The SAM76 language deals mainly with the manipulation of

text. The texts, however, contain expressions, scripts and

procedures written by the user, and as such can contain both
character strings and program instructions. SAM76 is an
interactive, surprisingly powerful language, which appears
to be good for gaming and artificial intelligence
applications. Powerful, recursive macros or procedures may
be constructed. It is a language which encourages
intellectual juggling.
It is an esoteric language. You will need a good amount
of intellectual curiosity to go beyond the simple
experiments you are apt to make as a result of having this
disk. When SAM76 was in its infancy, Claude Kagan, the
chief developer, provided source code to people who wanted
to help in its development. There was a catch, however.
You had to pass a comprehensive test on the language to
demonstrate that you really understood it.
We hope we are not undermining the character of the
language by helping you see the language work without
subjecting you to the required amount of effort. However,
let it be known that there are a good number of
demonstration routines included on this disk, which have
been provided deliberately without much documentation. The
developers purpose is to compell the user to do a lot of
hard work and thereby learn how to understand the use of the
language.
First of all, we must explain, the changes which were
made to the contents of the disk in order to reduce the
space requirements, and to provide, thanks to Claude Kagan,
a more recent version of SAM76 than was originally provided
some time ago. The information provided in some of the
other DOC files refers to SAM76.COM as being the only SAM76
file on the CPM Users Group disk. Actually, this file is
called S.COM on this disk, so it will conform with other
documentation. This version, S.COM, will not display the
restart expression &os,%is//= as explained in the Dr. Dobbs
article. However, you may create a version to do this by
keying in the following from CPM:

A>ilraw

A>cpmsetl

&os,%is//= (You are now in SAM76)

Now get the "G" function:

%bf,G/=

and execute it:

%G/=

Then type: save 63 s.com

which will get you a copy of SAM customized for your system.

The article in Dr. Dobbs Journal, Volume 3, Issue 1

(Number 21), will get you going with the language. Then, if
you like it and want to learn more, buy or borrow a copy of
the SAM76 manual. SAM76 is a general purpose language and a
powerful one, but lets face it, it will not be the language
of choice for a lot of people. If you like to explore
computer languages, you will enjoy exploring this one.
To prove that SAM76 really works, key in the following
and you will generate 1960's style newspaper headlines,
randomly, ad infinitum, such as HIPPIES SHOUT "MAKE LOVE NOT
WAR". I'm a little older, and in my day we made both.

A>s news

^C or %ex/= will take you back to CPM.

In SAM76 the "=" does the equivalent of "return" in CPM

or BASIC. It is preferrable to "return" in that you can
imbed returns in the character strings since "=" must be
used to terminate the text.
The SAM file, DEMO.SAM, includes routines for converting
decimal numbers to Roman Numerals, a routine which develops
the winning moves for the game HANOI (see the Dr. Dobbs
article), and a game played in the Dutch language, which not
even the SAM76 Manual explains. You're supposed to figure it
out yourself. Try the following after you are in SAM to
convert from decimal to Roman:

%bf,demo/= (This will bring file called demo.sam)

%lt, * /= (This will list (the names of) texts

contained in the file(s) you have brought
into the text area)

%vt,DTR/= (This will allow you to view text called DTR)

%DTR,1980/= (This will give you the Roman numeral for 1980)

The rest of the SAM files are there for you to experiment
with. You can view the texts and decipher them by using the
Dr. Dobbs article. Then you may want to write some of your
own. The FNT files are for the graphics applications, as is
PLOT.ASM. EXTF.ASM has the purpose of providing the coding
for a real time clock. The DOC files are for you to type to
get further documentation.
The remaining COM files are either explained in other
documentation on this disk, or are utilities that Claude
Kagan has fixed up and finds useful for himself and is
providing here. These are essentially previous CPM user
group utilities that have been improved and may be useful to
some members. They are as follows:

COPY.COM - A disk copy program. Only 1K and fast. Specify

System, Data, or All.

KSAP.COM - Sorts the directory on Drive B.

XD.COM \
XDIR.COM > Various directory listings. Choose you favorite.
XM.COM /
----------------reviewed by Stan Ericson, Rockford, Il.