SAM76(ID:781/sam001)

Claude Kagan. Macro language, a descendant of TRAC. Dr Dobbs J ca 1977. Version for CP/M.

Reasons for suit by Rockwell research and Mooers against Kagan

used by the RESISTORS, early hackers' club and home for various later luminaries
Related languages
TRAC => SAM76   Influence

Resources
  • What Is SAM76?
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  • More: TRAC and the RESISTORS
    Yes, we RESISTORS did indeed meet in Claude's barn which was filled with old telephone and computer equipment. Claude's version of TRAC started on the PDP-8, migrated to the PDP-10, and for the legal reasons mentioned ended up as SAM-76. (FYI, SAM stands either for "Strachey and McIlroy" or "Same As Mooers". RESISTORS always stood for "Radically Emphatic Students Interested in Science, Technology, and Other Research Studies" as much as it stood for anything.

    Starting when we were members of the RESISTORS, Peter Eichenberger and I wrote a PDP-10 TRAC processor and later reimplemented it for the PDP-11, eventually adding a little multi-terminal time-sharing monitor. We kept a lower profile than Western Electric (either that, or as 19 year olds we had no noticable assets) so we and Mooers stayed on cordial terms.
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  • More: TRAC - SAM76 - Claude Kagan
    I believe the R.E.S.I.S.T.O.R.s (have no idea what the letters mean) was a group of kids who played with computers and electronics in Claude Kagan's barn in Pennington, N.J. near Princeton.  Because the developer of TRAC, Calvin Mooers, spent the rest of his life inventing the software patent and sued everyone in sight, Claude (whose  employer, Western Electric Laboratories was sued by Mooers) created a very similar language called "SAM76" supposedly based on S7 and M6 "languages from Bell Labs".  I have the original tutorial manual written and illustrated by the R.E.S.... and versions on paper tape for the Altair and TRS-80 floppy disk.  I think it looked more like @os@is;; but you could change all the special characters and command names so it could be made to look EXACTLY like TRAC.  Claude wrote some neat graphic games for the TRS-80 in SAM76/TRAC.
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