Mr. Argent

So far the machine reminds me quite a bit of the Japanese MSX computers, hardware-wise. Wonder if the ADAM'd have the muscle needed to run Gradius II...?

Printer disabled and cleaned - ADAM no longer sad and boots consistently! Datapack drive seems to be okay, too. Catalogued the preformatted blank fine. Any advice on cleaning the keyboard? Should I worry about my isopropyl toothbrush wiping characters off the keys like with some keyboards?

Ah, the one by the rather intimidating-looking capacitors? hmm... should be easy enough to pull, if I can work out how to get to it. Thanks for the pointer!

Aaaargh, it's reverted to the head slamming. Assuming this is a reversable procedure, it might be worth my time to disconnect the printer until I get a ink reel (or indefinitely) - how would I go about that? I'm seeing some cable connections to the board that look like they might be removable. would I want to give those a nice tug?

Ah, cool! Figured it'd be a bit more complicated than that. Wonder if my boombox could house the blank DDP I've got? I'd hate to remove it from the original packaging, but I don't own a drill...

Cool, thanks for the help and links! This thing's gonna rock once it's working. Space Fury, anyone? UPDATE: I've gotten it to recognize that the head is all the way to the left and the head is depressed, but now the daisywheel is just spinning indefinitely. Any idea what I ought to do about that? WE HAVE BOOTUP!

The head tries to force it's way to the right no matter what - I can see the switch you guys are talking about and the wiring appears to be intact, though. I'll try cleaning it, and if the printer can't be saved that's not an overly big deal - i don't have an ink ribbon for it anyway so it's not of too much use to me currently. EDIT: Rubbing down the switch with the ol' isopropyl toothbrush to resolve any potential issues with grime. Here goes...

So, I've bagged myself an ADAM, the keyboard, the printer and a controller plus a data pack still in the box from a neighbor -- and for $20! what a steal, eh? There's a bit of a problem, though: When I got it the machine itself was in rather sad shape, and more or less inoperative. It's pretty obvious the thing's spent the last thirty years in the dude I got it from's garage. Exterior condition's pretty messy and on boot the machine partially renders the word processor and hangs, leaving the under-oiled printer to repeatedly slam the...uh... platen*? ... into the side over and over. Since that may not have been the clearest explanation, here's a video showing off the machine failing to boot. For clean-up I've done a bit of toothbrush-and-isopropyl cleaning work on the main unit's case, and the expansion slots. did a bit on the PCB inside the printer too, but I'm afraid of what might happen if I brush up against that huge cap on the board. Efforts thus far have not helped the machine much, sadly. I'd like to do some more in-depth scrubbing, but I still need to figure out how totally tear the printer and console apart. Anyone know what's up with this thing and how I can fix it? Can this thing be saved? If worst comes to worst, I have some experience with a soldering iron and I do own a SMT soldering station. I have to admit I've never really done any particularly tricky repairs before but I'm willing to give this one a shot. Here's another photo, showing about as far into the startup process as the machine gets. *this may or may not be the first printer of it's type I've worked with. actually never seen the internals of a non-inkjet or a non-laserjet before, lol... more like a typewriter than anything. kinda weird.