NIAD

You can play them thru emulation with ADAMem, Virtual ADAM and MESS... although emulation of the ADAM in MESS is missing some key stuff. You can also convert these PC disk images back to ADAM disks and then even to data packs in order to play them on a real ADAM. Follow this link for full details on how to convert these back to an ADAM disk: POST #07: http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/177853-looking-for-specs-on-coleco-adam-floppy-drive-model-%237817-power-supply/ Of course, you will need an ADAM 5 1/4" 160K or 320K Disk Drive in order to transfer them to the ADAM. The 320K drives were upgrade kits prvided by Homebrewers in the late 80's.

1) More than likely your ADAM Disk Drive is original/unmodified, so your response to the CopyCart question of decimal blocks is 160. Homebrewers developed 5 1/4" 320K, 5 1/4" 360K and 3 1/2" 720K upgrade/mod kits for the standard ADAM Disk Drive and A LOT of these were sold... especially when person's drives broke down. An ADAM disk is broken up into: Block 0 - the boot block that is read when your press the Computer Reset (storage disks or data packs error out to SmartWRITER while programs/games like ADAMCalc or Super Buck Rogers read the boot block and proceed to load the program. Block 1 - the Directory that has space for 35 files. Format and initialize a disk with a 2 block directory and you have room for about 70 files, 3 block directory about 110 files but let's not confuse the issue and stick with 1 block (1K) directories for now. The Operating System has a bug when you delete a file that the directory slot is still used, the file attribute is just changed to deleted. Also, if you write 35 1K files to a disk or data pack, you still have PLENTY of Free Blocks for storage of more files but no more space in the directory and your next save attempt will give you the "No More Room" error!!! Plenty of work-arounds for some of these oversights due to rushing the system out for the X-Mas '83 season and any seasoned ADAMite will be able to supply the info. Block 2 thru 159 - area for storage of files or programs. Concerning the Super Zaxxon disk image, it sounds like you got a file with some kind of 512K Header or Footer added to it. The disk image should be 160K (163,840 bytes when you check the files properties). If the filesize is 256K, then you have the datapack version and you have to break the DDP image up into two files to transfer back to 2 ADAM disks and then rebuild on a datapack (the datapack has to be a Right Directory DDP... used for all Super Games and a few other titles that made load times faster than the standard Center Directory DDP). No problem re. the questions, it's been a lot of fun passing on my knowledge of the system and helping out like I did in the 80's and 90's when running a Users Group. I owned and used many other systems from that era (C=64, Apple II, TRS-80 and later the Amiga and early PCs), but the ADAM was and still is my all-time favorite and "YES", it is a cool machine that has a lot more under the hood than people have ever given it credit for. Just bad timing with it's release (towards the end of the 8-bit era and beginning of 16-bit EVEN though 8-bitters went on for many more years) and management's rush to get them out for the X-Mas '83 season instead of properly debugging everything. It would have been nice if the power supply wasn't housed in the printer either, but Coleco had to finds ways to cut costs to keep their vision of an all-in-one system package feasible.

Here we go: Using CopyCart on the ADAM, prepare a blank disk by choosing to create a CopyCart media and choose to format it (or make it through Virtual ADAM and transfer the resulting disk image to a 5 1/4" disk with DCOPY) Take that CopyCart ready disk and place it into your PC's 5 1/4" drive Decide what rom files you want to transfer onto the CopyCart (ADAM) disk and make sure to keep track of the size of each and how much space you have available on the ADAM disk Rename the rom files on the PC to the 8.3 filenaming standard (ie: antaradv.rom) Execute "The ADAM Connection" (eos.exe) Choose to "Transfer a file from MS-DOS to ADAM format" and enter the PC rom filename and then the ADAM filename (ie: antaradvC). REMEMBER to add the "C" at the end of the ADAM's filename... this is the file extension of CopyCart roms. Continue on your merry way to fill up the rest of the disk!!! While Virtual ADAM is a tremendous Frontend/Utility for ADAMem, it does have it's drawbacks/defeciencies that the author is aware of and can't fix due to how it runs through DOSbox. If you want to use the PC to create a CopyCart compilation, you will have to use ADAMem by itself (with or without the ADAMem Manager Frontend by Marcel) as it does allow you to mount a cartridge rom file and boot CopyCart from disk/ddp and then procede to dump the "mounted" cart to a CopyCart prepared disk/ddp. It still amazes me what a fantastic job Marcel de Kogel did on this emulator even though he never had an ADAM.

