adamcon
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Posts posted by adamcon
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Oh, man...you take this stuff to the post office by bus??? Now I just plain out feel sorry for you.
BIG city, no car Joe. He actually used to work for the bus company writing sofware! Maybe he still gets free rides????
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Connecting a keyboard or disk drive to the Coleco ADAM using the ADAMNET interface
However, for cosmetic reasons one might want to use a 6 pin reverse RJ12 Coiled cord with the Coleco ADAM keyboard. As far as I am aware only 5 feet black for $12.99 and 14 feet black for $19.99 is available. The original Coleco ADAM keyboard used a gray color coiled cord that is no longer being manufactured in that color as far as I am aware. However ECOLECO has the original Coleco ADAM coiled keyboard cords for only $7.95 plus shipping (that is a good deal, since the RJ12 reverse coiled cord is a rare type of cable to find).
The ADAMnet cables in a 3 ft length, 6 wire connectors and a silver gray color to match approximately the color of the original Coleco disk drive cables. https://www.trianglecables.com/catalog/product/view/id/67836/s/rj12-line-cord-6-conductor-reverse-3-ft/category/1339/ OR
https://www.showmecables.com/by-category/cables/telephone/rj12-line-cord-6-conductor-reverse OR
search Ebay for 6 wire reverse phone cable, there are lots of them 7' to 25'
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Kind offer, but I think I'll hang on to it.
Yeah. I had a Coleco Vision growing up, but never knew anything about the Adam until many years later (we had a TRS-80 Color Computer 2 as our first family computer). I wish I had known about these back when Adam's House/eColeco was selling them. Even so, I'm very happy to now have Donkey Kong Jr alongside the Zaxxon I was able to get last year.
A couple of years ago, someone was selling all 3 of the Adam arcade cabinet styled boxes (box only):
Zaxxon box sold for $66. https://www.ebay.com/itm/-/252515589321
Donkey Kong Jr. box sold for $205. https://www.ebay.com/itm/262597312004
And the Donkey Kong box sold for $250!!
https://www.ebay.com/itm/262597323309Aw man..........................I KNEW IT!!! I sold mine too cheap; I had 2 sets and sold 1 set, got good money but nothing on that level.
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I wanted to share a success story - the ADAM paired with Jim Drew's WiModem232.
That IS intrigueing; I remember back in the 90's when the net was a baby, the ADAM could get onto the web. It was smokin' fast, but lasted way too short a period before the graphical interface came on the scene and left the ADAM in the dust. What is available ADAMwise out in the ether? Any users with ideas or something?
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Here's hoping that ALL have a great Christmas with all the CV, ADAM or combination of presents you ever wanted. Have a SAFE and FUN holiday season!
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Believe SPLAT was a program that Coleo had and used for color graphics; common software also put into PD..
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Mmmmmmm... suspect discovery. A pnp transistor, 2N3906 near vdp. Anyone can confirm the value of EBC in board?
Thanks!
Replace it anyway. This transistor is a huge problem in the ADAM data drives, and probably many other applications.
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Have you guys seen these reproduction labels? They look to be very well done. Is this an AA member making these?
No idea, BUT he is selling them cheap with free shipping...............unless they go way higher. May be a good thing to buy if you want some games.
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I have read a few tutorials on how to create new Adam digital data packs from conventional cassette tapes but they all seem to be pretty involved. (utilizing CP/M etc..) Other than making the necessary physical holes to the conventional cassette tapes, is there not an Adam Basic program that will simply initialize and format a physically modified standard cassette tape?
How did the Coleco Adam digital data pack originally get created at the factory?
There is one easy way to make a data pack. After drilling in the appropriate holes in a cassette tape AND an original data pack (so it will fit into a cassette player); all you need is a double cassette player. Start recording at one end, then listen for the end of the squealing (more perfect timing is better). Flip them over and record the back side of the cassette tape. With a minimum of practice you will be making data tapes like crazy. It WORKS, that's how we started many years ago.
As for how Coleco did it at the factory.......................probably had a program to record like a cassette player. Maybe YOU can make a program to do just that, it should be totally possible if someone with some knowledge of such things wants to make it happen.
