Alan Miles

Interview by David Ledbury in July 1991 taken from ZAT Issue 9 and Issue 10.

Can you give us some brief information about your background?

I started life as an English Language teacher, writing school course books, training teachers. 1 wrote the series of course books that were used for many years in the Gulf in English Language teaching, and by 1982, after a brief excursion into radio, I ran the Abu Dabi Radio Station for a while, and was involved in TV News, and that sort of thing.

After a brief excursion of that, I came back into this country in ‘82, having spent 10 years in the Arab World, missed the computer revolution here, but was interested in it because of my linguistic background. (I was a trained linguist.) I saw words like "Word Processor" and "Database" and 'Spreadsheet", and thought "What the hell are people doing to my language? Murdering it like this with these words, and I don’t understand what it’s about!". So I started picking up computer publications, simply because I was interested in the language that was used.

Then, what I was doing, was working with MacMillan the book publishers, and again I was working in Saudi Arabia. We had the English language course for the country out there. This is a pretty bad course, and we were going to loose the contract, but MacMillan and Sinclair at that time were working on a joint Educational Software publishing venture, and while I was sitting around, waiting for a signature, which can sometimes happen in Ryad, for about five or six weeks, I decided to go and see the Sinclair agent in Jedda, just to see what it was about, and whether anything could be added, and one thing led to another and before I knew it, Sinclair were saying to me, "Would you like to join us as our Middle East Manager, as we are just setting up an Export Department". This was ‘84, but I said 'I don’t know the first thing about computers!". So they said 'That’s okay, that’s the way we prefer it!".

So I worked for Sinclair for two years, and at the end of that time, I still knew nothing about computers, but I knew a lot about the Middle East. What I knew was required, in places like India and Pakistan, was a computer that could be built by people in that country, for that country. There is a pressing requirement for that in education, and no British company had provided it with, at that time in '86, machines falling off the shelf here. So what I wanted to do, and I made it known that I wanted to do it, was to build a computer, that would be very simple to build, very easy to build, reliable, would therefore have the lowest possible chip count, would be compatible with a range of software that already existed, so I wouldn't need to build up software, and preferably be Spectrum compatible and that’s how SAM Computers was born.

When Sinclair collapsed, I was introduced to Bruce Gordon by a mutual friend. The mutual friend said, "I believe you are looking for this sort of computer, here’s someone I think who could build it for you". We met, and we started from day one, in April '86, working towards the SAM Coupé computer.

When was Miles Gordon Technology first founded, and where were you first located?

Well originally, we set up with this third person, it was in Cambridge. The third person lasted about six weeks, I would say, before it was clearly not going to work for him. I said to Bruce, "I don't think this is going to work out", and he said "Well, I think we could work together", and I said "Well, okay".

So, by around July ‘86, Miles Gordon Technology partnership, was founded, again working in Cambridge, out of my garage in Cambridge! We’d had, in the first weeks very plush offices that the third party had arranged, but we'd thought "This is silly!", that we shouldn’t be starting in this way, if we were very small. So we were working literally in the garage, and we continued to stay there until September, when it got too cold and we found some offices that we could use to help us with the DISCiPLE, our first product which was there simply to test the principles of what was to become the SAM Coupé, the computer we wanted. We wanted to do something to test the disk drive, the printer, the network, the joystick operations for the computer we would later build, and that was the DISCiPLE.

Who thought of naming the computer "SAM Coupé”, and where did the robot come from?

It started with SAM. The machine was well underway by 1987, we didn’t have the funds to build the computer at that time, but the press had picked up on it and people started getting excited about it. We went to see one of the major high-street retailers, I think it must have been early ’88 possibly late '87, and we didn’t have a name for it, and the person we went with to the multiple retailers said "Well, what are you going to call it?’. We said that we didn't know, so he said “Why don’t you call it SAM?', and we said "Why?’. He said "well, it’s Some Amazing Micro!", and I think also his son was named Sam as well! So, SAM was there and when the magazines picked up on the story, they called the thing SAM, because people kept saying to us, "What’s it called?', we said "SAM".

Now the problem was, as we came close to production, we realised that we couldn’t call it SAM, because there were so many other products that were possibly competing, that were also called SAM. So, we needed another name.

We had got the design done by early '89 of the actual externals, and it was this funny looking thing with things that looked like wheels, (In fact at one stage we even thought about putting wheels on instead of feet!) and just the day that we’d seen it, we'd been sitting in a Pizza Hut with our Financial Director who had a voracious appetite, who was eating this huge ice-cream "COUPÉ", and we said, "That’s it! It’s the Coupé! Of course, it’s a car". So what were we going to do with the SAM name?

That was solved when later in the year, Mel Croucher did the manual, he said that "I want to incorporate a cartoon character, in the manual, to make it nice and easy to use". So we said ‘That’s it, he's SAM'.

We’ve always thought of SAM, as being the character that shows we are an anti-technology, technology company. We want to be a company that breaks down the barriers, which means that in the future, people like me in 1982 coming into the industry aren’t terrified by the technology, because SAM has opened it up for them.

