desired. If
some fields are found ro be superfluous
or if addirional fields are desired, rhe file
design can be modified ar any rime.
The word processor is a srandard
one, capable of Horing files in eirher
ASCII formar or in irs own ".doc" formar. The word processor, darabase and
spreadsheer programs can also imporr
and exporr ASCII dara, and darabase
records can also be srored in eirher
ASCII or ".doc" formars. Larer versions
of rhe program include a conversion uriliry ro enable rhe user ro imporr or exporr
files in several of rhe orher popular word
processor formacs.
Prior ro rhe developmenr and
implemenrarion of rhe compurerized
darabases, informarion on rhe band and
irs gigs was kepc in several spiral-bound
norebooks. This had several disadvancages: They were unindexed; pages
would disappear; and, because rhe informacion was enrered in chronological
sequence, we had ro page rhrough rhe
nocebooks ro find rhe dara we needed .
Also, since ir was a cumbersome sysrem,
darawas nor always enrered inro rhe
norebook.
Wirh rhe compurerized darabases,
records were easily searchable. The
darabase program includes a search uriliry, allowing access ro all records meecing
rhe desired search paramerers. This faciliry allowed records ro be found when we
couldn'r remember rhe correcr name of
rhe venue or gig, when we had lasr
played rhere or orher idenrifying info. Ir
also allowed generarion of indexes in
borh chronological and alphaberical
order. These indexes were used in conjuncrion wirh rhe primed records ar rhe
manager's office.
nforrunarely, rhe
office com pu rer was an Apple, so rhe
program and dara files were noc com parible, alrhough rhe dara could be exporred as an ASCII documenr.
I developed and mainrained rhree
darabases for The Hubcaps: "GIG
DATA"-a file of rhe venues played and
rheir physical amibures; "GIG BOOK"-a

TD&T

1990 FALL

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Theatre Design & Technology - Fall 1990