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I tapped the 5V instead, losing the voltage regulator, because I am not using the printer for power. I will finalize this with a microsd to sd extension cable and then start hemming-and-hawing about getting an f18a (which would be my fourth f18a after ColecoVision, TI, and //gs, I think.)
Looks GOOD!!! I LIKE it! I kept it in the case inside a data drive shell (with cutouts for cables, etc.
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Alright, who here is selling off one AMAZING sealed Colecovision collection??? Not sure if they are a member here or not but DAMN! Nice selection of sealed stuff. Some I've never seen come up sealed before. Upon further inspection it's not just Coleco items either. What a nice collection getting sold off by this owner. Shame I have no shot at any of it.
Don't know or recognize seller, but he sure wants to start at high prices.
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I had to do it. Aesthetics.
I LIKE it ! I had cut out the bottom frame on the door, never considered drilling holes for the buttons and light. Solder in a 12v wire for power and tap the data wire in and it would be self contained inside the ADAM, although it requires a partial removal to change out the micro sd card.
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What's the deal with the two hidden keyboard keys that are only revealed when the case is opened?
That is a good question around which may theories swirl. Actually I think there are some pretty good theories, but at the moment I am blank on remembering them.
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I haven't had a wonderful year, both with work levels and a seriously ill child, but things are definitely on the up. I have a new job and my 2nd eldest is in remission and things seem to have settled down.
I am back doing some coding, but I have to finish off a title for Collectorvision 1st before I can come back to this one. But don't worry it is one of my favourite 2600 games and I really want to make an excellent version for the Coleco
Glad to hear that things are looking up for you and the family. AND, it is great that you are getting back to the ColecoVision hobby that you apparently love.
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I think the engineers at Coleco were trying to find a floppy drive that could fit into the old tape drive bay. The letter indicates that the 3.25" floppy drive "plugged into the 8 and 9 pin jacks that the tape drives use". There were a lot of different smaller sized floppy drives at the time; none were a widely used standard until later.
Dat letter was WRONG; I just went and pulled it out. It uses a CV power supply and plugs direct into ADAMnet with a 6 wire "phone" cord. The strange part is that Coleco made a very professional case for it with correct color plastic, and it fit in place of the cover over the expansion slots and data drives, but the controller board in the case is a wire wrap version. For whatever reason Coleco picked the 3 1/4 to look at instead of the 3 1/2 which became the standard.
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It is truly amazing the amount of research and development that Coleco did between 1981 to 1984. In addition, the amount of unreleased software and hardware prototypes that were either completely finished or mostly finished is incredible. Coleco had a fully functional RS-232/serial ADAMNet device that had been verified working by several people. It was rumored that Coleco was going to release the Dragon’s Lair game on the 12 inch optical Laserdisc format, however before that was a possibility they had to make a RS-232 interface for the ADAM so that modern 1983 Laserdisc players could be controlled by the ADAM computer.
Coleco developed an external 1200 baud hayes modem that was going to be released as a upgrade for people that had the internal 300 baud ADAM modem. In addition, several people I heard from said they saw a working internal 3.25 inch AdamNet disk drive which offered over 270K of storage space. Coleco was thinking about replacing the Digital Data Drives with internal 3.25 inch disk drives. Any type of disk drive would have been better than the Digital Data Drives.
It was ridiculous the amount of unreleased hardware and software that former Coleco employees took home before being laid off (After January 1985 many Coleco employees were laid off). Stories were told over the years that if the products were not taken home that Coleco would have ended up destroying the products.
Back around June 5th 1993, various ADAM dealers and ADAM users groups received the following letter in the mail asking to trade unreleased Coleco ADAM prototype equipment for the latest brand new Micro innovations 1.44MB 3.5 inch disk drive. I have no ideal who ended up with these unreleased Coleco products. I have removed most the names and addresses from the attached 2 page letter below to protect their privacy. In addition, the source that provided this letter no longer had the attached photos for uploading.
