adamcomputer

I might as well jump in with both feet. First and foremost; are you using a SIX WIRE cable to connect the keyboard? A regualr phone cable (2 wire or 4 wire) will plug in but NOT work. Next, use the suggestion to leave the keyboard unplugged; if the 6801 controller in the keyboard is bad, it can screw everything up. It is not beyond the possibility that your video board is bad, or the SmartWriter rom. Try the easy stuff first

I am for that too Paul. [bob S.] Hopefully, Derek is feverishly working on the little box so that we can ALL have one or two. We played with it some before convention and then at convention; and it is an awesome piece of hardware. We had a few ideas to upgrade it (tweak) and passed them onto Derek, maybe that is what he is emplementing. Don't know, just hope he releases the little black box for sale. HAPPY NEW YEAR

THANKS Jim! We can always use an updated list. Have downloaded it and will unzip in a minute.

Thanks for the advice, Bob, but I tried several 1.44m disks that were sold to me by Richard Clee together with the M.I. drive itself (if I remember correctly), most of which have Super Games on them. The result was exactly the same for all the disks I tried, and I find it hard to believe that all of them would suddently decide to self-destruct while in storage. For now, what I really need to know is whether there's someone out there who can have a look at the drive and repair it, if possible. I know of no-one who repairs them Luc. Howard Pines in Florida tried and failed back at ADAMCON 10 and threw up his hands. I have a MI 1.44m drive, will get it out tomorrow and check thru it. I would be more than happy to take a look at it, but it means shipping here to Michigan. [bob]

Here is Bob's webite and his email address if you are like me and hate to waite... even just for a couple days. Not sure if the email address is still active, but it's what is listed on his website. If not, PM me and I'll give you another one. Website: http://ann.hollowdreams.com/ Email: [email protected] As far as the drives, if I were to hold onto one, it would be the 5 1/4". I have heard from two different ADAM owners that their large collection of ADAM 3 1/2" disks are now inaccessible even after storing them away neatly in disk containers. The 3 1/2" drives are still functional as new disks were bought to test them. One person suggested it could be the way the data is packed tighter on the 3 1/2" disk which could lead to increased degridation/bit-rot or it could be an actual bug in the custom disk controller program written by Orphanware for their 3 1/2" drive conversions or MMSG for the E&T Software 3 1/2" drive conversions that were very popular in the late '80s before Micro Innovations came out with their line of drives in the early '90s. I haven't had any problems with my Orphanware 3-1/2" 720k drives; for E&T drives, I don't know. The Orphanware and E&T were Coleco controller board with ungraded eprom and an ibm drive mech with hand wired disk in sensor. Micro Innovations disk drive was a totally built from scratch unit with whatever mark found to make it. He was also the only one to make a 1.44m drive for the ADAM.

OOPS!!! Luc, are you absolutely SURE that what you are trying to read is an ADAM formatted 3 1/2" disk???? I think that what you are having is a disk failure. Do you have other ADAM 1.44m disks? One possible scenario would be to try and port it over to the ADAMemulator using dcopy.exe and see if you can read the disk(s) in ADAMem. If not, it is a disk problem. You might also try using a head cleaner disk on the MI drive and try it again. OR try to format a disk in the MI drive using any ADAM formatting program. [bob]

You would be WISE to follow Joe's advice Jeremy. While I also had many delaings with Terry of ADAM'S House over the years, of late I cannot and will not recommend him. ALL his products are "AS IS" as I found out when I purchased the last ide cards he had - they did not work and he did take them back begrudgingly. He has no disk drives, he is raising the prices of the things he has dramatically, any merchandise is most likely copied and/or not complete, he is trying to stiff buyers with non working hardware cards. My advice, STAY away as far as possible from ADAM'S House; try Ebay, ANN's stash or ADAM Svcs in Toronto for your purchases.

YOu are correct all around Mark. IDE hard drives can go up to 60 MB, the norm is either 20MB or 40MB, but can be programmed to up to 60MB by formatting and them "mounting" the extra 20 MB portion in TDOS. You run the MOUNT program and it switches to the otherwise non showing 20MB section of the hard drive. Never tried it, but I think it only switches to the non showing 20MB while 'hiding' one of the other sections. IF you have an ADAM, you CAN a use CartCopy program to copy the CV carts onto ddp or disk.

The ADAM will be fairly easy to find on Ebay. BUT your ide card will NOT work unless eColeco has found someone to burn him new eproms. I purchased the last four they had last May (1 yr ago) and NONE worked; the programmed eprom was bad in all four - but the card worked. I did return them, took a hit on charges, and was informed that ALL ADAM stuff was sold "as is". IF they had some burned, it may work, but what I was told is that they didn't have the programming information to burn on the eprom. SO, keep you eye on my website http://ann.hollowdreams.com for any information updates on new eproms being burned - even leave me your email and I can print it out and put it in the wanted stack. We have a user in Saskatchewan who may have a source who can burn some new ones. In that case scenario, the community 'may' be able to resurrect the ide cards that are still available. To get files back and forth from the PC to the ADAM, you need 5 1/4" disk drives on both the PC and the ADAM. After that you can take files that were ported to the pc emulator ADAMEM and send them back the other way to the ADAM and then copy to the hd, compact flash, sparq drive, or zip drive - whichever of these ide devices you would have on the ADAM. Sounds EASY, yes??? ....... but like everything else, it is not quite as easy as it seems.