While I like very much the new controller layout used in Destructor SCE (I always hated using the steering wheel in the original Coleco release) so much so that I've probably played it more in the last couple months than I did back in the day, I don't see the need for Spy Hunter's controls to be hacked. I think the controls currently implemented work very well, especially with the Super Action Controller and I would rather spend my money on a new game that was never available for the ColecoVision. I will admit, however, that if you do go ahead with development and a sunsequent release... I would probably buy it. I just can't help myself!

Thanks 5-11under, I have to bookmark that thread already!

Follow the link provided below for all the conversion programs and instructions I provided previously in Post #7 of that thread. See how you do and if you have further questions, just post them here. http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/177853-looking-for-specs-on-coleco-adam-floppy-drive-model-%237817-power-supply/

Just completed a sale to "the-topdog" and everything went smooth as silk from the very first PM. Great buyer!

Mind Over ADAM 1988 by Steve Pitman Software No Extra Hardware Requirements For the 15th game in this weekly series of posts, I offer up Steve Pitman's very first ADAM software release... Mind Over ADAM. Mind Over ADAM is a very nice rendition of the popular color pattern matching game called MasterMind. It also was released at a time when there was very little in the way of entertainment software being developed for the ADAM (aside from Reedy Software). It started a trend of more polished entertainment software releases that took advantage of the tremendous graphics design utilities released by Digital Express (PowerPAINT, SpritePower, FontPower, Clipper) as well as a bevy of programming information and public domain programming utilities provided by DEI. Mind Over ADAM is self-booting and will work in any ADAM emulator. It includes built-in game instructions and a very nice Hall of Fame option. Enjoy! Mind Over Adam (1988) (Steve Pitman Software).zip

Here is a guide to taking apart the ColecoVision WITHOUT having too remove/destroy/damage the front label by SlowCoder. A Guide to Disassembling the ColecoVision - Rev. #01 (2010) (SlowCoder).pdf

If you are sure that all your controllers are good and you have tested them in both Joystick Ports, then the problem more than likely is the dreaded Controller Chips located at U18 and U19 on the motherboard (right by the joystick ports). These chips (TI SN74LS541N) are soldered onto the motherboard and would need to be desoldered and replaced. If you are not up to the task, send the resident hardware guru here a PM... his name is Yurkie.

Montezuma's Revenge was never officially released on disk or data pack specifically for the ADAM... only on cartridge for the ColecoVision and then of course later for the ADAM. Actually, none of the cartridge based games where released by their respective creators. It took until 1986 for SOME of the ColecoVision carts to be legally made available on disk and data pack by TeleGames after they acquired the distribution rights to a fairly large selection. All that aside, YES, there are numerous cartridge compilation disk images available that were made with different ADAM cart copier programs... MultiCart Backup and CopyCart+ were the most popular amongst ADAM users back in the day and there were also cart copiers available in CP/M. You can even transfer a rom image that you have on your PC back to an ADAM disk and therefore assemble your own "Favorites" collections. Check out: www.theadamresource.com and look under the Software Menu for a link to a huge archive!

In theory, you should be able to raid any disk drive for the cell as they should all have a similar setup. The sure fire fix would be to raid another ADAM Disk Drive that has something else malfunctioning. The cell is inserted into a hole in the track/rail, glued and has two pins that a connector slides onto so it should be easy enough to replace once a replacement is found. Before spending time searching for a replacement, the old "cell" should be removed and then a test should be done by attempting to write to a disk with a flashlight shining down the hole to make sure the sensor underneath is working. If the test is successful, then it should be a real easy fix and not require a switch be installed to bypass the cell and sensor. If the test fails, then there is more going on with the drive and someone with the technical know-how whould have to take a look at it. BTW, Tempest, a little trick you can use to stop the Disk Drive or even Data Drive while they are in operation is to press the "CARTRIDGE RESET". It takes up to 10 seconds sometimes for the drive to stop, but at least you are not opening/releasing the Disk Drive latch while the drive is in operation.

Phillip Klaus Krause has a Tunnels & Trolls game in-development, actually, I thought two different versions. One an original idea of his and the other following along Coleco's mock-up if memory serves me right or was someone else considering this?

I hated telling you this bit of bad news at MGC. Unfortunately I don't have a solution beside raiding another drive for the photo-electronic (optic) cell. I had the same problem back in 1986 and checked numerous electronics stores to no avail... I probably didn't know what I was talking about back then and the people I was asking didn't know squat as well. I eventually had this drive converted to a 3 1/2" 720K and the problem was solved. The quick and dirty solution that I used back then was to pull the "cell" and then everytime I wanted to write to a disk, shine a flashlight into the hole where the "cell" used to be. The "cell" you are looking for is on the left track (just above where the disk inserts in the groove/guide) at the front of the drive... basically where the notch in the disk lines up. Then, of course, you would have to leave the cover unscrewed so that it could be removed when writing to a disk. Bob S. (adamcomputer) on here would be a good person to ask if he has any of these "cells" available. Here is his website to leave him an email as well: http://ann.hollowdreams.com BTW, the ADAM Disk Drive was developed by MPI Technologies.

