FmrAdamuser

May 14

On 5/13/2021 at 12:32 AM, bradhig1 said:

I hear sounds like cracking or bending when I move the controller as I play games is this normal?

Without being there to hear the sounds, the answer may be yes or no. I received my CV as a Christmas present in 1982 and from day one, the joystick would make some cracking sounds. At first, I thought they would break, but they never did, of course, I have not played my CV since the mid 90's when I moved out on my own and have not had room to set it up. Same with my Adam. My cousin who had an Atari 2600 used to make fun of my CV controllers because of the cracking sound and how uncomfortable they were, at least to hm. I got used to them, although I'm not sure how I would feel using them today. Ironically, I found the A2600 controllers to be awkward to use after getting used to the CV controllers.

Speaking of Adam, I want to say that I do not believe the Adam joysticks had that same cracking sound, but then I was so used to it that it may not have stood out to me. What would be great is if a company made CV/Adam/Intellivision compatible controllers in an SNES form factor (probably about my favorite controller form factor, Genisis was my second choice). I think I have seen it advertised here that someone/some company (Opcode?) has one that is about as close to that form factor as I have seen. The one that OldSkool linked to is more of a arcade form factor, which I never really liked. I came to the conclusion that arcade game controllers were not intended to promote comfort and extended gameplay, they were intended to keep players just uncomfortable enough that they run through their lives and have to pump in more quarters. Something home console makers did not need to worry about. But each their own, I understand that some like that style, but I think there's a reason why no console ever shipped with those style controllers as part of the normal release (I would not count a special edition console offering that came with one).

Yep, found the thread I saw, Opcode, although the thread is from 2019, not sure if they are still offering them:

May 14

21 hours ago, bradhig1 said:

They are uncomfortable to hold. Is the Super Action Controller any better?

Mind you I haven't used them since the '80's but I remember the controllers being comfortable to hold, but found using the joystick to be awkward. You can use Genisis controllers if you want, you just need to have a CV controller plugged into #2 to select the level.

May 10

19 hours ago, HDTV1080P said:

I used my Coleco ADAM in middle school, high school, and college

I used mine in MS, HS but not college. My college provided computers for students when they started their freshmen year. Since I only had room for one computer desk and only room for one computer on that desk, the Adam had to go into boxes and stored away. I had put away my CV because the Adam was able to play all the games I had for the CV and A2600 (I had the Exp. Mod #1), so after putting away the Adam, the CV came back out until I moved away from home. I definitely liked the print from the Adam better than the pretty decent dot-matrix printer I bought through my college, but the Adam printer was definitely noisy (I would never have been able to print out my papers while pulling all-nighters like I did in college). Laser printers only came down to my price range when I was about a junior in college. We had one in our HS computer lab, but that was the only one for the entire HS.

I am probably one of the few, but I actually used the electric typewriter mode to fill in forms for job and college applications. It was such a pain my parents eventually got me an electric typewriter that I used for that task as well as for small papers (one to two pages) that needed to be typed in HS.

May 10

On 5/9/2021 at 9:54 AM, mozartpc27 said:

Interesting. What was the upper age that someone could redeem the offer, anyone know? Like, did the parents of any 17 year olds who were about to graduate buy the computer and get the scholarship? I figure the only way it could work financially (had Coleco made it) would be that they were counting on putting $X amount money per kid or expected kid in some kind of interest-bearing account, much less than Y kids time $500, and so they could make an offer that would cost them nothing today, that had a value of $500 to a parent on paper, but would require them to place $350 in an account for a kid who was 13 assuming a 7% interest rate (not unreasonable at the time) compounded monthly over 5 years. It would be a liability but would also count as cash on hand for accounting purposes.

I do not know the answer, very likely someone who has a NOS unit or kept all their paperwork with their Adam may have the original scholarship flyer and requirements and I am sure the restrictions are mentioned there. I want to say that 15 came to my mind after writing that last sentence, but that is likely wrong.

Honestly, I don't think they planned on having the program last more than a year, so that limits the number of people, not to mention that not everyone who bought one would be eligible or would remember to fill out the paperwork to register (I can't remember for sure, but I would imagine you had to register your computer within 30 to 90 days or some other limited timeframe and were not given an unlimited timeframe). I highly doubt they planned on having a "savings" account, they likely figured that they'd make enough profit on Cabbage Patch kids, CV and Adam to be able to payback the promised scholarship. It was to be paid in installments and not one lump sum as mentioned earlier in this thread, or perhaps another that I had responded on, and not all of those collecting would be collecting all at once. There may have been a couple to few years where there was a "peak" number of people collecting (say if the majority of Adam bought during the program were by/for 12 year olds, likely they would be going to college at around the same time, making those 4 years the "peak" years of payouts). By the time the "peak" happened, Coleco was banking on having other great selling products, such as Adam 2, CV 2, etc.

May 8

On 8/22/2012 at 7:21 PM, jlanier said:

I had one of these scholarships, they were real and did exist. Unfortunately they didn't pay out as a lump sum; you had to prove you were still enrolled every semester or every other semester (can't remember which) to get a check mailed to you. The problem is that Coleco went bankrupt in 1988, before honoring the entire scholarship; once they filed for bankruptcy they stopped honoring the scholarships. Ultimately I got less than half of the promised $500.

