This article is about SAM, an excellent sounding piece of software from Germany. It was taken from the newsnet system, transferred using UTIL on an IBM PC, and tidied by Dean Garraghty.¢-----------------------------------¢In a previous article Keith.R.Smith writes:¢¢> How can one get a copy of S.A.M.? Is it commercial, PD, or Shareware.¢> If it is commercial or shareware, how much does it cost? What are the¢> hardware requirements for S.A.M.? Can you give ordering info?¢> What is MIO and what does it do?¢¢S.A.M is commercial software. Few years ago it was printed in some issues of the German 'AtariMagazin'. This was a huge series of articles and listings. Now this software is still being commercialy sold by the publisher. It isn't cheap though. The same version that has been published in the magazines costs 49DM (devide it by 1.67 than you have it in $), there are additional disks for it like the S.A.M. Designer (19DM), S.A.M. Patcher (12DM) and a supplement (24DM). They also sell the whole package with all additional disks for 79DM.¢But there is still another, cheaper possibility to get S.A.M. You can by the back issues of 'AtariMagazin' for 3DM each. As far as I remember you'll need 5 or 6 issues since it was a series.¢Hardware requirements: You need an Atari 8-bit computer with at least 48K, a disk drive, joystick and your TV set. Nothing else except you want to use a mouse. S.A.M. supports a ST-mouse plugged in into the second joystick port. You can leave the joystick in port one and use the mouse and joystick simultanously. You don't need an extra 80 charcters card like XEP-80. The 80 chars screen is emulated by software.¢¢Now the address of the retailer:¢¢ Power per Post¢ Postfach 1640¢ W-7518 Bretten¢ Germany¢¢ Tel. +(0)7252/3058¢ Fax. +(0)7252/85565¢¢ or¢¢ Verlag Werner Raetz¢ (Power per Post)¢ Melanchthonstr. 75/1¢ W-7518 Bretten¢¢You can ask them if you still have questions.¢¢Now MIO.....¢as far as I know MIO is a kind of interface to be plugged into the parallel port. Then you obtain the possibility to connect SCSI hard disk drives and other SCSI equipement. An additional feature is the built in memory upgrade with possible size of 1MB. There are sure other features but I don't know exactly about them.¢It sounds very good and who knows, perhaps I'm going to buy one some time :-). I think it is sold by ICD in the states.¢¢Marek Tomczyk¢ -----------------------------------¢Bill Kendrick writes:¢¢> Anyways. PLEASE explain this S.A.M. program! The only SAM I've¢> ever heard of was from Don't Ask Software .. it was a voice sythnesizer¢> built into software (ie, use it for your own programs, etc.)¢> I've only seen THAT on my brother's c=64, but I know I can get¢> it. (BTW: wasn't it one of you out here in net-land who said they had a¢> copy they'd get me?? or was it someone else??????)¢> later-on¢ Bill¢¢I've seen this other SAM on a C=64 too, but it's a different S.A.M. I'm gonna explain to Bill and all other interested people.¢¢S.A.M. stands for Screen Aided Menagement. It is a piece of commercial software produced by a small German software house. It is a user interface with integrated applications.¢¢It uses an 80 columns screen on a standard TV set. It looks a little bit like GEM on the Atari-ST. You have pull down menus on the top of the screen where you can select items with your mouse or joystick.¢¢There are standard items like "directory, lock file, format disk, read sector, duplicate disk, etc.". Then you have some special applications you can pick up. They will be loaded from the S.A.M. disk.¢¢One of them is a spreadsheet program. Another is a program called "Memobox". It is a small database with the possibility of creating your own data cards. Also included are two character editors. One for standard B/W characters and the other one for GRAPHICS 12 color character sets. Next application is a painting program which uses 128 colors but only 4 on a single line (standard DLI). It has many usefull functions like fill and unfill!, draw lines, draw circles, mirror etc.¢¢Another part of S.A.M. is a word processor. It has all the functions I need like text formatting, cut, paste, block text, preview function (you see the whole layout of the page), support for Atari printers and Epson printers.¢¢Next item you can open is a monitor program to browse the memory. It has some kinds of display functions like showing screen code or ATASCII code or showing bytes in their binary appearence (eg. $A800: 01011100 ) so you can easily scan for character sets.¢¢I think I have described all the implemented applications. All of them have full 80 column and mouse support. But there is more. S.A.M. is a kind of extention of the operating system. There are documented interfaces for routines of S.A.M. so you can write your own software. For example you can use the "open window" routine just by putting the coordinates in a special location and calling the apropriate S.A.M. subroutine. Then just give your application a special filename extension and place it on the S.A.M. disk. Next time you use S.A.M. your application will be awailable in the pull down window.¢¢Due to this flexibility there are some new programs for S.A.M. awailable. To name one: a 'Breakout' game.¢¢Ok, I think that's all I remember about S.A.M. I hope this gives you a vague idea about it.¢¢Marek Tomczyk¢¢
