Paper based magazine for ZX Spectrum, SAM Coupé and Search: “Sinclair QL” users.
Started in April 1991 from the closure of Daniel Garner's previous publication "+3 Contact" for the ZX Spectrum +3 User Group.
Had a companion software tape/disk, a sister publication called Search: “Games Xtra” and a software PD house detailed in Sinclair and Sam Computing 1.
From Colin Macdonald's interview on Fred 10
CM - Why did you start up Sinclair and SAM Computing?
DG - We've been running the +3 user group since July '89 and
there's been a substantial growth in that but after Amstrad
killed off the +3 there was a decrease in the number of new
members we were getting and a slight decrease in the number
of re-subscriptions from existing members. We decided to
broaden the horizons we were aiming at so we expanded the
magazine substantially so we could aim at ALL Spectrum
users,SAM users and QL users and after four or five months
of planning, S&SC was the result.
CM - Are you going to try and keep it equal between all the
computers or tend towards or away from certain machines?
DG - Well, that really depends - the Spectrum is experiencing a
downgrowth at the moment , everything's going down -
Spectrum sales and everything. Whether that will recuperate
in any way, whether that's a sign of the financial whatever
but because there's so many Spectrum users then there's
always going to be a Spectrum content for 2 years maybe.
But the SAM at the moment is going up at a great rate so
the SAM content will grow as the machine grows and the QL
will have 3/4 pages for the first 4 issues with later maybe
a page each issue. The QL won't be a major part of the
magazine though.
CM - What articles do you plan on including that you haven't in
this first issue?
DG - Basically everything apart from games! Games free zone,
there will be no games in the magazine at all really. There
is a few mentions of games in the first issue but apart
from that there won't be any in future issues. There will
be serious articles, programming articles, tutorials, that
sort of thing , serious software reviews. For the games
we've got another magazine which the first issue is in the
later stages of planning - should go into print next week
actually and it's called Games Xtra. It's for games users
on the Spectrum and SAM coupe. It should start off with
about 30 pages mainly of games reviews. We were hoping to
get it out by the 6th of April but we know know that won't
be achieved we're just too busy at the moment but it will
be the week after that though - definitely.
CM - Both the magazines will be monthly?
DG - Yes, both will be monthly. S&SC will be the end of each
month and Games Xtra will be betwenn the beginning and
middle of each month.