You are correct in that "story" about the 3 1/4" disk drive. I have it as well as the one and only ADAMnet direct plug IDE hard drive. I got them from 2 different sources, 1 at ADAMcon 10 and the other probably about ADAMcon 20 time period. Both work great; the IDE hard drive requires a boot disk in order to redirect input/output to data drive 2 and works with no interface card needed; while the disk drive is in a cute li'l Coleco made case and takes the place of the cover on the ADAM with it's own power supply and ADAMnet plug in cable. It holds 256k of data so it matches the data pack size. As for the 1200 baud modem, my source for the disk drive had it but could not longer find it.
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GREAT description of the ADAM system and it's progression thru it's lifespan. You are "right on" about the impact that Micro Innovations had on the ADAM community; although others also had huge impact also. Eve Electronics pioneered sound cards, 80 column units, and speech synthesizers; Orphanware with disk drive conversions, printer cards, memory expanders, and Minnie Winnie hard drives; E&T Software with disk drive conversions and memory expanders. Micro Innovations implemented all those ideas and produced them and much more with Mark's expertise. Some of MicroFox Technologies hardware design is partially built on some of Micro Innovations designs (with Mark's permission) and partly on ideas from users - in particular, the idea to use compact flash cards, sparq and zip drives instead of a physical spinning hard drive.
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I've been having nothing but problems with my VDD. I copied my entire collection to it and at least half don't load from the VDD. I get missing file errors, freeze ups, IO errors, some need several resets to load, And some don't load at all. Ive tried 3 consoles 2 printers 2 Rey power supply's 2 64k expanders you name it, Still having nothing but problems. I can however copy any.DSK image to a real disk, and they work flawlessly. I bought 2 VDD's and both have the same unfortunate problems. Could it be my sd card reader? Ive triend everything else. any thoughts? Kev
Time to go back to square one Kev. Remove any and all hardware except for the digital data drive; plug in the VDD making sure that you have the drives set to # 1 or # 2 in the order you want; mount and try the programs you have put on it. Keep in mind that some won't work as they need the memory expander (i.e. - ADAMbomb 2, Powerpaint, ADAMbomb 1) If programs work, then insert the emory expander and retry. This way you can test and try each piece of ADAM hardware as you build the system. Also, when copying ADAM software to a "disk", make sure that you are copying the entire ADAM disk using Filemanager and copying from block 0 to the end of the physical disk; then take out the microSD card and rename the "disk" in your ibm computer making sure to only change the name of the particular "disk". Also do NOT delete or try to change a file on the microSD card called LastFile as it holds the key to the operation of the microSD card.
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I'll ask again, like I do every year. Please, PLEASE, will someone record as much as possible and put it on YouTube. I'd love to go, but once again it is too far away and I can't afford it.
Very much appreciated!
In the past, Dale, Dr D or others have had live feeds, and maybe some videos..............will have to holler at someone and see if we can get some footage this year
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Looking at the registration form for the convention, I'm guessing that one of the conference rooms in the Hampton Inn is the venue for the convention. Just want someone to confirm for me. Thanks for your help.
Steve
EXACTLY Steve, you should be able to find us easily when you come to the front desk. I have not personally been there, but do not anticipate anything hidden or secretive.
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This is a 2016 thread is why the dates are wrong
well duh on me!!!!!
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You just show up and ask for Bob. Once you meet Bob, you can pay him for admission. It's all very informal.
And by the way, Adamcon 29 will actually be held between July 20th and 23rd.
At least I hope so... That's what's written in the registration form!
My bad!!!!!!!! I miss quoted the dates in the original post, PixelBoy is CORRECT on the dates
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This is your second THUMBS UP, awesome video!!!!!
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So now I communicate in the form of dad-rap. It's a thing, let's not question it.Emcee Reaperman, da true Coleco fan,Grabs his stick, and is quick,when it's time, for Galaxian.Or Mister Do? Oh no you didn't,Omega Race is great,but I'll tell ya what isn't,Using people's work, implying its your own,For a while it'll fly and we'll leave it alone,But poke us a bit, tempt us to dig,It's pretty messy lipstick on that pig.Werd. Yeya.
NICE "poem"
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Colecovision Auction Watch
in ColecoVision / Adam
Posted · Edited by adamcon
This guy has some serious money issues, 1 millon 200 thou for a box with stickers? Good luck with that one, "sir"