In the last quarter of 1989 M.G.T. launched the SAM Coupé. M.G.T. was already known in the ZX Spectrum world for a range of hardware that they sold. The SAM was their pride and joy, and unfortunately to be their downfall. This was a time when the 16-bit machines, the Atari ST and the Amiga, were really being to take off. Sales in computers such as the Spectrum was in rapid decline. The SAM was aimed to fill this gap, a powerful 8-bit machine with specs that in cases out performed those of the 16-bit machines, at an 8-bit price. It was hoped that current 8-bit owners, particularly Spectrum owners, would jump on the nicely priced Sam rather than a more expensive 16-bit machine.

Software companies, such as US Gold, threw around comments like the now infamous "Strider in 2 weeks" quote - "If, as with Strider, we have already produced a games across all common formats, all we have to do is simply take the code from the Spectrum version and the graphics from the ST and sort of mix them together. This should take one bloke around two weeks at most." - needless to say, Strider never appeared.

Unfortunately the Sam arrived too late. Some initial problems, and lack of software meant that the interest just never took off. Some commercial games were initially converted, but the poor sales was enough to put most companies off. The bulk of Sam's software catalogue comes from small companies, set up specifically to support the SAM. Although these managed to gain some impressive licenses, such as Prince of Persia and Lemmings, it just was not enough.

M.G.T. went bankrupt, Alan Miles and Bruce Gordon set up a new company "SAMCo" to continue producing SAMs. Some magazines started giving the Sam negative press. SAMCo struggled on for 2 years, and just as things were starting to look hopeful, they too went in liquidation. Westcoast appeared as a Saviour, with grand plans, but then after a couple of mail shots went quiet.

Through all this, a small dedicated user base stuck with the SAM, producing and selling new software and hardware. Only recently have things started to go really quiet. Ten years is a lot longer than some people predicted.

Programs may be up to 217K long on a standard 256K Coupe. Line numbers up to 61439 are allowed, with each line containing up to 127 statements. Strings and arrays can have names up to 10 characters long. The names of user-defined functions and numeric variables can have up to 32 characters. Strings can be up to 64K long; arrays can fill all available memory. SAM Basic is fully structured and includes procedures with local variables and parameter-passing by value and reference. Long and short IF and ELSE are implemented, as are DO, LOOP, REPEAT, UNTIL, a CASE equivalent, ON, ON ERROR and GO TO label.

Graphics are well catered for, with very fast DRAW, CIRCLE, PLOT and pattern FILL. RECORD and BLITZ allow complex graphics sequences to he stored and replayed at high speed. Any part of the screen can be moved in any direction with ROLL and SCROLL, and sections can be GRABbed and PUT back elsewhere. PALETTE allows instant changes to the screen colours; all 128 colours can be displayed at once. The displayed screen can be instantly switched for another. The character set includes block graphics and a wide range of foreign characters. Character size can be altered to give 32, 64, or 85 columns. Double height characters can also be used. Text and graphics screen copies can be made to a suitable printer in a variety of sizes.

Sound commands include BEEP, SOUND, and a range of pre-programmed sound effects. There are 56 built-in functions, which provide a full range of mathematical and string-handling functions as well as mouse and light-pen handling, string searching. hex and binary conversion, and other features.

The tape system can handle program, data, binary and screen files at a wide range of speeds. The keyboard can be completely re-programmed; predefined strings can be generated by any key. Programs can be automatically indented to reflect structure and renumbered.