World Of Sam - 16bit power at an 8bit price

wubtris v1

Thu, 29 Jul 2010 23:01:00 +0100

Title image:

Publisher:

wubsoft

Author:

the_wub

Release Year:
2005-

Description:

wubtris is a simple Tetris clone for the Sam Coupe for 1 or 2 players.

To complete the 1 player mode score 100 lines or more on all 10 speed settings with the handicap level maxed out. These challenges can also be completed in the 2 player mode by either player so “1 player mode” is something of a misnomer!

For 2 players, this version of wubtris features the slightly pointless head to head game and the slightly better battle mode. In the head to head game the loser in each round is the player who, er, loses first! The number of lines scored means nothing and so this game mode is a bit crap really. In the battle mode scoring multiple lines pushes up your opponents play area by that amount of lines-1. The lines do not get added to the game area until the victims current piece is dropped and any further lines that are scored against the player in the meantime are added to the total.

Both game modes can be played as a best of or first to 3, 5 or 7 games.

Instructions:

Player 1 can use the joystick or keys 6,7,8,9 and 0.
Player 2 uses keys Q,A,Z,X and space.

The controls cannot be re-defined in version 1 of wubtris.

Megademo

Mon, 26 Jul 2010 20:55:01 +0100

Invasion II

Fri, 23 Jul 2010 08:37:02 +0100

Title image:

Publisher:

Quazar

Author:

Warren Lee

Artist:

Warren Lee

Musician:

Warren Lee

Release Year:
2001-2004

Description:

Published on cover disk of issue 10 of Sam Revival.

“Although originally written in 1996, Invasion II was never released until now. Invasion II is a platform adventure game where you have to battle against the invading aliens. Warren has paid particular attention to detail with all the animation and scenery, as well as a fully animated introduction.” (From the description for issue 10 of Sam Revival)

Reviews:

More like mini-reviews/mentions.
The ‘Your Sinclair’ insert of issue 9 of Retro Gamer:
“Issue 10’s cover disk contains the full game Invasion II, originally written in 1996 but never released. The game itself is a platform-action-adventure-sci-fi-(snip! Ed) romp in which you have to blast the hell outta the oncoming foe.”
Screenshot caption: “With quality games like this, makes you wonder why the Sam never took off”

Number 10 in the “Top Ten Games” article on the SAM Coupe, in issue 74 of Retro Gamer:
“The original Invasion was a simple shoot-‘em-up written in GamesMaster that appeared on FRED (issue 58). Several years later, author Warren Lee fired up GamesMaster again and produced this top-quality sequel, which is a platformer rather than a shooter. Clearly inspired by games like Impossible Mission and Flashback, you have to infiltrate an enemy base while trying to keep your head (which seems to get removed from your shoulders all too often). The graphics are small but detailed, and the quality of animation is generally excellent. If you fancy your chances against the alien threat, the game was featured exclusively on the coverdisk of SAM Revival issue 10.”

GI_MON

Mon, 19 Jul 2010 21:44:30 +0100

Publisher:

Fred Publishing

Author:

Paul Horridge

Release Year:
1994

Description:

Debugger published on Fred 47.

The only reason I’ve added this node separately is to be able to view the instructions online.

And now that I’ve finished typing it up, realized there is a debugger in Sim Coupe…

Instructions:

Well, I’ve just finished another proggy and now its time for my favourite bit, the instructions. Oh goody. Ah well, here goes…

GI_Mon is a monitor program designed to help you track down bugs in machine code programs (so if you’re one of the lucky people who don’t know about the insomnia and 3am bedtimes that is MC programming, you might as well exit to the FRED menu now and play a game or something). It allows you to disassemble and single-step through an MC program to find out what it does to the registers, flags, memory, etc.

The program will run at the start of any memory page above address 32767. To use the program simply load it in at the desired address (the program is on the disk under the filename “GI_Mon .O”) and CALL it. When the program is run, it reserves 2 pages in the Page Allocation Table and another 2 pages immediately above it (skipping a page if the program is loaded at an odd-numbered page) for the monitor screen. This means that the program won’t be corrupted by DOS commands or a RAMdisk. The program should run on a SAM with only 256K of RAM, but there’s no check to find out how much memory you have, and I’m not sure what will happen if you try to view/singlestep memory that you don’t have!

