YOU’VE GOT TO WORK HARD

Fed up with having to pull out your printer to stick in your digitiser or running out of memory when you’re building up that mega-database? You need to check out the new hardware coming your way from SAM Co.

The first offering to be pulled out of the box of polystyrene bits is the SAM 1 Meg upgrade. This plugs into the expansion port at the back of the computer and gives the user 1084 Kilobytes of external RAM to play with. The extra memory is not accessible from SAM BASIC: you need to have MasterDOS to use it effectively.

With MasterDOS loaded the main advantage of the memory Is creating RAM disk drives. You can speed up the copying time of a disk by copying it all to a RAM disk and then back to drive one. This way of copying cuts right down on disk swapping.

You can add up to four 1MB external interfaces to your Coupé, making a total memory capacity of 4,718,592 bytes! The memory upgrade is only for serious programmers and those who want faster disk copying at the moment. As far as I know, there’s no software that uses the extra memory for outstanding graphics and sound (yet), so I’d wait and see what’s created before splashing out on one. The SAM Memory Interface costs £79.95 from SAM Co.

THE WHEELS ON THE BUS...

With all these new hardware add-ons on the SAM scene you can quickly run out of places to stick them (no dirty jokes, please!). So SAM Co have come up with the answer: the SAMBUS.

This is simply an interface which is plugged into the SAM expansion port and has four additional ports so you can plug in all your add-ons at once. Many pieces of hardware need extra power to make them work: the SAMBUS caters for this, too, with an external power connector on the side. To finish the job off in style, a real-time clock has been incorporated so you can find out the time and date at the touch of a button.

The SAMBUS is an essential piece of kit for any SAM hardware freak and is yours for £49.95.

PUBLIC DOMINATION

What would all you SAM owners do without Public Domain software to keep you going? Yet another disk magazine has landed on my desk this month. Written and starring Graham Burtenshaw, it goes by the name of Enceladus (wha...? — Ed), which happens to be the name of a moon around Saturn (Oh! — Ed).

Enceladus is aimed towards the more serious SAM user with the first two disks mainly containing utilities. Disk one has a selection of fonts for use in your own programs, a character designer to create user defined graphics and various programs to manipulate Flash! screens. There’s also a very interesting utility that examines the contents of a disk and displays it in graphical form on the screen. Using this you can discover screen files you didn’t even know were there! For example, the original SAM Dos disk from MGT had a hidden snapshot of Chuckle Egg on it!

The second issue of Enceladus has an excellently drawn title page with yet more screen utilities and other interesting programs. Enceladus costs £3.99 per disk and full details are available from: Graham Burtenshaw, Enceladus.

If you’re not a budding programmer but like to see what graphic feats your Coupé can get up to, SAM Screen could be what you’re looking for. This is a collection of PD screens that have appeared on various disks all collected together in one place. No more searching through endless menus to find that elusive Bugs Bunny picture, it’s here instantly!

If you have any pictures that you would like included on a future edition of SAM Screen, or would like to get a copy for yourself, write to; SAM Screen, Jason Highfield. Each disk is £1.35.

CRAZY COMPO!

This is where I throw down the gauntlet to any SAM owner out there and say ‘Show us what you can do!’ Using SAM Basic (or machine code if you’re clever enough), I want you to devise some sort of animation routine. It has got to last at least one minute but that’s your only restriction — the rest is up to you. The top three chosen by my panel of judges will each get a groovy CRASH T-shirt and the best one of the lot will get all the CRASH goodies I can lay my hands on, a prize well worth winning! If you need any inspiration then just take a look at some of the stuff from Zenith Graphics — or even watch Children’s BBC!

Send your entries on tape or disk (disk preferred) to the usual SAM Page address marked ANIMATION COMPETITION. Who knows, the best of the bunch could end up on a PD disk where you can show off your skills to all SAM owners!!

DEPECHE MODE, VISUALLY!

Zenith Graphics have been hard at work on their SAM creating a new set of demo disks called Visually. There are six disks altogether, each packed to bursting point with excellent screens and some very interesting demos. Any Depeche Mode fans out there just can’t do without some of these demos as many of them use the band as its subject (Martin Gore in particular).

The demos include digitised pictures from the Enjoy The Silence and Personal Jesus promotional videos, as well as an hilarious animated Martin singing Route 66.

The first four disks each have a theme: cartoons, movies, pictures and paintings, the last two being miscellaneous. How can you sample these demo delights? They’re available for £1.85 each or all six for £10, details from: Zenith Graphics. Remember, these disks are not PD. You can only get them through Zenith.