When did the concept of Team SAM come into existence?

When MGT collapsed, we realised that we couldn’t do everything alone in the summer of ’90. We’d tried to do everything by ourselves, we’d grown our company enormously large and it was the wrong decision to make. So we said, "Look, we can’t do it alone, but their seems to be good will out there".

There was a conversation between Enigma and ourselves, and Enigma had the done a little piece of software, and we said “How about establishing the concept of a number of different companies helping us in various ways, either with hardware or software (We hadn’t actually thought about magazines in the early days), but a community of developers, with a loosely knit affiliation".

So, Team SAM was founded at that time, but it’s only recently that we are beginning to put rules to it, and flesh it out and now trying to involve retailers as well. So it’s a six month old organisation.

What's your opinion of the press's coverage of SAM in general

I think we lived by the press, and died by it as well.

Back in 1990 last year, there were two press reports that treated us very severely indeed, and were actually the death-knell of MGT. Although there were things wrong with MGT, there were two particular reports; one saying we were going to recall all the machines, which wasn’t true, and the second saying that the MIDI wasn’t working, which was also not true.

This was just at the point, that we’d actually won awards for the best piece of hardware, from the industry, and we’d just taken on new distributors, and suddenly everything went STOP, because everyone had read the magazines, and they’d believed what’s in the magazines.

We were very, very badly effected by that, and two months later, we were dead as a result of it. We’ve been very reluctant to talk to some of the magazines since then, because we thought that it was that we were so high profile that people were actually looking for a story, and you can build people or a company up so far, and eventually someone tries to burst the bubble, and that's what happened.

So we’ve been reluctant to go out there and try to get much coverage, but it’s still the case that not enough people know that we are back in business. A good example of this, was in Micro Computer Mart, where on the one hand there was an article saying that were going to be here Search: “[All Formats Show” – DL] and that we always like going to shows. On the other hand there was an article saying that the SAM Coupé is a great machine, but I think they are dead, I don’t think there’s any more software. So what we have to do I think now, that we ourselves at SAM Computers, is get around and sit down with the magazines, and make sure that seen - they've bothered to look at - the stuff. We are sending them lots of stuff along, but I don’t think they're looking at it. We’ve got to do that with them, and we’ve got to involve other Team SAM people in bombarding the press, because if people don’t read about things in the press, we’ll remain nothing more than a cult machine.

Do you like participating at the All Formats Shows, and are there any other shows that you would like to attend?

I like the All Formats Show, because we’ve always been a "grass-roots" company by nature, ever since we started. We get our best ideas from users, by talking to people and getting feed-back and meeting with other people in the community, so we can see where to go next. It’s a way of monitoring what we do.

There is a down-side as well. It may be that we're actually beginning to look inwards too much, rather than outwards. We do tend to see at All Formats Shows, particularly at London with the number there have been recently, the same people over and over again. We love to see the people, but we may be spending too much of our time getting ready for All Formats Shows and being there, and not enough time getting out to the new people. We may actually give the next All Formats Show a miss. (May 14th) Partly because it's Cup Final day, partly also because we feel we’ve been over-exposed in London.

Now it may be right for us to go to one of the Computer Shopper Shows, where we get to a new audience out there. It may be a little expensive for us. We’ve just come back this week, from the European Computer Trade Show, and that’s the most important show that's in the year. That’s the show when we try to get together with the industry, it’s when we try and do the software deals, it's when we try and get new dealers in. The Computer Entertainment Show, could also be important for us, at the end of this year.

I should say also, I think that the All Formats Show is held too often in London, I think probably 4 times a year is enough. I would like to see something in Scotland.

Is there any specific things, that you personally would like to see for SAM in the future?

I think we're looking at a number of niche markets for SAM. We're not going to be all things to all people, but we may be very good at, for example, being a great music machine, but also being a good games playing machine.

Very personally. I’d like to see a contribution made to Education with the machine. It’s where I came in, and I feel that in Education, we've only scratched the surface of what can be done with computers. I very definitely would like that and may actually be eventually writing something myself in that domain. I’d like to see the equivalent of the Ladybird story-books for primary school readers, to be appearing on computers. There’s so much that we could do with it. So that is important.

I’ve had enormous fun with the MIDI recently. I've never been an electronic musician, although a musician of other sorts, and I think that could be a terrific product for us. Personally, I'm not a great games player, I’m not really into that, but I recognise that we need, in order to spread the word around, we have absolutely got to get major software houses writing for us. We’re already on the way to that, with the deals we’ve done with Ocean.

Do you read any computer or non-computer magazines?

Only when I have to! Which is all the time!

I have to be aware of what’s going on, in the press. Computer Trade Weekly, is very important to me. We like to keep up, as much as we ran, with the various SAM dedicated things I like very much, the design of the Garner Design’s magazine, 'Sinclair and SAM Computing'. Partly because, it’s refreshingly different, in that it not only appeals to people who are existing SAM users, but it also, I think, could appeal to people who are not SAM users. We’d like to see the word getting out to people that aren’t existing SAM users, and most of us are actually fairly inward looking. I think that one may look outwards, and I’d like to see the other magazines do that as well.