The program features a simple WIMP system which most people should be reasonably familiar with by now, so I’m not going to go into any great detail here. To move the pointer around the screen, use the joystick keys 6789, and to click something press 0. If you have a mouse it can be selected instead (see later). You can move a window around the desktop by clicking the title bar and dragging the outline to the required position before releasing the button. To close down a window or menu , just click anywhere outside it. Note that you can only have one open window/menu at a time.

Fred 47

Mon, 19 Jul 2010 21:44:12 +0100

Title Image:

Description:

Issue 47

Item	Author	Description
Menu	Brian McConnell
Magazine
Letters
Screens
GI_Mon	Paul Horridge	M/C debugger
Cheats	Paul Crompton	for Kreuzen, Triltex, Lemmings, Exodus
Mork	William McGugan	various utilities
#50 demo	David Simmonds	M/C demo
The Net		humor from the Internet
E-Tunes	Lee Willis Doug Murdoch
Mods
Easy Calc	R.J. Bister	spread sheet
Beeble	Allan Clarkson	basic puzzle game
Bits ‘n Bobs

Jam Assembler

Mon, 19 Jul 2010 20:15:06 +0100

Title image:

Publisher:

David Brant

Author:

David Brant

Release Year:
2005-

Description:

New cross assembler for SAM Coupé with IDE. Runs on any computer that will run Java.

Labels of any length

Macros

Conditional Assembly

C style structures

All Z-80 commands including most undocumented commands

New Version 1.12 is now available at:

http://www.stoneddesign.co.uk/samcoupe/jamass.html

HELP bmp2scre retroX convert avi pc video

Wed, 14 Jul 2010 18:41:01 +0100

Story:

please help these links are to 2mb files - yes that is all the limavady library staff will deem it fit to be uplaoded in one go so it has taken me ten years to put this ont he internet heartfelt thanks to everyone
retro x says it is converting the video
which was actually replayed using windows media player classic to replay at fullscreen resolution of 320x200 - though naturally still with frame rate and colour depth of 16bit untru colour
then recaptured using debut screen cast desktop video capture softwaer - its easier than connecting the tv output back into the tv encoder on the vga - which bluscreens xp - or feeding it into the s-video or composite on the pci digital tv tuner - though the s-video was balck and white using the driver on the cd - the one that has no digital text features or analog teletext subtitles - but hten neither does magioc pro analog tv tuner or prolink pixel view bt878 p+ w/fm - which i think has a firewiare connector on it but luckily the manufacturer wont give me the pinouts!

any how i digress as per…
so here they are nock your selves out
think retro x fixes the screen size at 6912 bytes which sure as heck isnt sams 24576 - and certainly isnt interlaced which would be double this is that right? and youd need even more data for line interrupt palette changes and and other palette changes occuring along each horzontal line would interfere with the processors ability to trasnfer 24kb in over 300tstates using pop and push - youd definitely need the 1mb untilt heres a dma that might be compaitble with either of the two accelerators currently in development - though naturally neither mmanufacturer can communicate with the other using email:
“sprinter2000” , velesoft 14mhz mebbe and 128k ram compatible or pentagon/atm turbo? so far no videos

Warren Lee

Wed, 30 Jun 2010 15:31:01 +0100

Title image:

Biography:

Graphical Artist & Programmer.

I have had three games published for the SAM, all written with the brilliant GamesMaster program, and with graphics created in the equally impressive SAM paint.

The 1st was ‘Invasion’, back on FRED 58. This was a straight forward sideways scrolling space shoot-em-up, with three levels.

2nd was Sniper Fire, published on FRED 75. I basically wanted to do a fun game that utilized the mouse, for something other than dragging and dropping.

