I had one of these - still do actually. Obviously not much commercial software available for it, but it was an excellent system to learn to program BASIC. Ended up using it all the way into the late 90s for playing around with programming, even when we had a 486, PSX etc.
Great video. I bought one back around 90/91. It had a few good games but I quickly regretted buying it and wished I had gone straight over to the Amiga. The only add on I bought was a 256k ram upgrade which most likely cost me a small fortune at the time.
Yeah, there's literally no reason for this computer to exist. If you wanted an 8 bit computer you could have bought an Amstrad CPC plus with much the same capabilities, clock speed, plus hardware sprites. And access to the entire Amstrad software library.
An 8-bit machine without hardware sprites and scrolling was never gonna sell at that point. I mean, keep in mind you could get a C64 or Master System for less than £100 by this time, and those include several pack in games. With sprites and scrolling it maybe could've been the PC Engine of the UK, as it were, but it fell very short of what it needed to be.
I drooled over the Sam Coupe in the magazines back in the day but got fed up waiting and bought an Atari ST instead. Made the right choice in hindsight, but still can't deny how cool it looks.
The Sam coupe was sort of "late to the party", just as the Enterprise 64/128. Shame, since it was a proper step up from the Speccy. Good video, liked it.
It was designed with a splitter in mind, but I don't know if one was ever commercially produced? I had one that someone had wired up themselves, but it conflicted when you moved one joystick in two directions (e.g. up and left), or moved a joystick and pressed a button at the same time, and that caused the other joystick to do two things as well. I think it would have required diodes to prevent that.
As for the rarity of this system, I hope that my latest PCB design will alleviate the hearts of those who want to experience the real hardware for themselves. I'm in the process of designing an ATX board based on an original Sam Coupe. It won't be the exact same thing, but its heart will be identical.
Can you double the clok speed of video ram so that there's no contention also add that the 1mb ram can also page into tge bottom of ram to assist with bbc basic and cpm roms
I came extremely close to buying one of these and had a couple of conversations with Miles and Gordon, who were both very friendly, down to earth and committed to the SAM and its user base on a personalised level, which was a nice pushback to the faceless corporations that we're used to. In the end, I opted for an Amiga due to the lack of third party support. Even in 1989 the SAM Coupe was outdated - I was shocked to learn later that it lacked hardware scrolling and hardware sprites: features that were standard on machines in 1982! Baffling design choices like that really hurt the computer and its potential.
I was looking at one too, but went with a second hand ST because 1. It was so much cheaper, 2. It already had a huge games library and 3. That's what most of my friends had. The Sam was quite similar to the ST in many regards as it relied a lot on the CPU, only the CPU was much weaker than the ST, even if it did have a better sound chip. In many ways actually the Sam is pretty close in design to the MSX2 range.
To be fair, I think the Sam was largely developed by a team of two, while the Amiga was developed by a team of about nine, I think. It was a decent upgrade from the original Spectrum, with a good keyboard and disk drives. My main criticisms of it are related to memory management. Any part of memory could be used to store and display a screen image, which sounded kind of cool and flexible at the time. But really, you only need memory for two screen images--one to display, and one to write for the next frame. Allowing any part of memory to be used for the screen means the whole memory is contended, and the computer runs slower than it otherwise could. Also, only two memory segments could be accessed independently. It kind of had four memory segments, except that the second memory segment accessed the memory immediately following the first segment, and the fourth accessed the memory immediately following the third segment. I don't know if I described that very well, but anyway, I think it was limiting for programmers.
Don't be too scared of the crazy Ebay prices, there have only been a few of them to go for such high prices. £400-450 would probably find you one these days. Not exactly cheap, but holiday savings money, not 2nd hand car money
The problem with the Sam is it was at least 3 years too late, probably more like 4 years. This is what killed the home computers in the first place. Most of the home micro makers had decent first machines. But none of the companies who excelled in the marketplace had a decent upgrade to their home micros. Commodore, Atari, Amstrad and Sinclair all had lackluster follow ups that really accomplished nothing. All of them, especially Atari and Sinclair, needed real new machines by 1985 or 86. The ST was NOT an upgrade to an 800. In 1985, the 800xl was like 150 bucks. The ST was 800 plus you had to have a monitor and it still only had 8 bit sound and 16 color graphics. The Amiga was even worse costing over 1000 without the necessary monitor (the Amiga was a huge flop in America). These were not upgrades to the 8 bit machines, they were whole new and much more expensive computers which did not compare well to the Tandy 1000 line. What all the home computer makers needed was an upgraded computer line at the same or only slightly higher price than the existing 8 bit computers while adding lots of new features, preferably backward compatible. Had commodore got the C65 out in 1985 or 86 instead of the awful plus 4/16/128 machines for like 250 bucks or even $299 with the included disk drive, it would have saved the home computer makers. For how long, I don't really know. The problem they ran into was they kept raising the prices. It's very soon before a home computer is so close to a PC in price that it's just not worth buying the home computer.
