My mailer apparently barfed yesterday, leaving all of you with a (no doubt)
cryptic subject line and no message! Here's what it SHOULD have contained.
"This time, for sure!"
- Bullwinkle T. Moose
"Aw, Bullwinkle! That trick NEVER works!"
- Rocket J. Squirrel
- Mark C.
===============================================================================
Well, here it is, at last. The breakdown of the 53 responses (out of
approximately 260 readers) to the TML Survey. If the subject line text
sounds sexist, wait until after you've read the results of question
number 5 before you pass judgement.
GENERAL BACKGROUND:
1. Name:
The following 53 people responded to the TML survey:
Adrian Hurt Gary Schreiber Matthew Harelick
Andrew M. Salamon Iain Fogg Metlay
Andy Coombes J. David Nilles Nicholas P. Sylvain
Arthur Green J. Robert Suckling Paul Baughman
Arturo Perez James Glanville Paul Timothy Dale
Bart Massey James Nelson Peter L. Berghold
Bayliss McLeod JamesTPerkins Richard Johnson
Bertil Jonell Jan L. Peterson Rob Miracle
Bob Mahoney Jim Baranski Robert Poole
Brad Post Jim Cheetham Robert S. Dean
Brent L. Woods Jim Vassilakos Ron Abramson
Burton Choinski John J. Wilber Simon Anderson
C. Harald Koch Jonathan Clark Steven B. Fellows
Carl Rigney Joshua Levy Ted Kim
Dan Corrin Karl-Koenig Koenigsson Tony L. Hayes
Derek MacColl Mark F. Cook Wilson Mac Liaw
Eric Halil Mark Leymaster Yngve Larsson
Eric M. Sergienko Martin V Howard
BTW, the winner for the random drawing was Karl-Koenig Koenigsson.
2. Address:
We got 21 from the Eastern US, 17 from the Western US (using the
Mississippi River as an arbitrary dividing line), and 15 from
outside the US. Here's the breakdown:
EASTERN UNITED STATES:
5 - Massachusetts (Asland, Bedford, Boston, Cambridge, Groton)
4 - Maryland (Beltsville, Chevy Chase, Churchville, Edgewood)
3 - New Jersey (Fair Haven, Neptune, Newark)
2 - Pennsylvainia (Philadelphia, Pittsburgh)
1 each from Connecticut, New Hampshire, New York, Virginia, Ohio,
Kentucky, and Indiana.
WESTERN UNITED STATES:
8 - California (Los Angeles, Riverside, San Diego, Culver City,
Mountain View, Portola Valley, Sunnyvale, Berkeley)
4 - Oregon (Hillsboro, Portland, Corvallis, Eugene)
2 - Idaho (both from Boise)
1 each from Utah, Colorado, and North Dakota.
INTERNATIONAL:
4 - Sweden (2 from Linkoping)
3 - Australia (all from Brisbane)
3 - England
2 - Scotland (both from Edinburgh)
2 - Canada
1 - Ireland.
3. Phone:
Two people explicitly indicated that they didn't have one, and one
other person left out the info. Of the remaining 50 responses, 43
listed a single number (whether home or work was usually not specified)
and the remaining 7 listed both work and home numbers.
4. Age:
I got one ambiguous reply (which I discarded). Based on the
remaining 52 values, here's the spread:
Minimum age: 19 years
Maximum age: 45 years
Average age: 26.7 years
5. Sex:
53 responses, all Male. The "Subject" line says it all. Either
we don't have many female readers on the TML, or they're not
talking to us.
6. Occupation:
This wasn't much of a surprise either. Of the 53 responses, 27 were
from people with computer-related jobs (SW engineer, programmer, etc.),
5 of whom are Managers. 22 of the responses were from students, 13 of
whom are in Comp. Sci. or Comp. Eng. fields, 7 in other fields, and 2
who weren't specific enough to be determined. The remaining 4 responses
were from people in other professions (Attorney, Chemical Engineer,
Mechanical Engineer, Data Entry).
7. Employer:
30 Academic institutions appear as either employers or current residence
(U. of Queensland appears three times, MIT twice, all others are unique
entries). Of the remaining 23 employers, there are only 2 which appear
multiple times: Hewlett-Packard Co. appears three times, and the United
States Army appears twice.
8. Marital Status:
Pretty cut-n-dried: 33 unmarried, 19 married, 1 ambiguous. (He checked
both yes AND no; go figure.)
COMPUTER SYSTEMS:
9. How did you find out about the TML?
It looks like rec.games.frp is the TML's biggest source of new readers.
