Utility

Fred Publishing

Rumsoft

A fully featured ‘Small C’ rather than ANSI C impementation for the Coupé with a WIMP based IDE and the Zeus Assembler for compilation.

Additional Libraries called ‘Sam VISION’ were released commercially to add the WIMP interface to Sam C programs.

SAM C PDF manual scan at http://www.samcoupe-pro-dos.co.uk

SAM Vision PDF manual scan at http://www.samcoupe-pro-dos.co.uk

Simon Owen

Simon Owen

TurboMON is a Z80 monitor and toolkit for the SAM Coupé. It provides a controlled execution environment for SAM programs, supporting single-stepping, tracing, breakpoints, as well as a selection of utility functions.

Load at any free 16K page boundary and CALL the loading address. e.g. LOAD "TurboMON" CODE 32768 : CALL 32768

A full manual is available on the author’s TurboMON page.

Fred Publishing

Graham Burtenshaw

Ron Stirling - Title Screen Logo

The successor to Flash!, the original art program. SAM Paint was much more advanced than anything before it and offered many features that the 16bit packages had.

Animated brushes, gradient fills, simple filters (outline / shadow etc), multiple screens, undo.

Review by Tim Paveley from the Sam Coupé Scrapbook

Let me state this now. I like SAM Paint, and I never really liked Flash! so basically I’m going to tell you to buy SAM Paint.

So what’s so good about SAM Paint?

Lot’s of things, most of which I’ll probably miss out. For a start it is designed to be used with a mouse, (though not necessary), it has a lot nicer front end, and lots more features, which I’ll try and list.

• Gradient Fills. (Horizontal, Vertical, Angled, Radial)
  
• Anti-aliasing.
  
• Brushes / Blocks / Shapes. (All can be used to draw with)
  
• Various Fill Modes.
  
• Various Designers. (Brushes, Fills, Lines)
  
• Zoom Modes.
  
• Block / Shape Manipulation. (Rescale, Rotate, Distort, Skew, etc.)
  
• Smearing / Blending / Bluring.
  
• Brush Modifying tools. (Lock out colours from being over drawn,
  mirror in axis, lock to a grid, cycle colours)

• 4 Work Screens, with option to use a work screen as the pen
  ‘colour’, and using other screens as a reference for functions.

• ‘Window’ operations. (clear, flip, scroll, blur, rotate, merge,
  outline, shadow, etc.)

• Bezier Curves / Curve fitting.
  
• Plasma Effect.
  
• Rectangles, Squares, Circles, Ellipses, Polygons, Parallelograms,
  Triangles.

• Screen Compression.
  
• Airbrush / Stipple Effects.
  
• Perspective Effect.
  
• Bending of Blocks / Screens / Gradient Fill.
  
• Squeezing of Blocks / Screens into a shape.
  
• Animation.
  
• Animated Brushes.
  
• Various Printing Options.
  
• Screen Mode Conversion.

How can you tell I quoted some of those without really knowing what they do?

Brian Gaff - BG Services

Chris Pile (one half of Digital Reality)

Pro-Dos could be thought of as a Disk Operating System (DOS), However, it is more than this , it is a full Operating System that Provides compatibility with CP/M 2.2.

In simple terms this means that a whole world of software that was designed to run under CP/M 2.2. will now run on the SAM Coupe. Pro-Dos uses the same Disk format as the Amstrad PCW 8256 and, as A result, can read disks from this machine direct, this also Means that there is a vast range of software already available from sources such as Public Domain libraries.

When buying software from a Public Domain library you must check That it was designed to run under CP/M 2.2 or one of the lower versions, 1.4 for example. Some software will only run under the later versions of CP/M, commonly known as CP/M 3 or CP/M Plus. However, the majority of available software is 2.2 compatible and You should have no trouble running it under Pro-Dos. Some software may need “installing” for the particular machine You intent to run it on, this normally involves terminal (or Screen) configuration and sometimes disk data information, most Software includes full configuration instructions and it is Usually a simple task.

Pro-Dos runs totally independent of the SAM ROM and DOS and, as a Result , makes no ROM or SAMDOS calls. Therefore, Pro-Dos will Run on any SAM with any version of SAM or MasterDos. Indeed, to Boot Pro-Dos from its boot disk you do not need to have Pre-loaded SAM or Master Dos at all. Pro-Dos automatically adjusts itself to your particular machine, be it a 256k single drive, or a 512k twin drive system, system ensures that it makes the best use of the RAM and drives available.

PDF Manual Scan at www.samcoupe-pro-dos.co.uk

Pro-Dos review from INDUGS Format Vol 5, No 9 by John Wase.

Stefan Drissen

Stefan Drissen

Robert van der Veeke

Play all those funky Amiga (four channel) MODs on your blue footed friend. Either via the SAA1099 soundchip (3 bits per channel, stereo), the Blue Alpha sampler (6 bits per channel, mono), the SAMDAC (7 bits per channel, stereo) or the Quazar Surround (8 bits per channel, surround).

Watch the hex scroll by as the music plays.

Specifications:

Source files:
Please find the Comet source files attached. These were in a sub-directory called ‘2.11’ so I think this is what I was working on for the next release. I cannot remember how I used to compile these bits together - a makefile would have been a good idea…

See disc image.

Review by Steven Pick from the Sam Coupé Scrapbook

In Fred 40, something brilliant happened. Once again, the adoring Fred reading populus was treated to a extra permanent feature to their magazine - MODs! Not only that, but a MOD player was given in this issue. But what are these strange things called MODs? (And no, they aren’t geezers dressed in parker jackets riding mopeds!). Read on, dear viewer…

MODs are short for Modules, and these spritely things first came about on the Amiga, followed by the PC (where the MOD evolved somewhat). These Modules are files consisting of samples and music data on how the samples should be played. PC Modules are available on Public Domain, while SAM MODs (Amiga converted, mostly) are available courtesy of Fred Magazine.

But hang on. Why shell out £5 on a MOD player when you get one in Fred 40 for £2? (Oh, along with some programs and a mag). Well, anyone who has been down to some of the more recent Gloucester shows couldn’t help but notice a tall programmer running around with a necklace of SAMDACs trying to flog these handy pieces of hardware. Lo! For this man is no mere mortal. For he is Stefan Drissen, programming genius from a land far, far away (The Netherlands). He programmed the first MOD Player as mentioned in Fred 40, though compared to this new MOD Player of his, the Fred one seems less than functional!