english was sadly always late in all at that time : gx4000, enterprise 128k, sam coupe, all out when everythingswas 16 bits and cd-rom era ... if they were out 2 years before, they could kicked every japaneses devices like nes, master system, pce ... the hardware of these devices was much more stronger in 8 bits
It would be interesting to see if Andrews UK/RGL will release a reproduction of this machine, obviously it doesn't have the popularity cultural significance or legacy of machines such as the Commodore 64 or ZX Spectrum, so it mightn't make much financial sense for them to do it. Who knows. I wonder if Paul Andrews will do anything with the IP.
I saw some plans and designs for a Sam Coupe laptop they planned to release about 5 years ago when I was working for them but it came to nothing like 90% of Paul's ideas. Never met a person who spends so much time on projects that he never follows through on.
@@TheLairdsLair Wow, you worked for Paul Andrews and Chris Smith? That's cool. I mean 5 years ago TheC64 was either still in development or had just been released, so you never know, it could happen in the future.
I had one of these - still do actually. Obviously not much commercial software available for it, but it was an excellent system to learn to program BASIC. Ended up using it all the way into the late 90s for playing around with programming, even when we had a 486, PSX etc.
What an interesting system. I was completely unfamiliar with it.
I really like this format of video too. Love your hardware related videos.
Glad you like them!
Great video. I bought one back around 90/91. It had a few good games but I quickly regretted buying it and wished I had gone straight over to the Amiga. The only add on I bought was a 256k ram upgrade which most likely cost me a small fortune at the time.
Yeah, there's literally no reason for this computer to exist. If you wanted an 8 bit computer you could have bought an Amstrad CPC plus with much the same capabilities, clock speed, plus hardware sprites. And access to the entire Amstrad software library.
An 8-bit machine without hardware sprites and scrolling was never gonna sell at that point. I mean, keep in mind you could get a C64 or Master System for less than £100 by this time, and those include several pack in games.
With sprites and scrolling it maybe could've been the PC Engine of the UK, as it were, but it fell very short of what it needed to be.
I drooled over the Sam Coupe in the magazines back in the day but got fed up waiting and bought an Atari ST instead. Made the right choice in hindsight, but still can't deny how cool it looks.
I did the same, I wish the Atari ST designer had put the SAA1099 sound chip in though instead of the Yamaha chip.
I do know I want one. I was in love as soon as I played Captain Comic, which knocks the socks off the original PC version.
The greatest computer I never owned. It was excellent but a little too late to the party of 8-bit machines. 16-bit was taking hold.
I indeed never heard of this amezing machine.
The Sam coupe was sort of "late to the party", just as the Enterprise 64/128. Shame, since it was a proper step up from the Speccy.
Good video, liked it.
Still got my Sam. I bought pretty much everything there was to buy for it at the time. I might just be able to retire on it.
You selling?
no its not Kempton there's a two joystick splitter cable and you've got Sinclair 1 and 2 joysticks mapped to 12345 and 67890
It was designed with a splitter in mind, but I don't know if one was ever commercially produced? I had one that someone had wired up themselves, but it conflicted when you moved one joystick in two directions (e.g. up and left), or moved a joystick and pressed a button at the same time, and that caused the other joystick to do two things as well. I think it would have required diodes to prevent that.
One joystik port with a splitter can handle 2 stiks its not kempston its sinclair interface 2 ie. Keys 12345 and 67890
Liked the video. Love learning about old computers like this.
Glad you enjoyed it
As for the rarity of this system, I hope that my latest PCB design will alleviate the hearts of those who want to experience the real hardware for themselves. I'm in the process of designing an ATX board based on an original Sam Coupe. It won't be the exact same thing, but its heart will be identical.
Wow! That sounds awesome!
Can you double the clok speed of video ram so that there's no contention also add that the 1mb ram can also page into tge bottom of ram to assist with bbc basic and cpm roms
Sold mine years ago as I was desperate for money at the time.
To this day I still regret it!
OUCH!!!
I came extremely close to buying one of these and had a couple of conversations with Miles and Gordon, who were both very friendly, down to earth and committed to the SAM and its user base on a personalised level, which was a nice pushback to the faceless corporations that we're used to.