I'm interested in getting the instruction book. I sent you an email at the ADAM News Network. OK, didn't get your email about the instruction book. Email me adamcon21 AT sbcglobal.net

Yup, I did. Will take a gander abolut tonight and get back at ya Bill !!! [ quote name=Bill_Loguidice' date='Tue Jun 9, 2009 8:45 PM' post='1768732] I sent an e-mail too earlier today. Hope you got it...

That works! I need to try again for a clearer image. goto ann.hollowdreams.com and follow the link to ADAM ews Network Online Catalog. There you can see the front cover of the instruction book and find the email address for purchase information. I'm interested in getting the instruction book. I sent you an email at the ADAM News Network.

IF I did this right, you should be looking at one of the basic instructions pages for Temple of the Snow Dragon. The ADAM News Network has this game for sale on disk with instructions for $15 plus shipping of $5 or just the instruction book for $5 plus shipping of $2. The ADAM News Network holds the copy rights and master copies for Temple of the Snow Dragon as given from Digital Adventures. Although I would like to say that the instruction book shows you how to win the game, it does not. It gives you hints, pics of weapons, etc; but won't tell you how to win.

Anyone know the reason why a regular (switching type) PC power supply doesn't seem to work properly? IF memory serves me correctly, when we used an AT power supply to power 4 ADAM's at once at ADAMCON 14, it wouldn't work until we added in a hard drive. The power supply would not power up correctly with just the ADAM's operational load, it needed the physical spin up of the hard drive to put it into full power mode. Way back when, users used a 200watt power supply from the XT or 286 machines to run the ADAM becasue it supplied full power continually at the same rate.

The same program that moves the ADAM disks to the pc to be used in ADAMemulator can be used to bring them back from the pc to the ADAM world. The emulator program also can be used to create blank disks that can be filled while using the pc as an ADAM, then these too can be returned to the ADAM world.

Ya got me on this one Bill. For the Adam, I'm not aware of ANY Cosmi software. I know they made stuff for Commodore. And on the Paint programs, the only ones I recall were Power Paint for Adam, them Smurf PnP and Cabbage Patch Picture Show for Colecovision. Interested to see if this one gets solved. There is a program called PaintMaster, which is just what Bill ordered. It works with the ADAM controller, and would also with a mouse - there were 2 made for the ADAM, both aftermarket 3rd party. Had forgotten about it, but I did use it for awhile until PowerPaint took over my heart. PaintMaster was created by Stategic Software, along with other publishing type programming.

Yes,very GOOD points,especially to never buy new technology,until the bugs are ironed out,and the price goes down,like the new BLUE RAY player,ive already heard a few problems. [won't include al lthe aforementioned posts as they are already here] A GREAT point made about getting the first edition or version to come on the market, BUT ! there 'should' be no reason to expect a bunch of junk when you are buying a new product. I got into the ADAM in 1989, well after it's introduction, crappy equipment and death. I have approx 15 of them here, some in boxes, many with hard drives and/or printer interfaces and large memory expanders; and have had very limited problems in the last 16 years. Probably like 3 or 4 data drives bite the dust, maybe 2 consoles which lost their video; but for the most part, a very reliable system used quite frequently to play with and for a small business my wife runs. Maybe I just got a lot of newer equipment, or only the very first stuff was junk. Heck, I even leave the hard drive boot tape in the drive with no wipe-out problems, learned that from Dale Wick in Canada - the ONLY 18 year veteran of the ADAM convention as well as a veteran programmer in his own right.

THANKS, happy to be here!!!! I knew that there was some interest in the ADAM, especially with those of us who put on and attend the annual convention; but no idea that there was widespread interest - makes me li'l heart glad !!!!

Don't know if this is going to work correctly, because this is my first shot at this forum, but here goes. I HAVE ARRIVED....I think. The above and afore mentioned instructions will get you to the pc world with your ADAM disks. As pointed out, the ADAM tapes are a bit of a sticky business as far as transfers. AND, I see that all of you really want to get ADAM programming for use in either ADAMemulator or for the native ADAM. Had no idea just how abig a group was out here and still interested in the ADAM. While I am not a guru by any stretch of imagination, I can find my way around most of the ADAM stuff and have an extensive bunch of stuff.....my wife says WAY too much, but oh well..... With that i will stop blabbering for now and see if it posts ok [adamcomputer]