Adrian Brown wrote: > Lets run a little poll. Can people fill in the following and reply > > 1) Do you have an actual Sam Coupe:
Yes, three in fact. > 2) Does it work? One of them died some time ago, in an unfortunate incident involving a 27V power supply line. It's sat in my parent's loft at the moment, and every so often it gets a spare part or two swapped out of it. I doubt very much in it works any more. The other two (one of which was Allan Skillman's) are fine, except for my disk drive which seems to have worn out (it sounds like the drive band is slipping, and the drive never quite gets up to speed. If I hold the entire machine vertically, it occasionally manages to load something). The other machine's drive seems fine, but it doesn't want to read any of my disks, even the ones which the other Sam did manage to load (quite happy with ones it formatted itself though). > 3) Do you still use it? Unfortunately I don't really have a lot of spare time, so I haven't used my Sam very much at all in the last couple of years. I ought to take a look at that disk drive though, I want to archive all my Sam disks before they get unreadable by anything else. > 4) How many bits of sam software have you got? Most of them :) > 5) Do you still actively seek new sam bits and pieces? Not so much. > 6) Would you buy a new game for the sam coupe if the price was right? I'm not sure. > 7) What price would be right if you would? Well, these days, a new game is cheap if it costs less than thirty quid... Then again, I don't think a Sam game would be in the same league as what new PC and Mac titles are doing. > 8) Would you develop a title for the sam still? There is a program which I've started, and would like to finish. Some components of it are already prepared. But there is a different project that I'm working on outside work hours, which is sucking all my spare time at the moment and, to be honest, will be seen and (hopefully) enjoyed by a lot more people. Maybe when I've finished that I'll go back to my Sam project and finish it. But I doubt I'll start another one after that. There are too many different things I'd like to do and I don't have time to start them all. > 9) Would you help develop a title for the sam? Is that a leading question? :) I'd be happy to support someone by giving hints and tips, answering questions on this list and such. I don't think I could commit to writing code toward a project. > 10) Do you think that all the work put in to keep the sam alive is a > waste of time? No, I think it's great that people remember the Sam, and although (for me) there are other projects which now take a higher priority, I wish I had more time myself so that I could put into ways to keep the concept of the Sam alive. I think I will always remember it as being the machine which really got me interested (and trained) in programming, and in some ways has had quite a direct effect on the direction my career has taken since. Andrew -- --- Andrew Collier ---- ---- http://www.intensity.org.uk/ --- -- r<2+ T<4* cSEL dMS hEn/CB<BL A4 S+*<++ C$++L/mP W- a-- Vh+seT+ (Cantab) 1.1.4