In the end, I opted for an Amiga due to the lack of third party support. Even in 1989 the SAM Coupe was outdated - I was shocked to learn later that it lacked hardware scrolling and hardware sprites: features that were standard on machines in 1982! Baffling design choices like that really hurt the computer and its potential.
I was looking at one too, but went with a second hand ST because 1. It was so much cheaper, 2. It already had a huge games library and 3. That's what most of my friends had.
The Sam was quite similar to the ST in many regards as it relied a lot on the CPU, only the CPU was much weaker than the ST, even if it did have a better sound chip. In many ways actually the Sam is pretty close in design to the MSX2 range.
To be fair, I think the Sam was largely developed by a team of two, while the Amiga was developed by a team of about nine, I think. It was a decent upgrade from the original Spectrum, with a good keyboard and disk drives. My main criticisms of it are related to memory management.
Any part of memory could be used to store and display a screen image, which sounded kind of cool and flexible at the time. But really, you only need memory for two screen images--one to display, and one to write for the next frame. Allowing any part of memory to be used for the screen means the whole memory is contended, and the computer runs slower than it otherwise could.
Also, only two memory segments could be accessed independently. It kind of had four memory segments, except that the second memory segment accessed the memory immediately following the first segment, and the fourth accessed the memory immediately following the third segment. I don't know if I described that very well, but anyway, I think it was limiting for programmers.
i paid for one just before they went bust and had some job getting my money back. i got a schneider europc in the end.
Very cool video thank you for sharing.
Would u like a neoGS?
512x192 is 4 colour on Sam and with skill u can have more
Don't be too scared of the crazy Ebay prices, there have only been a few of them to go for such high prices. £400-450 would probably find you one these days. Not exactly cheap, but holiday savings money, not 2nd hand car money
As good as the SAM was it was 3 years too late and should have had 128k compability too.
Had one. Donated by an old man that got dementia... probably after using this computer.
The problem with the Sam is it was at least 3 years too late, probably more like 4 years. This is what killed the home computers in the first place. Most of the home micro makers had decent first machines. But none of the companies who excelled in the marketplace had a decent upgrade to their home micros. Commodore, Atari, Amstrad and Sinclair all had lackluster follow ups that really accomplished nothing.
All of them, especially Atari and Sinclair, needed real new machines by 1985 or 86. The ST was NOT an upgrade to an 800. In 1985, the 800xl was like 150 bucks. The ST was 800 plus you had to have a monitor and it still only had 8 bit sound and 16 color graphics. The Amiga was even worse costing over 1000 without the necessary monitor (the Amiga was a huge flop in America). These were not upgrades to the 8 bit machines, they were whole new and much more expensive computers which did not compare well to the Tandy 1000 line.
What all the home computer makers needed was an upgraded computer line at the same or only slightly higher price than the existing 8 bit computers while adding lots of new features, preferably backward compatible. Had commodore got the C65 out in 1985 or 86 instead of the awful plus 4/16/128 machines for like 250 bucks or even $299 with the included disk drive, it would have saved the home computer makers. For how long, I don't really know. The problem they ran into was they kept raising the prices. It's very soon before a home computer is so close to a PC in price that it's just not worth buying the home computer.
Good Day to you! what is this game called after 9mins 26 secs please.
Bowin and the Count Dracula
So that's what a Sam Coupe looks like. It's beautiful.
Bloody awful tune though from 9:27. It's as though it's out of time with itself. LOL.
Yeah, easily one of my favourite looking computers!
I had one in London 😮
Thing is if you quadruple video ram then you should quadruple processor clok too!
english was sadly always late in all at that time : gx4000, enterprise 128k, sam coupe, all out when everythingswas 16 bits and cd-rom era ... if they were out 2 years before, they could kicked every japaneses devices like nes, master system, pce ... the hardware of these devices was much more stronger in 8 bits
I'm always mixing up SAM Coupe with Sinclair QL.
It would be interesting to see if Andrews UK/RGL will release a reproduction of this machine, obviously it doesn't have the popularity cultural significance or legacy of machines such as the Commodore 64 or ZX Spectrum, so it mightn't make much financial sense for them to do it. Who knows. I wonder if Paul Andrews will do anything with the IP.
I saw some plans and designs for a Sam Coupe laptop they planned to release about 5 years ago when I was working for them but it came to nothing like 90% of Paul's ideas. Never met a person who spends so much time on projects that he never follows through on.
@@TheLairdsLair Wow, you worked for Paul Andrews and Chris Smith? That's cool. I mean 5 years ago TheC64 was either still in development or had just been released, so you never know, it could happen in the future.
Unfortunately, yes. It was a very frustrating and ultimately unfulfilling experience.
01:40 Seiously now?