Magazine Menagerie - Part One - SAM Revival

Over the last week or so, a trio of computing magazines have dropped though the letter box and each one deserves a thorough read and, in my humble opinion, a bit of promotion. In this and the two following posts, I'll be looking at each magazine in turn and giving you my thoughts.

Let's start off with what many would consider to be the most obscure of the trio, SAM Revival. If you're not aware, the SAM Coupe was a British 8-bit computer originally released in 1989. Sadly, it was not commercially successful although it did gain a decent fan base over the years and, as I related in my review of Archive 25.2 here, I really liked the look of it. Off the back of Colin's article in Archive, I remembered that at some point, I had bookmarked the SAMCoupe.com website ages ago but then (to my shame) had forgotten about it. Rectifying this brought me to the SAM Revival page and, having had my interest piqued, I ordered the most recent issue, No 25.

This arrived a couple of days later in a rather sturdy cardboard envelope containing within a neatly bagged copy of the magazine, a thank you slip, an advertising slip and two floppy disks. Yes, SAM Revival ships with cover disks! If you don't have an actual SAM Coupe, Colin will send you the disk images for use with an emulator. As for the magazine itself, it's a full colour A5 publication with a sturdy cover and using high quality paper totalling 56 pages. A note on the date, yes, it says September 2015. SAM Revival is not a regular publication and this highlights the hobbyist nature of the magazine. This is published as and when, and speaking of which, the next issue is due out later this month. 

Priced at £9.99, money hasn't been skimped on the printing, nor the postage. But is it worth spending that money on a five and a half year old issue? For me, yes. I wanted to see what the magazine had to offer, get an idea as to what SAM Coupe's were still used for and to decide if I would buy future issues.

The contents include a four page editorial, ten pages of news, a few developer profiles and regular box outs with web links for further information, various SAM projects, help on running B-DOS, SAM rarities, a great developer diary piece and a highly detailed section on the cover disks. Some of this was easy for me to read, other pieces (like the SAM Snippets) made very little sense at all based on my lack of knowledge. Here is the thing, this has given me resources to learn more and get to understand how the SAM works as a computer. I am impressed how Colin is keeping a semi-regular magazine going and also providing additional hardware and upgrades that permit the SAM to be used today. What I can say is that I enjoyed reading everything in the magazine despite its age. 

The cover disks, for which I have nothing to use them on but they will be kept in a safe place, contain a couple of games, some demos and utilities. This brought back memories of my Amiga days and the huge collection of cover disks from various magazines I used to have. A nice touch and a good way of keeping software distribution alive for the SAM.

SAM Revival is the very definition of a niche publication. Yes, the SAM market is small, even compared to the likes of the Amiga and RISC OS, but that does not mean to say that there isn't the need for SAM Revival. Will I be buying the next issue? Definitely. Will I be picking up any of the back issues, which vary from £3.99 (Issues 1-8), £6.99 (Issues 9-23) and £9.99 (from Issue 24)? Maybe. Would I like to get my hands on a SAM Coupe itself? My heart says yes, my head says no - and that's mostly a space and cost issue. I can get an emulator though, so when time permits, that'll be something to look into. What I can say is that SAM Revival is well worth checking out for those that it interests and, given the nature of the articles in this issue, the information from previous issues (detailed on the website) would build up to quite a knowledge base on the format.

All in all, great work and I look forward to the next issue!

You can find out more on the SAMCoupe.com website and keep up with the latest goings on via their Twitter handle @QuazarSamCoupe.