Good Sam Coupe games and demos

ewgf · May 2011

I've just found out that Sim Coupe (the Sam Coupe emulator, for those who can't see the bleeding obvious :p) has been ported to the PSP. Actually it was ported more than three years ago, but no one ever tells me anything :sad:

Anyway, I'm interested to see what the Sam Coupe is capable of, so what games should I try on it? And also what demos, so I can get an idea of how much more advanced it's hardware was, compared to the Spectrum?

And please post links, unless it's against the rules (are any Sam Coupe games still for sale/denied?).

Thanks for any answers.

Oh, if anyone wants the emulator, the PSP version is at:

http://zx81.zx81.free.fr/serendipity/index.php?/categories/10-SamCoupe

and of course versions for PC/Mac/Amiga/etc are available at:

http://www.simcoupe.org/download/

ewgf · May 2011

So nobody on here uses, or has used, a Sam Coupe? I'd have thought a couple of us would have been - from what I gathered the machine had a (very small, admittedly) band of followers. Surely at least one of them has migrated to WOS?

rich_chandler · May 2011

SimCoupe was written by a WoSSer...

zxbruno · May 2011

If you lookup Quazar's post history you'll see he has made posts about what's considered to be impressive. You can also check the world of Sam, but Quazar is the first user that comes to mind when I think Sam Coupe.

There's some stuff out there, but there aren't (in my opinion) any demos and games that blow you away. Some of us expected a Super Spectrum many years ago and were presented with a machine with nice graphics but hardware that was never fast enough to do something decent with them. If you're looking for good games and demos for an unexpanded Sam you won't find many.

zeropolis79 · May 2011

ewgf wrote: »

So nobody on here uses, or has used, a Sam Coupe? I'd have thought a couple of us would have been - from what I gathered the machine had a (very small, admittedly) band of followers. Surely at least one of them has migrated to WOS?

The Sam is one of the few UK machines I've never used. I've never even seen one in the flesh..

Strident · May 2011

I had a SAM. You can basically try any of the (small number) of games released and it'll give you a decent idea of what the machine was like. It's strength was mostly graphical, there wasn't the grunt under the hood to make the most of the other features. Still, I loved my little white wedge. Really regret parting with it.

obo · May 2011

For the games side I'd certainly try Lemmings, Prince of Persia, Manic Miner, Defender, and Batz n Balls. For demos, perhaps start with MNEMOdemo and MOD Player.

For Lemmings and Batz n Balls you'll need to enable the Mouse interface before loading, which is in the Input section of the SimCoupe options. For MOD Player, enable the Stereo DAC on printer port 1 in the Parallel section of the options, then select EDDAC on port 1 for playback in the program.

Also see World of SAM for general software and hardware details, and downloads (where approved). The NVG FTP site is a bit more raw, but contains many additional files, software, and documents. The FRED disk magazine has some gems too, so flick through a few random issues of that too.

nuggetreggae · June 2011

lyra 3 megademo. very nice.

Zagreb · June 2011

Definitely try the excellent SAM versions of Manic Miner and Splat.

Make sure you get the full version of Manic Miner, there seems to be a "demo" version out there as well that doesn't have all the levels.

Quazar · June 2011

Zagreb wrote: »

Definitely try the excellent SAM versions of Manic Miner and Splat.

Make sure you get the full version of Manic Miner, there seems to be a "demo" version out there as well that doesn't have all the levels.

The demo version was just that, a two level demo to show off what the game looked like.

The full version of SAM Manic Miner is available on the coverdisk with issue 9 of SAM Revival magazine (http://www.samcoupe.com/sr9.htm) with the permission of the SAM version's copyright holder David Ledbury, who was also the main designer of the game. He also wrote a series of six articles in SAM Revival issues 3 to 8 with information on all 60 levels and other anecdotes from the development of the SAM version.

Colin

Quazar · June 2011

ewgf wrote: »

(are any Sam Coupe games still for sale/denied?).

Yes, SAM Coupe games are still available to buy - my entire back catalogue of software, plus re-releases of old software and new stuff on the coverdisks with SAM Revival magazine.

I've also got permission to host more software from past authors for downloading straight onto the SAM via the Trinity Ethernet Interface, this service which will go live once a bit of final debugging work is done on the TCP/IP stack (a hand converted port of uIP which is being handled by a chap called Adrian Brown).

Colin

Tom Gale · June 2011

When the SAM came out and point and click adventures were the cutting edge. I was deeply jealous of friends who had Amigas and could play those those early Lucasarts games. I remember there were some screenshots (in YS, SU? When did I last use those acronyms?)of a P&C game for the SAM set in a spaceship. Does anyone know what this was called? I'd quite like to give it a go...

Steve(spt) · June 2011

Tom Gale wrote: »

... of a P&C game for the SAM set in a spaceship. Does anyone know what this was called? I'd quite like to give it a go...

There is large amout of cp/m games out there, SAM can run its own version of cp/m 2.2 called Pro-DOS - written by Chris Pile. The are a number of adventure games that will run on SAM with Pro-DOS, which inclue the Infocom games, Zork I..III, Adventure Workshop's Games, River Software's Adventures to name a few. Also HiSoft Programming languages and Tools, PAWS.

all will work with the Atom lite mass storage CF cards.

Dr BEEP · June 2011

I must say that the SAM has some wonderfull emulators for the machine itself, written by Edwin Blink (Blaze) and me (SAM81 and SAM2ZX81).
There are more (1x 6502 machine), but not mentioned there.

Not only emulators, but also some software from our late friend Wolfgang Haller there.

Retrobrothers · June 2011

I made a page dedicated to the SAM if you're interested:

http://hubpages.com/hub/SAM-Coupe

I've never actually used on of these for real, but SIM Coupe is great.

For an 8-bit machine it is very impressive.

LCD · June 2011

Tom Gale wrote: »

I remember there were some screenshots (in YS, SU? When did I last use those acronyms?)of a P&C game for the SAM set in a spaceship. Does anyone know what this was called? I'd quite like to give it a go...

"Sandman's shadow" It was never finished.

DavidB · May 2012

Steve(spt) wrote: »

There is large amout of cp/m games out there, SAM can run its own version of cp/m 2.2 called Pro-DOS - written by Chris Pile. The are a number of adventure games that will run on SAM with Pro-DOS, which inclue the Infocom games, Zork I..III, Adventure Workshop's Games, River Software's Adventures to name a few. Also HiSoft Programming languages and Tools, PAWS.

all will work with the Atom lite mass storage CF cards.

I used to have a copy of Hitchikers Guide To The Galaxy running on mine under ProDos as well :)

DavidB · May 2012

Quazar wrote: »

The demo version was just that, a two level demo to show off what the game looked like.

The full version of SAM Manic Miner is available on the coverdisk with issue 9 of SAM Revival magazine (http://www.samcoupe.com/sr9.htm) with the permission of the SAM version's copyright holder David Ledbury, who was also the main designer of the game. He also wrote a series of six articles in SAM Revival issues 3 to 8 with information on all 60 levels and other anecdotes from the development of the SAM version.

Colin

And the magazine's worth reading even without that anyway! :)

Good Sam Coupe games and demos

Comments