Software house run by Nev Young, was eventually sold to Format Publications.

SD Software

Ian Spencer

Utility to transfer files, format and convert from MS-DOS discs.

SD Software

Ian Spencer

Spectrum Emulator utility featuring:

• All SAM keys mapped correctly
  
• Can use SAM Parallel port
  
• Utilise 360kB of memory as a RamDisc
  
• Plus D and OPUS disc support
  
• RD Util to hack files in the RamDisc

Public Domain

Simon Owen, Dave Hooper, David Laundon

SimCoupe emulates a SAM Coupé on Windows, DOS, Linux, Solaris, BeOS, QNX, MacOS X, Amiga OS4, Pocket PC and now the Sony Playstation Portable (PSP).

http://www.simcoupe.org

Work on SimCoupe was started back in 1996 by Allan Skillman as a Linux-based project called XCoupe.

XCoupe was written originally ‘hacked in’ in C++ and then re-written in ANSI C. This version was then extended into a Win32 port by Simon Owen called WinCoupe.

Simon took over the project and re-wrote the entire program merging the WinCoupe features back into SimCoupe and adding a plethora of extra ones including Dave Hooper’s native SAA Sound support, floppy disc and ATOM support.

Latest development version on Github - https://github.com/simonowen/simcoupe/

Public Domain

Edwin Blink

The HD BOOT ROM is for use with the ATOM hard disk interface to automatically boot B-DOS from the hard disc..

General Information:

The HD BOOT ROM is a version 3.0 Basic ROM which will boot the DOS from hard disk or floppy disk automatically when the SAM is turned on or reseted.

This ROM will also reset the SAA sound chip directly after a reset and defines the function keys F7 as DIR [RETURN] and F8 as DIR PEEK SVAR 7 [RETURN] instead of the tape commands.

Great care was taken to add these features and keep the ROM fully compatable with the original 3.0 ROM. For this reason the original copyright message had to be removed. The copyright message now will be ‘HD BOOT ROM V2’ (After NEW and DOS is already in memory).

How It Works:

When the SAM is turned on or reseted, the SAA sound chip is reseted and the normal reset procedure is continued. Holding the SHIFT key down during reset will give you a 256K SAM to work with. Before the copyright message is printed a test is made if DOS is in memory and if not it will fool basic that key F9 is pressed and the DOS is booted.

The BOOT command works in the same manner as before. But now it boots from hard disk. It is still possible to boot from floppy disk by holding down the SPACE BAR during reset or by disabling the hard disks bootsector (see below).

Making the hard disk bootable:

To make the hard disk bootable the following has to be done:

1. Blow an 32kB EPROM with the HD BOOT ROM BIN image.
   
2. Replace the SAM ROM with the HD BOOT ROM.
   
3. Make a boot record.
   
4. Initialise boot sector with the ‘MakeBoot’ program.

Installing the HD BOOT ROM

From the B-DOS Information file on disc:

The B-DOS code and B-DOS information are FREEWARE. This is a fully functional DOS and there are no silly restrictions whatsoever. Please pass it on to other SAM users.

Enjoy B-DOS.

Edwin Blink.

Public Domain

Edwin Blink and Martijn Groen

B-DOS Is an improved SamDOS. B-DOS was mainly written to use with a harddisk (using the ATOM internal hard disk interface). However B-DOS can also be used without a hard disk but it only works with one diskdrive.

B-DOS features:

• Faster verify (as fast as loading).
  
• VERIFY AT sector command
  
• Faster FORMAT (Formating a disk takes about 66 seconds).
  
• Disks can be named with a 16 character name (file names not).
  
• Date stamping (Both Dallas clock and SAMBUS clock).

Hard Disc Support:

BDOS works with ATOM IDE harddisk interface and supports harddisks up to 8 Gb.
To make using a hard disk as user friendly as possible. The harddisk works like a virtual second diskdrive. The storage capacity of a harddisk is devided into 800K blocks. Such a 800K block is called a record and has the same format as a floppydisk. (10 sectors per track, 80 tracks and 2 sides).

Hard Disc Booting

The Coupé can be booted from the ATOM by using a modified ROM3.0 called the HD Boot ROM

PDF for B-DOS17n by Wolfgang Haller

Edwin Blink

Edwin Blink

The DALLAS clock was a clock unit that could be read by MasterDOS and B-DOS in place of the SamBus Clock.

See the DALLAS Clock Page for more details, quote as follows:

I wanted to add a realtime clock to my SAM other then the hard to get realtime clock chip used in the sambus and discovered the realtime clock chip from dallas semiconductors which has two big advantages: All clock components inclusive a backup battery are in a single package so implementation is easy, and this clock can be found on PC motherboards which makes it easy to get.

The Dallas clock can operate in INTEL mode and MOTOROLA mode. In order to reduce the chip count I choose to use the MOTOROLA
mode.

My original design of the DALLAS clock was based on integration with the SAM’s Comms interface (In which I already build my EDDAC interface). But to make it function as a stand alone interface a 74LS138 address decoder was added.

Edwin Blink

Edwin Blink

The Disk Protector Unit or DPU for short is a small circuit designed to cure the SAM’s disk corruption problem whenever the SAM is reset or turned on with a disk in the floppy drive.

The problem is caused by the ASICs 8 MHz clock which is halted during reset and then causes the floppydiskcontroller go out of control. Because the floppydiskcontroller needs a constant 8 MHz clock all the time.

All that the DPU does is generate a constant 8MHz clock to replace the ASIC’s 8 MHz clock. The design is simple and easy to build. Only half of the 74LS04 IC is required for the DPU. The other half of the 74LS04 IC can be used to make a NMI debounce switch.

See the DPU Page

Edwin Blink

Hardware modicifation to de-bounce the NMI/Break button.

See the DPU Page for details.

See Hardware Bugs.