3rd and most importantly, ‘Invasion II’, written as a platform sequel to ‘Invasion’. This was published far more recently, on Issue 10 of SAM Revival. I also recently discovered, much to my joy, that it was quite favourably mentioned with a couple of screen-shots (albeit briefly) in issue 9 of Retro Gamer magazine, in an article about SAM revival. (Many thanks to Colin Piggot for publishing it.) More recently, it was also mentioned as one of the top 10 SAM games in issue 74 (Feb 2010) of Retro Gamer.

So a bit about me… I started way back with a 48k ZX Spectrum, and progressed to a 128k+2, no doubt similarly to most people here. I progressed to a SAM Coupé, and to this day, it remains my favourite computer of all time. Nothing could compare to the friendly nature of the coupe, and the ease with which I learnt with it.

Interviews:

See Issue 10 of SAM Revival.

Where are they now?:

Now, I design and program educational software, primarily in Flash & occasionally Director. Please feel free to get in touch!

vl1772

Tue, 29 Jun 2010 14:00:42 +0100

0% (0 votes)

50mb atom lite serial directory track partition giving access to further 50mb record chunks

0% (0 votes)

msdos

0% (0 votes)

linux

0% (0 votes)

vdp9990

0% (0 votes)

r800

67% (2 votes)

dma

0% (0 votes)

pic microcontroller

0% (0 votes)

128k emulator using 1mb external ram

0% (0 votes)

choice 11 wow that is a lot

0% (0 votes)

retrox modified to save an atom lite hdf file with compressed masterbasic screens

0% (0 votes)

5 frames +simcoop accelerate cheat

0% (0 votes)

gives us 5 frames to load two frames for interlaced video

0% (0 votes)

anyone use line interrupt for more colours onscreen especially in interlaced?

33% (1 vote)

hmpr two bits available for mode 3 16 colours anyone figure how to use them?

0% (0 votes)

edwin says hardware scrolling

0% (0 votes)

keyboard membrane please anyone help!

0% (0 votes)

19 choices and the ol need more choices tick box is still there these things are as tempting

0% (0 votes)

as cutting and pasting a 10mb jpg into notepad and then stuffing it in a text box input o f apc hardware manufacturer whose har

0% (0 votes)

Total votes: 3

Playing 128k Spectrum (AY-3-8912) music on SAM (SAA1099)

Sun, 09 May 2010 13:52:54 +0100

Discussion:

From Dan Dooré

Cookies Hot Butter demo used 128K music - source is here: http://home.earthlink.net/~simoncooke/samcoupe/infobase/source/htbtter.txt and there’s a section called “Convert 128k Spectrum (AY-3-8912) music to SAM (SAA1099)” but given the only thing I know about Z80 is how to spell it I couldn’t say much more

From Stefan Drissen

The Cookie AY player is one routine that usually resides in the lower 16k bank. The largest chuck is a lookup table for converting AY frequencies to SAA frequencies (attached).

This routine or modifications (I disassembled it) has been used in all Speccy 128k demo conversions on the SAM.

ORG 0
DUMP 3,$

LD C,255 ;soundchip on
LD B,1
LD A,onoff
OUT (C),A
DEC B
LD A,1
OUT (C),A

DEFS $/256+1*256-$

;the outputs to the AY-3-8912’s registers are intercepted and
;are used as memory mapped i/o

memoryio:

ayfine1: DEFB 0
aycoarse1: DEFB 0
ayfine2: DEFB 0
aycoarse2: DEFB 0
ayfine3: DEFB 0
aycoarse3: DEFB 0
aynoisepitch: DEFB 0
aymixer: DEFB 0
ayvol1: DEFB 0
ayvol2: DEFB 0
ayvol3: DEFB 0
ayenvlength:
ayenvlen: DEFB 0
ayenvlen2: DEFB 0
ayenvshape: DEFB 0

saaouts:
DEFB tone2
saatone2: DEFB 0
DEFB amp2
saaamp2: DEFB 0
DEFB tone3
saatone3: DEFB 0
DEFB amp3
saaamp3: DEFB 0
DEFB oct32
saaoct32: DEFB 0
DEFB tone5
saatone5: DEFB 0
DEFB amp5
saaamp5: DEFB 0
DEFB oct54
saaoct54: DEFB 0
DEFB noisefreq
saanoisefreq: DEFB 0
DEFB freqen
saafreqen: DEFB 0
DEFB noiseen
saanoiseen: DEFB 0
DEFB onoff
DEFB 1

