SAM Revival Issue 26 - Review

Well, that was quick! Just as I had posted abut the four back issues of SAM Revival that were picked up at the Wakefield RISC OS show (and struggled mightily with the name of a certain product),  issue 26 landed through the letterbox! A 72-page (including covers) full colour, professionally printed A5 magazine, this had been something I had ordered last year and had been highly anticipated. 

First off, I love the cover, supplied by Warren Lee from his latest title, Invasion III, that also appears in the Developer Diary section. The editorial stretches to four pages and it's understandable to see why, it has been a few years since the last issue.  

The news section is a whopping fifteen pages, and covers everything from new products available for the Coupe to new games, as well as a selection of YouTubers you might want to visit if your a fan of the machine. It was really nice to see further details on the Symbiote eZ80 (I can type and proof this name right at least once - I really struggled with this in the last post!) co-processor and how that will tie in with the plans for the Pandemonium, a "new" machine. 

Six pages are given over to a mega-preview of The Lower Caverns, a follow up to Manic Miner, whilst the next eight are take up by a piece on the demo scene, featuring guest reviews by the late Dennis Van Berkel, who sadly passed earlier this year. As with many other formats, it's always interesting to see what demo coders can achieve on their chosen hardware.  

Ten pages are taken up by details of what is on the supplied cover disk (five full games and a pair of utilities). A nice touch are the mini-reviews for a couple of the games, as well as a lovely reminder that reviews are opinion based and can vary, especially if you're thinking of trying out Mega Blast. 

There is a further mega-preview, this time for Treasure Island Dizzy, that occupies six pages and, in a neat touch, this game will be featured on the cover disk for issue 27 (with an advertised release date of Autumn 2022). Nine pages are given over to the Developer Diary section, which focuses on three titles, Cybernaut and Pang from Andrew Collier, and Invasion III from cover art supplier Warren Lee. There's a SAM Snippet for Invasion II's cheat mode, as well as a couple of developer tips pages from Mr Lee. 

SAM Comment is a section of musings from Colin about SAM related topics, in particular looking at isometric titles on the machine as well as the funkiness that is the PICO-8 board, and the technical similarities (in relation to potential software development) it shares with the Symbiote eZ80 (hot dang, got it right again!).

Strange New Worlds is the final section of the magazine and hosts news/information on the hardware Colin produces for machines other than the SAM. He also mentions Archive Magazine (I may have mentioned it a couple of times on this blog...), and the possibility of emulating the Acorn Atom on the SAM.

I really enjoyed this issue of SAM Revival and it was well worth the wait. The print quality is brilliant and there wasn't a page wasted. For me, learning more about the Symbiote eZ80 (on a roll here, people) and the Developers Diaries were the highlight but, honestly, everything in here was worth reading. The amount of effort Colin has put into this issue is plain to see and he, along with the other contributors, should be proud in what they have produced. 

Colin is eager for any contributions for future issues, be it articles, software or letters, so please do get in touch with him via the sales@samcoupe.com email address. If you head over to his website here, you can pick up your own copy of issue 26, as well as pre-order issues 27 and 28. And yes, by the time this post is live, I will have done just that. You can also pick up back issues and browse through the range of hardware Colin also produces. 

A Quartet of Quazars - SAM Revival issues 11 and 21-23

Back in May, I had the good fortune to visit the Wakefield RISC OS show with my good lady and a fine time was had. One of the exhibitors was Archive Magazine. Sadly, Gavin (the editor) couldn't make it to the show so Archive contributor Colin Piggot covered for him. Colin also produces SAM Revival magazine, and was doing a sterling business of under the counter SAM-ing (well, certainly to me). With the latest issue of SAM Revival (number 26) just being released at the weekend (which I am looking forward to receiving - I pre-ordered it last year) I thought it timely to have a look at the four issues I walked away with from the RISC OS show and show you how the magazine has changed over the years.

Before I do that, however, I should point out that SAM Revival is published on an ad-hoc basis and you can see from the cover dates that there is a gap between each issue. This is very much a labour of love for Colin and about his passion for the SAM Coupe. Certainly, having spent a good amount of time talking to him at the Wakefield Show, that passion is in no way diminishing and there are plenty of plans for the future. As you'll see below, I also picked up a neat little news leaflet that provided updates to all that Colin has planned. 

Issue 11

To begin with, we have issue 11, cover dated November/December 2004. It's 44 pages long, stapled and mono. This issue came with a cover CD containing 18 audio tracks that show off what the SAM is capable of (ok, 17 tracks, number 18 is a funky little time capsule). There's a report on the ORSAM 2004 show (held in Norwich), an in-depth guide to the various audio interfaces available for the SAM, as well as a trio of SAM snippets, little asides to the main audio piece.

Issue 21

Issue 21 is dated from March/April 2008, and has 40 pages with some added colour, although the magazine is still stapled. As you can see from the contents page, this is a much more varied issue and I particularly enjoyed the interview with demo coders The Lords and the Developer Diary article. The cover disk contains four games (Bats 'N Balls, Tetris, Soul Magician and Pac-Man) as well as four demos from The Lords.

Issue 22

The September/October 2008 dated issue 22 has 32 pages although there is even more colour now. There is the usual news section, the developer diary covers further work on 3D graphics for the SAM, whilst the primary article asks the very important question about what happened to the Manic Miner sequel. As for the cover disk, you get platformer Burglar Bob and a 3D Demo from Developer Diary contributor Thomas Harte.

Issue 23

Just over a year later, issue 23 dropped for November/December 2009. Still at 32 pages but now in full colour, the news section focused on the latest VIC-20 emulator news. The cover disk contains said VIC-20 emulator, Survive the Night (originally written in 1995) and 3D Demo 2 from Thomas Harte. The developer diary has three entires this issue, and a three page SAM snippet covers the first mass storage interface for the SAM. The Trinity Boot ROM gets a multi-page article at the request of users.

As you can see, over the period between 2004 to 2009, SAM Revival developed into a full colour presentation with regular cover disks and news of developments in the hardware. When I looked at issue 25, it had turned into a professionally bound full colour booklet, and issue 26 looks to be following in those footsteps, whilst increasing the page count from 56 to 72 pages. 

Show leaflet

As for future developments, the leaflet I picked up at Wakefield mentioned Colin's on-going work with Symbiote, an eZ80 co-processor/sound board and, of particular interest to me, the Pandemonium, a new SAM system using the last of the custom chips originally manufactured for the Coupe back in 1989. The idea of a modern day SAM Coupe computer really does appeal and I look forward to the day Colin announces the new hardware.

More show leaflet

Check out Colin's website here, where you can order the various hardware add-ons he already sells for the Coupe (and for other platforms too). You can also order the latest issue, buy back issues and pre-order the next two (27 and 28). I know once payday rolls around, I'll be putting my order in for the these two. You can follow Colin on Twitter here and keep up with the latest news on all things SAM. If you can, pick up a copy or two and check out one of the funkiest 8-bit systems ever to see a UK release. You can expect a review of issue 26 on this blog within the next couple of weeks.

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.