If you've not already got the current issue (25) then you really have been missing out and now with it available as a professional full colour book you've no excuse to not pick up a copy.
So what's in the magazine? Well, let's take a look at the cover first. I commissioned a new drawing by Robin Evans - the original artist for SAM the robot, you'll be familiar with all his doodles in the SAM Coupe User Guide and the early MGT adverts from 1989/1990. Well he dusted off his memory of drawing the robot and has came up trumps with the drawing for the cover.
Inside the magazine, a mammoth news section kicks off after the editorial, covering news from around the SAM scene, with all the details of new hardware, software and demos for the SAM Coupe as well as previews of projects that are being worked on.
Feature articles shows off all the work undertaken by Phil Wilson with the customising of his SAM, plus shorter articles about several other customisation projects. The Developer Diary section looks at the new game that's Warren Lee is preparing, and a quick look at TRINload from Simon Owen which is a utility to transfer data from a PC to the SAM via the Trinity Ethernet Interface.
Smaller articles look at patching some demos to make them compatible on mass storage devices. I also take a look at some of the rarer and more unique items I've collected over the years for the SAM Coupe including The Art of Selling SAM.
Throw in the usual SAM Snippets, SAM Correspondence and SAM Comment sections and that wraps up this gigantic 56 page issue of the magazine. And now the full colour print really adds a lot more depth to the contents.
SAM Revival issue 25 comes with not just one, but two cover disks. On the first is the classic SAM Coupe game 'Vegetable Vacation' from Fissionsoft, which was original released in 1992 by Revelation/SAMCO. Next up is 'Moby DX' from Black Jet - a new release especially for SAM's anniversary - thanks guys!
The first coverdisk also features plenty of software for the Trinity Ethernet Interface - starting off with a new version of B-DOS. This version (1.5t beta 6) allows the Trinity to use SD/SDHC cards up to a whopping 64GB in size. An installer is also included on the disk to store the new DOS on the Trinity Ethernet Interface's EEPROM if you use the optional BOOT ROM. Plus, there are the first few TCP/IP demo programs for the Trinity Ethernet Interface. The first demo downloads a screen/music from the internet, the second demo downloads the full game 'XOR' from the net directly to your SAM. This all really shows what's on the horizon for the SAM now it's connected to the internet. My thanks to all those involved with pushing the Trinity forward - Adrian Brown, Simon Owen, Chris Pile, and content for the downloadable demos from Warren Lee, David Sanders and Howard Price.
The second coverdisk is dedicated entirely to mind blowing megademo from MNEMOtech's Andrew Collier - 'Stars and Sprites'. Andrew has done some really impressive coding for the fantastic graphical effects and great music! Plus one of the scrollers does mention something about a hidden part... Hmmmm!