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We’ll kick off the SAM Coupé page with a letter, which leads us into all the news on Coupé action...
Dear Lloyd,
I was informed that a new ROM Update pack was to be sent out. So I rang the
company on the Hotline where I was told that MGT was in receivership
— the company has run out of money.
To make things worse I found out that my parents had bought me a disk drive to go with the Coupé. So I tried to use it and most of the programs on the system disk didn’t work. The programs were littered with error messages and commands that didn’t work.
I realised that perhaps it was because my SAM contained the old ROM and the
system disk used a DOS update and not 2.0. But with MGT in receivership there
was not much chance of getting hold of the ROM update package. I am lost.
James Knapman
James’ letter is just one of the many we have received over the last few months from Coupé owners who simply don’t know where to turn. This month CRASH has very good news for anyone in that situation...
Alan Miles and Bruce Gordon, ex-directors of MGT plc, are back in business with a new company called SAM Computers Ltd, or SAM Co for short. Miles and Gordon have financed the new company with their own money, proving their dedication to continue providing support for the SAM Coupé. SAM Computers Ltd will offer a rescue service for anyone who is experiencing problems with their Coupé. Alan Miles explained that the company has three main aims:
For the moment the company can only deal with written enquiries, a phone number is expected to be announced soon.
Each and every week you can find out the state of play with the Coupé with a new phone-in news service. The SAM Coupé Hotline, which was launched in August, offers hints, tips and news and is updated every week. All the information comes from SAM Computers Ltd bosses Alan Miles and Bruce Gordon so you can be guaranteed access to the latest information as it happens!
You spotted something yet? Hummm, take another look at the name for Miles and Gordon’s new company. SAM Computers Ltd. Yeah, Computers. Could this indicate that a new product could be coming from the recently formed company? It was suggested at an industry conference that a new SAM product was being worked on but Alan Miles is saying little: ‘That S is not supposed to intentionally imply anything, though we would like to create new products in the future.’
CRASH will be keeping its proverbial ear to the ground.
Calling all programming boffins! SC-Assembler Version 1.1 is now available for the Coupé. Designed to help you create machine code programs, SC-Assembler boasts three impressive features: it does not use the SAM ROM so it is compatible with future upgrades, it has a complex editor which makes altering and listing source easy and additionally, a program, when assembled and compressed, takes up half as much space in memory than usual. If you’re machine code minded you can get details of SC-Assembler from Steve’s Software.
A new SAM Coupé software service has been launched by a small company called Zenith Graphics. It’s called Edition One and it’s a disk or cassette packed with software for the SAM Coupé. It costs £7 and features three SAM games, utilities, graphic demos and 16 Flash! screens. You can discover more from Jonathan Langford, Zenith Graphics.
A letter from Adrian Siddall plopped onto the SAM desk this month. Adrian says he claims the honour of being the first person to complete the SAM Coupé’s one and only game Defenders of the Earth. He finished it on Thursday June 29 at 11.40 with a high score of 188,200 — does this make him first? If you know different, drop us a line with your score, the finishing message, the date and time you completed the game (with a signed declaration from an honest bod!) to the usual address and we’ll try to discover the person who completed the first Coupé game first!!
Don’t forget, we want to hear from you! Send your letters, queries, tips and opinions to NEWSFIELD, LLOYD’S SAM FORUM, CRASH. More on the world of SAM next issue!