Sam Paper 12

SAM paper is already a year old!  I think that by this time our magazine has already made its home in your diskette boxes.  The beginnings were certainly difficult, you yourself remember the first editions - today you can say that they were published "with courage...", but now there is no such thing.

When we were thinking about whether there would be enough programs to fill the disk. Now we are thinking about whether the disk will be enough to fit all the programs that are worth showing to you. SAM paper entered the market just at the moment when a large number of people gathered who bought SAM and did not know what to do next.

Someone must have connected them, showed them what their computer was capable of, and finally provided them with a bunch of information they would never have received from any other source.  Yes, "SAM paper" is definitely number 1 in Poland.

So many memories, waste of disk space. Now the proper "editorial".  I have recently become a user of the EARN network. If someone wants to contact me via it, they should use this address: <redacted>

This is the fastest and most reliable way to contact mn. If you're lucky, maybe we'll even talk face-to-face (actually, we won't talk a "key" because you can't send voice, only messages, lists or files).

You often ask whether 'PCX converter' can convert images from AMIGA? The answer is indirectly yes.  You can record images on Amiga and convert them on SAM directly from IBM.  You can do it this way: first, you convert the image to the PCX format on the Amiga (or BMP, because the PCX converter also recognizes this format) and then you burn the images in the IBM format (use the Picture Converter and Availability programs for this purpose). 2-Dos).

So without inserting the disk into IBM, you have images from Amiga!  However, this is not the main task of the PCX converter. It was mainly written with IBM in mind and the huge wealth of images from a huge number of graphics programs on IBM - i.e. vector images, animations, images from the scanner in etc. etc. Are you asking why I chose the PCX format and not another one?  It's simple, every graphics program on IBM can support this format, and it is assumed to be very adapted to the environment graphic of SAM.  

Other questions concern the capabilities of the VL-1772-02 disk controller. You are asking what formats this chip supports.  It enables the service of sectors of 128, 256, 512 and 1024 bytes in the FM and MFM systems. This means that you can easily read disks from any computer that uses a 1Mb 3.5" drive.

If you are looking for detailed information, the technical documentation for SAM will be helpful, especially Appendix B - it describes literally everything you may need. In this issue you will find the long-promised article on compressors. If anyone is really interested in this topic and knows the C language, please let me know that I have the source code of the LZHuf archiver from IBM.  You can send a diskette to receive it.  There are tables of Huffman codes for 256 elements that make it worth having for that reason.

M.A.R.S.

Hurrrraaaaaaaa.!!!!!!! (My little brat is already a year old! He is the illegitimate child of me and my passion for the SAM Coupe computer. When I started creating "SAm Papera" a year ago (actually over a year, in September) I didn't expect that its name would become so popular. Of course, I dreamed of having my magazine reached every SAM aircraft in Poland, but this has not been achieved to this day.  However, looking back, I see that I have learned a lot. Even though editing in my book is still a chore, I feel that it is becoming more and more professional. “I still have problems with publishing SAM Paper on time, but at least I know what you like to read and what your magazine should look like.

But to the point. You have some interesting propositions in the advertising section.  I encourage you to buy them.  If anyone from Yours makes something that they would like to sell (of course in the field of SAM - I don't want pots), they could distribute it through our editorial office. Of course, for each promotion that involves earnings, we will charge fees, the amount of which will depend on the demand for a given product. If you think that your work is capable of conquering the world, we will try to make it possible for you. In a month, as usual, there will be a single issue of our magazine, but please enjoy this issue. See you on December 10th.