The breakdown is:
[ 7] From a friend
[13] From a list of computer mailing lists
[28] From an "advertisement" on rec.games.frp
[ 5] Other: GEnie's MegaTraveller BBS
Cousin
I started it. [Cute, Jim. Real cute. :-)]
"ad" on GMAST-L (equivalent to r.g.frp)
Can't remember
10. On what type of computer/system do you access the TML?
About two-thirds of the respondents are getting the TML via a technical
workstation running some flavor of UN*X. For those interested, the
types of systems that got significant mention are: 12 Sun workstations,
8 VAXs, 3 HP workstations, 2 Apollo workstations, 3 Macintoshes, 2 Amigas,
2 Sequents, 2 Solbournes, and a scattering of IBM PC clones and mainframes,
along with 4 people who apparently didn't know what they were using. Oddly
enough, a few of the people who turned in surveys think UN*X itself is
a type of computer! That seems only fair, considering the fact that
several of the TML members aren't really in the "computer business".
After all, ask any non-chemist about the details of a Krebb's Cycle
and watch the blank looks appear.
11. How many hours per month do you spend reading TML?
5 - less than 2 hours
13 - 2-4 hours
17 - 5-8 hours
12 - 9-16 hours
3 - 17-24 hours
3 - Over 24 hours
12. Do you know how to access the TML archives?
36 - Yes
17 - No
NOTE: Many of the "Yes" answers indicated that they knew how but
lacked the actual capability for anonymous FTP. The E-mail archive
server appears to be unreliable enough that most people avoid it.
13. What other other national BBSs/networks do you use?
Since rec.games.frp is the big recruiter for TML readers, these
results were to be expected:
39 - UseNet
11 - BitNet
6 - GEnie
6 - None - I don't use any other BBS
4 - FidoNet
3 - CompuServe
2 - CSnet
4 - Other: Internet
2 - Other: FreeNet
1 - Other: Applelinke
1 - Other: Local BBS ("The Pyre")
14. How many hours per month do you spend reading other BBSs/networks?
[ 8] less than 2 hours
[10] 5-8 hours
[ 8] 9-16 hours
[10] 17-24 hours
[17] Over 24 hours
Given the heavy clumping at the high end, it would appear that the
average TML reader is (as one survey respondent put it) a serious
"data junkie".
15. Do you regularly use other computers/systems?
45 - Yes
8 - No
16. If 'Yes' on the previous question, what other types?
Broad selection of responses here. The run-away winners in this
catagory were Apple Macintoshes, IBM PCs (and clones), Sun workstations,
and DEC VAXs. Honorable mention should go to the Atari ST, along with
SGI, NeXT and HP workstations. After that it was all over the board.
All other responses were either the only mention for a given system,
or were too ambiguous to be catagorized.
17. What computer languages do you regularly use?
C and Pascal were the most frequently named languages, however
anything that got mentioned more than once is listed below. Two
survey respondents indicated that they didn't regularly use any
programming language (not surprising) and, of the other singular
languages mentioned, one person indicated that he used Snobol,
which caused me several long minutes of reminiscing.
41 - C (ANSII Std. and K&R)
20 - Pascal
12 - FORTRAN
11 - UN*X shell scripts (Bourne, C, and Korne)
9 - C++
9 - BASIC (various flavors)
4 - Lisp (various flavors)
4 - Assembler (assorted processors)
3 - Modula
3 - HyperCard/HyperTalk
3 - AWK
2 - Postscript
2 - Perl
18. How many years of computer/programming experience do you have?
Not everyone responded with a specific number, but enough did to
make to following ballpark determination:
Minimum: < 1 year
Maximum: 25 years
Average: 9.5 years (much higher than I expected!)
One respondent also included this rather wry observation:
"That is a bad metric, Some may have used BASIC
for 20 years and that is little or no experence at all."
19. How did you acquire your computer/programming experience?
14 people indicated that their experience was derived solely from
formal training. 7 indicated that they were entirely self-taught.
31 indicated that they fell into both catagories.
20. Do you have free access to the TML?
Out of 53 respondents, only 1 indicated that he did not have free access.
21. If 'Yes' to question 20, how?
24 - Via college/university
22 - Via employer
6 - Via employer AND college/university (either because of access
to both, or because the employer IS a college or univiersity.)
22. If 'No' to question 20, by what pay service do you receive the TML?
The 1 survey respondent that gets TML via pay service indicated that
he had a flat-fee-per-year account on a public-access UN*X system.
23. Which of the following computer graphics formats are available to you?
Here are all the formats that got 10 or more votes each (along with
the number of votes each got).
[36] PostScript "image" [16] EPS
[34] GIF [14] XBM
[28] MacPaint [12] PC Paintbrush
[20] PICT [11] raw grayscale
[18] Sun raster [11] XWD
[16] TIFF [10] Usenix FaceSaver
[16] Sun icon [10] IFF ILBM
If we start using standard interchange formats for TML, it looks like
we'll be using PostScript "image", GIF, and MacPaint.
