West Coast Computers

Submitted by Dan Dooré on Thu, 2006-04-06 21:12.

AKA:

West Coast

Title image:

Biography:

Stock from SAM Computers Ltd were bought by West Coast Computers in November 1992.

West Coast was essentailly run by Format Publications under Bob Brenchley.

They revamped the SAM Coupé into SAM élite where 512K memory became standard and an external printer connector was added.

West Coast was placed into liquidation in February 2005.

From Wikipedia

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512k

Submitted by ascii on Thu, 2006-04-06 21:47.

512k was already standard, from early in SamCo’s tenure (except possibly in the GameStar model)

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Availability of Sam games

Submitted by samsneed4speed on Fri, 2006-04-07 10:35.

I know the Sam and its software’s getting on a bit now, and the fact there is virtualy no software for it is one thing, (okay, maybe I’m being too harsh) but the fact that the few bits and pieces that are out there are totaly unavailable is something else. I think its realy silly that you can READ about all the different (although very few) Sam games to your hearts content, but cant actualy get hold of them somehow, surely someone out there could have the rights to copy and distribute the games….with the profits going to the programmers surely??? otherwise, whats the point in having a Sam in the first place????? How is anyone suppose to appreciate the Sam if they cant see the games? Very few know about the Sam and the ones that do have only seen Defenders of the Earth & Famous Five on there….dosent realy look good for the Sam does it????
It took me years of patience and hunting to get 25 of the finest Sam games together, now I need another 5 and I’ll have every single (decent) Sam game! Its a bit sad that it’s been such a quest to get hold of them!

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Re: Availability of Sam games

Submitted by ascii on Fri, 2006-04-07 12:34.

Well…

First, I think it’s a bit harsh to say 30 games is “every single (decent) Sam game” - depends what you mean by decent of course, but there’s already more than 30 commercial games on this site and there’s still a lot of software yet to catalogue.

Secondly, one of the problems with re-releasing old software is that it really is difficult to establish who owns what. Commercial companies like Enigma Variations have either ceased to exist, or been bought up by multinationals who would have no interest in licensing back their Sam properties.

Even if we assume that software copyright has reverted to the original author, those owners can be difficult to locate since most of them are not still active in the Sam community. As I gave said before, I do intend to start asking nicely for distribution permissions, but for the moment I have to ask you to be patient because it isn’t going to happen overnight.

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PS

Submitted by ascii on Fri, 2006-04-07 12:36.

PS. In future, please can you try to attach comments to an appropriate page, or create an Item page instead. This discussion really has nothing to do with West Coast Computers.

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