Other magazine, not regularly. I dip into things from time to time. I'm not a regular magazine reader.

Do you read any books, and which are your favourite titles?

I did a degree in English Literature, and that effectively killed off the world of literature for me!

What do I like reading these days? Do you know, this is really boring, but I actually get the biggest kick out of reading management books by Tom Peters. He’s my hero in management. He's the guy that says, "Put people first in your companies. Put your customers first, and everything else gets right". If I read anything, it’s him.

But I spend most of my evenings in the office until 10 or 11 o’clock these days, and one comes home absolutely shattered. It’s been a long time since I’ve read a good novel, although I claim to be a little bit of a novelist myself.

Which Radio or TV programs do you like?

I always try and listen to the morning news on Radio 4, to keep me up in touch into what’s going on, from a business point of view I have to do that.

I watch whatever sports I can, and not much else!

It’s a boring life you know, being involved in computers!

If you were not in your present job, what would you be doing instead?

I’d be on the South of France, in a boat somewhere!

If it was working, what I’d love to do. I love writing and if I was not involved in what I am doing, I would probably be writing something, somewhere, for someone! It would be very difficult to go and work for someone else, after having worked by myself, or with Bruce, for the last several years. We have a pretty good relationship, Bruce and I, because we’re so totally different in every respect, and we don’t get in each others way. It’s a relationship which has stood us in good stead for 5 years, and for a few more years it’ll probably okay for us to continue.

Do you have any favourite or least favourite games?

I actually like, very much, Football Director 2. I find it still, after a year almost, compelling. I’m pissed as hell that I can’t beat it, and get to the first division!

I saw something the over day, that I liked a lot. It’s a game called Igneous, which I think has got terrific potential and which we may well publish.

Least favourite. I’m not a big fan of shoot-’em-ups, I find them boring and repetitive. I’m probably too past the age where I’ve got great manipulative skills! I like thinking games, I like board games a lot.

Why did you choose Mel Croucher to write the manual?

Because he’s the best!

We wanted someone that would introduce a sense of humour and levity into the manual, to stop it from becoming a boring computer manual, and Mel was simply the best in the business. He’s got oceans of experience from way back, and he’s a good friend. I couldn’t have a better choice.

The only thing I feel sorry for, is that we had to finish writing the manual, before we finished the ROM. Therefore there are some inadequacies in the manual, and they need to be attended to soon. Mel is talking to us now about rewriting.

What do you think of the role of fanzines, like ZAT and others, in promoting the SAM?

I think they are very important indeed, for existing custom; users of the machine. Particularly the time when there was a dearth of software to get going, but even if there isn’t a dearth of software, I think there’s always going to be specialised needs and specialised interests. I think you only have to look at the football world to see how important fanzines are. They’re often better than the official programmes.

I think it’s important that fanzines should be able to be objective, be critical, were they ran I think it’s important at the moment that we’re holding together from the centre, as we discussed this morning (as in first Team SAM meeting) that, we’re all seen to be incredibly supportive of SAM, if we all want to get SAM through, but there's no reason why people shouldn’t be objective, shouldn’t be critical, through the fanzines. I think they’ve got a long term role to play.

I wonder perhaps, if whether there are too many and if that may confuse users. They may be seeing the same material in one that they are seeing in others. That's a little bit worrying. But they've certainly got a long term role to play, and it's a different role from the bookshelf magazines. Your role, is talking to the converted, talking to the existing customers, making sure that they’re up and going. The bookstand one's, is really talking to new customers, to trying to attract them in from the outside. Both are important.

What do you think is the potential, of using the SAM for disabled people?

It’s not one that we’ve spent a lot of time and attention with. It was interesting that when we went to the Educational Training and Technology Show, last January, that a lot of people said, "Oh look! How clever you are, designing the keyboard like that, so that disabled children can actually rest their hands on it."

We said that "Actually, we weren’t actually thinking that at all! We just wanted to make sure that you wouldn’t foul the keyboard when you put the disk inside with the front loading."

I think the machine would lend itself quite well to that, we’d obviously need to work software together, but we do see the machine as being one which is accessible and easy to people of relatively low abilities, whether they're possibly mentally handicapped or physically handicapped people, or to young children. I’d love to see some work being done on it. One of the problems is that we have to concentrate now, on the mainstream, and we have to do that because, in order for it to become more than a "cult" machine, we've got to be out there, talking to the big shops, big software houses, and so on. But were anyone to be involved in special education, we would do our utmost to promote and sponsor that. I don’t think it's work we can do ourselves, but there are other people involved in other projects, and we’d like to encourage that.

ZAT WOULD ONCE AGAIN LIKE To THANK ALAN FOB GIVING US TIME TO INTERVIEW HIM