24. Of these formats, which do you prefer?
The votes for those top 3 formats were:
16 - GIF
13 - Postscript
4 - MacPaint
so it looks like GIF wins by a nose. For those of you that can't
use GIF, or just don't like it, don't worry. We've got enough
"guru" horse-power spread over the readership base that we should
be able to accommodate almost everybody's limitations.
ROLE-PLAYING:
25. Besides Traveller, what other RPG's do you enjoy?
Big surprise (for me anyway): AD&D by over 2 to 1! Here's a list of
all the RPG's that got 2 or more votes (and the number of votes they got).
27 - AD&D 3 - Star Trek RPG
15 - GURPS 3 - Albedo
10 - Twilight:2000 2 - Star Fleet Battles
9 - Runequest 2 - Stalking the Night Fantastic
9 - 2300 AD 2 - Space:1889
8 - The Fantasy trip 2 - Space Opera
8 - Shadowrun 2 - Ringworld
8 - Call of Cthulhu 2 - Other Suns
7 - Top Secret 2 - MechWarrior
7 - Paranoia 2 - Marvel Super Heroes
6 - CyberPunk 2 - Gamma World
6 - Champions 2 - CyberSpace
4 - Rolemaster 2 - BattleTech
3 - Stormbringer 2 - Ars Magica
3 - Star Wars
Additionally, 4 people indicated that they played nothing other
than MegaTraveller. Now that's what I call devotion!
The list of other RPG's mentioned is, to say the least, "diverse".
In alphabetical order, they are: Aftermath, Arduin, Boot Hill,
Bunnies'n'Burrows, Bushido, Car Wars, D&D, Daredevils, DragonQuest,
En Garde, FTL2448, Fantasy Warhammer, Fringeworthy, Golden Heros,
HarnMaster, Hero System, James Bond, Jorune, Judge Dredd, Lace and Steel,
Legionnaire (Renegade Legions), Metamorphosis Alpha, NERO (A Live Medieval
Fantasy Weekend RolePlaying Group in New England), Pendragon, Powers &
Perils, SPAM(?), Spacemaster, Star Ace, Star Frontiers, The Arcanum,
and Tunnels & Trolls/Monsters Monsters.
26. How many of these RPG's do you actually own?
This is a hard question to quantify. All but two people responding own
at least one or two of the games they play, and most of the respondents
own ALL (or almost all) the games they play regularly.
27. How many hours per month do you dedicate to ACTUALLY playing RPGs?
Pretty straight-line distribution here:
11 - less than 2 hours
13 - 5-8 hours
10 - 9-16 hours
10 - 17-24 hours
9 - Over 24 hours
28. What is the average age of your gaming group?
1 - under 15
1 - 15-17
3 - 18-20
19 - 21-25
19 - 26-30
8 - 31-35
0 - over 35
This confirms what many of us suspected: TML readership represents
college-age or above individuals. What surprised me is the fact that
player numbers drop off sharply above age 30. However, since role-
playing (in almost all forms) first appeared in the early '70s, when
the oldest respondents would have been about 15 years old, I guess
it does sort of make sense.
29. How many hours per month do you spend in other RPG-related activities
(designing new adventures, painting minatures, etc.)?
[ 9] less than 2 hours
[ 7] 2-4 hours
[11] 5-8 hours
[13] 9-16 hours
[ 6] 17-24 hours
[ 8] Over 24 hours
Nice shallow bell-curve there. Good. That means that only a few
of you pitiful wretches let this game dominate your lives. :-)
30. How far would you be willing to travel to attend a TML convention?
[ 2] Wouldn't attend a TML convention
[ 8] less than 50 miles
[17] less than 100 miles
[ 8] less than 300 miles
[ 6] less than 500 miles
[10] over 500 miles
Now this is interesting: the two spikes are people who'd travel
less than 2 hours to attend, and people who'd go almost ANYWHERE
to attend (I, alas, fall into the 2nd group; ready my padded room
at Bellvue :-)).
SUMMARY:
Based on this somewhat-less-than-scientific survey, it would appear
that the average TML reader is an unmarried, male, US citizen in his
late 20's, who is in the computer industry (either as a student or an
employee). He's been a C programmer for about 10 years (as a result
of both formal education and self-instruction), uses a UN*X workstation
as his primary computer, and reads the TML and other BBSs/newsgroups
about 24 hours per month. Besides (Mega)Traveller, he enjoys AD&D
and spends about 12 hours per month role-playing with other people
(who are slightly younger than him) or in other RPG-related activities.
All in all, a pretty "vanilla" sort of dude. Who would have dreamed
that all these years after the novel was first published, "Walter
Mitty" would have his very own mail list? :-)
Coming up next: the first annual TML "Livestock & Sexual Preferences" survey!
Later,
Mark F. Cook
USMail: User Interface Technical Support
Hewlett-Packard - Interface Technology Operation
[address removed]
INTERNET: [email removed]
[email removed]