Got a replacement/spare power transformer last week from eColeco for $23 plus Shipping/Handling... not bad. They have a good supply. Here is the info on the transformer: Dynamic Instrument Corp. Hauppauge, NY Made in Taiwan 0880 Class 2 Transformer CAT NO. 30K0005 120 V .... 9.2 VAC 60 HZ .... 3.0 AMP 60 W .... 40 V.A. LISTED UL 580B LOAD Just notice... time to clean my camera lense!

The difficulty of the arcade game is probably a big reason why Coleco never went ahead and developed this game. The poor programmer(s) that were possibly assigned to this game would have had to play the arcade game to figure out the gameplay and all the other elements as I'm sure source code wasn't provided by Exidy... just like most if not all the other arcade conversions Coleco made. After about 30 minutes they probably just threw up their arms and said, "NEXT GAME!".

It was a tough call between Rip Cord and Skiing... but Skiing finally won out. The Coleco made mock-up just amazed me when I first saw it and when the ColecoVision finally got a Skiing game from TeleGames/Terry Grantham, I was so disapointed. I must admit to having fun with TeleGames' Skiing during the High-Score Competition, but since that time the cart has been placed back in storage and will probably never see the light of day again. On a side note, if I could vote for them all, I would... even Chess Challenger! This would be like the fulfillment of a "promise" that Coleco made to all of us that was never fulfilled but is being chipped away at little by little!

Maybe a Clear Leather Dust Cover could be provided... that way your CV is "protected" in case you get a little excited looking at it! You mean one that allowed insertion of a cartridge but still prevented metal-to-metal contact? Amen! Man, have we hijacked this thread, or what, with these impure thoughts. Time to return to our regularly scheduled program and get our heads out of the gutter!

Maybe a Clear Leather Dust Cover could be provided... that way your CV is "protected" in case you get a little excited looking at it!

Ghost Zapper by Steve Pitman Software Requires at least a 64K Memory Expander For this weeks submission, I give you Steve Pitman's second software release for the ADAM Computer... Ghost Zapper. Ghost Zapper is a nice, although simplistic, target/shooting game with multiple screens and a Hall of Fame for saving your best scores. The game has built-in instructions and is played with the Hand Controller. Enjoy! Ghost Zapper (1988) (Steve Pitman Software).zip

BTW, would you and Eduardo considering changing the name of Champion Ice Hockey.... SUPER ACTION HOCKEY

Tremendous news Luc and pass along all of our gratitude to Eduardo (as well as yourself) for his continued support of our favorite system! As far as the pricing, I think $40 is very fair, especially considering the amount of time and effort that you have to put into bringing just one of these games to fruition. I'll have to check out these games on the SG-1000 emulator to get a little taste of the goods that are coming down the pipeline. As far as a release schedule, whatever works for you will have to work for us, so I wouldn't sweet it. With your previous six releases and all of J-F's recently and that are coming, we have plenty to keep ourselves busy with. However, have you considered spreading out the releases over a period of time to ease the workload or is it better for you to do a group release all at once to cut down on costs such as cart shells, pcbs and printing. As far as the games that you don't think will make the cut, have you considering making a Digital Only release of these in rom image format with text file instructions say for around $10... I think that would be a very easy way for Eduardo to raise needed capital for his main project of the SGM? I would like to think that 100 sales in this format would be a slam dunk and there would be very little time needed to be invested especially if Eduardo has done a lot of the porting already... you would just need to beta test in a couple different emulators and on a CV/ADAM with one of the AtariMax carts. Whatever the decisions end up being, good luck with everything and when the games are available... you know where to find me!

At least the starting auction prices, especially for WizMath CIB, aren't astronomcal.

Thanks Yurkie... correction will be made. Wish you were going to make the MGC.

I've heard of poeple doing this on another computers (can't remember which right now), but I don't think anyone has ever attempted to convert a Data Pack image to wav/mp3 and record it to an ADAM Data Pack via a PC hooked up to a stereo. Back in the day, a lot of poeple used dual-deck cassette players 9had to allow for recording level adjustment) to copy ADAM data packs as well as to make their own new data packs. The best cassette to use, that was found thru trial and error, was the Sony HF-60. You also have to drill some holes in the back of the cassette in order for them to insert in the ADAM's Digital Data Drive. There is an article on the DVD by Joe B/Mark 2008 that covers the above.