Dan Dooré

Sat, 08 May 2010 23:21:31 +0100

AKA:

Banzai

Title image:

Biography:

I started programming back in 1984 when I got a ZX Spectrum 48K which I had the pleasure of until 1989 when I decided to purchase a Sam. It was a sad day when I had to sell my Speccy for UKP80 to an unsuspecting punter just so that I could afford the UKP200 for the Sam.

Still, 80 smackers for a worn out Speccy - not bad going;-)

I never got into Z80 Machine Code when I had my Speccy so I kept with BASIC and this stayed with me when I got my Sam since Sam Basic allowed me to do everything I’d dreamt about doing on the Speccy e.g. sprites and sound.

When I first got my Sam I hadn’t the money for a disc drive so I didn’t do much with it except use it to play my old speccy games and do a teeny bit of BASIC programming, but as soon as I go my disc drive (along with the most unstable DOS in the known universe) I got into programming a bit more

I wrote a couple of programs (Fruit Machine & Hypno 2) and sent them on a disc to a PD Disczine called Fred run by Colin MacDonald and to my eternal surprise they were included in Fred 9 and Fred 10.

After another few things were sent to Fred I decided to give myself a name (so to speak) since it is pretty traditional. I decided to write under the banner of Banzai Productions since I had just written a couple of Banzai Demos and the name seemed to stick.

Where are they now?:

Still an ‘Advanced Network Monkey’ but now looking after different shiznit.

Occasionally vocal, if that is the right term, on the Sam Users Mailing List as well as tinkering with Sim Coupe, all where I can and where the munchkins allow.

Facebook and MSN as email address below - give us a shout.

Palette

Sat, 08 May 2010 10:04:17 +0100

Title Image:

Description:

The Coupé’s palette is 128 colours of which 16 can be chosen (MODE1,2&4) or 4 in MODE3 - see Screen Modes.

The palette can be altered on a per-line basis using the line interrupts in MODEs 2-4 to give multiple colours on screen or to produce effects in the border, see Fred 41 menu for a good example.

Originally the machine was to have 64 colours due to a shortage of pins on the ASIC, see Hardware Bugs and Limitations but intervention by Bo Jangeborg whilst writing Flash! upped it to 128:

“I convinced them to do away with the hardware flash in the high colour modes. That allowed for a significantly larger pallet. I think it went from 64 to 128 colours. That also allowed me to transfer some pictures from the Atari without too big a degradation.”

What Social Network sites can I find SAM People on?

Sat, 01 May 2010 23:11:07 +0100

Story:

Facebook

You can join the Sam Users group on FaceBook.

Twitter

You can follow:

Quazar and Colin Piggot - Quazar

Banzai - Games Collection

Sat, 01 May 2010 22:47:14 +0100

Title Image:

Description:

Title	Description
Fruit Machine	Simple fruit machine game (my first with sprites!)
Laser Dodge	One player guide-the-line game, ripped off from Format :-)
Yahtzee	Mouse/keyboard classic dice game
Drac Attack	Parabolic bomb lobbing game, not unlike QBASIC Gorillas
Worms World	Worm game with added features
Dead Ducks	Vicious blood sport game
Dan’s Diamonds	Tetris-like puzzle game
Solitaire	Mouse/keyboard classic peg game
Simon	The old MB memory game made virtual
Annoyance	Mouse/keyboard memory game based on the Atari ST game Where is it?
Spec Tiles	Mouse/keyboard memory game (do you see a pattern forming here…)

SAM COUPE and software for ZX Spectrum 128

Fri, 30 Apr 2010 17:45:08 +0100

Story:

Yet is possible easy convert ZX128 software for SAM COUPE with 1MB external memory.

http://www.worldofspectrum.org/forums/showthread.php?t=29437