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*** EDITORIAL ***
Well...issue 13 was not very lucky for Brian, as some of you
have found out. He accidentally sent out some of the discs with
nothing on them. There should be a letter in here somewhere
explaining the situation.
Now Brian may have had some trouble with 13, but my unlucky
number must be 14. I've had no end of setbacks trying to get
this issue together. I've had track sector errors, programs that
crashed the machine, and programs arriving late or not at all.
Anyway, now it's finally finished, there should be something to
read in it.
What I am leading up to is the programs that I get sent for the
mag. In general, these are of a very high standard, but a lot of
them are let down by a lack of instructions on how they work.
I know, as a programmer, that it is very easy to assume that
because you know which key to press, everyone else will know.
Unfortunatly this is not the case, and I have to spend time,
first of all working out what the program does, and how to work
it, and secondly, I then have to type out some kind of program
notes for it. To be perfectly honest, I really haven't got
enought hours in the day to do this with every program.
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE, if you send a program in to the mag, could
you also send some kind of instructions with it. This will not
only help me to put the mag together, but will help the members
get the most from your program.
I'm not asking for a 40 page instruction manual, but a rundown
of the controls, or a step by step guide on how to use the
program would be of great help.
At this moment, I have quite a few discs, that have some nice
programs on, but I will have to spend a lot of time working out
what they do, and writing the notes for them, before they can
appear in the mag.
Right.. I've got that off my chest, now to what's in this issue.
We seem to have quite a technical issue this month, with
articles and programs on RGB, ham radio and getting the Sam to
talk to other computers, namely the Opus disc drive and the
Psion Organiser. I hope to be able to get it talking to a Z88 in
the near future, and of course will give details when I've
worked it out. This is a very interesting area of the Sam, and
opens up possibilities of using files from other machines, so if
you are working on such a project, I would be only too happy to
hear from you. I've just received a letter from a member who has
got TASWORD III working on the Sam, and, as I also have a partly
working version, I am going to see if we can't get all the bugs
out between us, I'll keep you posted.
I'm going now to work on issue 15, so I'll let you get on with
the rest of the mag in peace.
BYEEEEEE. Dave
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From Brian Mumford (distributer).
Dear Members
I feel I owe you all an explanation of what
happened to isue 13, well when I copied this issue I had just
returned from the USA, from a very enjoyable holiday and to say
the least I was jet-lagged. Also the gremlins seemed to have
crept in to my Sam, as almost all of you received a blank disc
for which I apologise. I would like to say thank you to all
those, whom I would add was most, for the understanding and
good will in which you returned your faulty disks. I would like
to share with you one of the letters wich I received.
Every month I get excited and await the postmans call,
Knowing he'll deliver
The disk to beat them all,
The supplement comes through the door,
Is caught before it lands,
Loses it's wrapper
And sits there in my hands.
I rush through to the work desk,
Where proudly sits my SAM,
I quickly switch the power on,
The machine tries out it's RAM,
The tests are all completed
And I put the new disk in,
I press F9,and all at once
The drive begins to spin.
A mini second later
"No DOS" appears on screen,
I curse,remove the disk
And wonder where its been,
I then put in another disk
And press F9 once more,
The DOS loads in quite quickly,
I'm ready to explore,
Insert the Supplement again,
And press the key F9,
The disk whirrs,"No Auto File"
I curse and swear again,
OK says I,what has gone wrong,
SDC can't be to blame,
I decide to catalogue the thing,
and see just how it came.
Very quickly, all at once
The disk contents are catted,
The disks is as empty as
The day it was formatted.
So please, all at the SDC,
Listen to my plea,
Fill my disk with the latest mag
And send it back to me.
I would like to thank Keith Pirie for the above epic and reward
him with a 6 month free subscription for making both Dave and me
smile after the pressure of recopying all the issue 13's I had
just sent out. I would again like to thank you all for your
patience and understanding. The only good thing is there will
not be another issue 13 until issue 113 in 8 years 4 months
time.
Brian
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Mr S.J. Monk.
31 Southbourne, Washford Farm, ASHFORD, KENT TN23 2UB
Dear Members
If you are wondering how you can increase the
number of SAM owners and increase the circulation of the SAM
Supplement then read on, This letter is based on a true story, I
know I was that man !.
About a month ago one of my friends at work asked my advice on
what computer to buy his children for Christmas, I told him he
could do far worse than to buy them a SAM , after a few days
thought I realised that there must be more people wondering
which computer to buy for Christmas and so the SAM DEMO EVENING
was born.
So a couple of weeks before the event I put a few small posters
around my work place, and on the night I trotted off with Sam
under my arm ready to do battle, expecting a handful of people
ready to rip me and Sam apart.
Well you can imagine my suprise and delight to see about 30
people there and all were just waiting to see what this machine
can do.
The age range was from 12 to 60 years old and full of enthusiasm
I started by showing a few graphic demo's like frog on a swing
etc and worked though serious applications, Education and
finally Games.
The people in attendance were to put it mildly GOB SMACKED !
from the games playing youngsters who were the day before Amiga
fans to the older generation who used to think computer was a
dirty word, all I could here was 'Look at the graphics and the
speed of it'. I think that all those who came to the demo
looking to buy a computer will be Samsters very soon.
There was no selling no arm twisting theres no need , once
people have seen the SAM 512 in action it sells its self with no
trouble.
So if you want to see SAM a more widely used computer then get
out there and show your mates, friends anybody that will watch
its well and truly worthwhile, and If you take up Samco's offer
of being an agent as mentioned on the Sam coupe hotline week
comencing 21st October , Which for those who don't phone the
line the offer is £20.00 to you for every Sam orderd from Samco
on an order form that they will supply with a code allocated to
you so that they know youv'e sold it . you can earn yourself a
few bob into the bargin. Phone Samco for full details , well go
on then phone em !.
The word soon spread around my work place and the next week more
people showed an interest and so Iv'e arranged another demo for
November 16th .
Lets get SAM 512 well and truly established this Christmas.
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