SAM Coupé

The SAM Coupé (Pronounced: "Sam Coo-Pay" from its original British English branding) is an 8-bit British home computer that was first released in late 1989. It is commonly considered a clone of the Sinclair ZX Spectrum computer, since it features a compatible screen mode and emulated compatibility, and it was marketed as a logical upgrade from the Spectrum. It was originally manufactured by Miles Gordon Technology (MGT), based in Swansea in the U... more

The SAM Coupé (Pronounced: "Sam Coo-Pay" from its original British English branding) is an 8-bit British home computer that was first released in late 1989. It is commonly considered a clone of the Sinclair ZX Spectrum computer, since it features a compatible screen mode and emulated compatibility, and it was marketed as a logical upgrade from the Spectrum. It was originally manufactured by Miles Gordon Technology (MGT), based in Swansea in the United Kingdom. The machine is based around a Z80B CPU clocked at 6 MHz, and contains an ASIC that is comparable to the Spectrum's ULA. Memory is accessible within the 64 KB range of the Z80B CPU by slicing it into 16 KB blocks and accessing IO ports to switch which blocks appeared in the 4 slots available to the CPU. The basic model has 256 KB of RAM, upgradable internally to 512 KB and externally with an additional 4 MB (added in 1 MB packs). The computer's primary storage medium is a cassette tape, though one or two 3.5 inch floppy disk... less