I know this is a very old response, however, I will add my experience. I too received their scholarship. I think I received $125, total. It was after or during the bankruptcy because I think they contacted me. I can't remember if I had to surrender the certificate they sent me for registering for the scholarship, or if I threw it away, but I was still in HS when they paid out. I think that was part of the bankruptcy settlement was to give those who registered for the scholarships some money to buy them off (is my guess). I am guessing they did not send you any more after the bankruptcy was because you had already collected some.

I see below you mention that when you went to college you were given or had to get a PC, pretty much the same for me. Unfortunately, I had to pack my Adam up because I only had room for one computer on my desk and have not had room to set it back up since.

May 8

I know this is an old thread, but I will add in my experience. I bought my Adam in 1984, I was 13 at the time, and filled out the form and sent it in immediately along with all of the required documentation (if that was a copy of the receipt, UPC label off the box, etc. it was sent, I don't remember, that was a long time ago someone who bought a NOS in the box with all the documentation probably knows what was needed). That was back as soon as I bought my Adam (actually the 3rd one since I had to return 2 before finding a good one). The idea was that you would contact Coleco when you were accepted to a college or started college to be able to collect the scholarship, I believe they sent a certificate of some kind back that we kept in a lockbox along with our other important papers (by "we" I mean me and my parents). I think that certificate was supposed to be sent back to Coleco at the time you were accepted/started college. You did not need to keep the receipt until you started college, since that should have already been on file when you registered your Adam.

When Coleco went belly up, though, they paid out, unfortunately not the full $500. I think I only received $125 (again, that was a long time ago, I don't remember the details only the general surprise they actually paid out and my gratefulness they actually did), which I was grateful for that, I had pretty much written off getting anything from Coleco. They paid earlier because of the Chapter 11 (or whatever Chapter used for their bankruptcy) proceedings and I was still in the middle of HS when the check came. I can't remember if I had to send in my certificate or not, regardless, it is long gone. Either thrown away or sent wherever the Bankruptcy needed it to be sent to collect.

May 6

Great.

Thanks. 👍

May 6

Thank you for filling in the blanks, Quadrunner. 👍

Now when you mention the text files on the disk images at the Archive, I assume you mean AdamArchive.org? Which disk images? Are they on the disk images that contains SB2.0? Thanks.

May 4

@timepilot - Not to my knowledge, SB needs to take up a certain amount of memory to run. I believe that was so you could remove the SB DDP and insert a blank one to write to, but as I have said, it has been so long since I messed with my actual Adam, I am not sure you could do that. I had the floppy disk drive so I could always save to the disk drive while leaving the SB DDP in the tape drive.

@Tempest - SB2.0 was supposed to resolve many of the bugs in SB1.0. However, 2.0 has different Peek and Poke addresses so if you use a SB1.0 program that utilizes Peek's and Poke's it won't work with SB2.0 unless you convert them over to the 2.0 addresses. I don't have my list with me, but I believe all the Call addresses that I have found to be for 2.0 are the same as 1.0, but that may only be those few Call addresses and the others may be different. Either way, because of how late 2.0 came out, and how few people used it, the addresses are not as thoroughly documented as 1.0's are (at least not as far as I have found, so far). BTW, from what I have gleaned from quickly browsing the information, it seems that 2.0 was never officially released by Coleco, at least not commercially. I'm not too clear on what happened, but either Coleco released it to one or more user groups once they had discontinued all work on the Adam or it was leaked by a former Coleco employee to one of the user groups and it was shared via the user groups. As I said, I have not thoroughly read through all of the materials yet, only quickly pulling out the Peek/Poke and Call addresses. At some point I will go back and read that info. more thoroughly, but that is what I was able to glean from what little I have read. I personally had not heard about V2.0 until a couple of months ago.

As an aside, now I regret not joining any of the user groups that used to advertise in Family Computing (the only magazine that I had found that had any Adam support). Being a naive kid, I thought those user groups were mainly regional (they had regional names) and none were near where I lived, I didn't put 2 and 2 together that they would actually mail their newsletters anywhere in the country, as long as you paid your subscription.

May 3

@timepilot Personally, no clue. There are other AppleSoft commands that are not used that I found funny/interesting in my investigations through the various newsletters. SHLOAD - loads the Shape Table in AppleSoft, but while not used in SB is still considered a command; RECALL N (where "N" is a valid variable name), & STORE N - again same thing, these are considered valid commands but are not actually used in SB.

My personal guess is that they added them into SB with the intention to make it more AS compatible, but because SB was rushed, they did not get a chance to actually implement them into the interpreter. Or they were pulled because they were scared it was too much like AS that it may cause a copyright infringement suit. I know that it was mentioned in some of the newsletters that they had information from some of the Adam developers to map out the memory locations and other physical parts of the Adam and perhaps they even provided insight into SB as well and that info. is actually answered in one of those newsletters. I have not read through them, only browsed through picking up the CALL's, and PEEK's/POKE's out.

What gets me is that the V2.0 of SB is not compatible with V1.0. I don't know if that means it's even less AS compatible or why they would do that. I have not dug into V2.0 since my Adam came with 1.0 and that's what I learned on and all I'm really interested in, but I may get more curious later.

April 30

9 hours ago, timepilot said:

Once one surmounts the catastrophic power surges, the unreliability of the tape media, and placing the PSU in the printer(!), the Adam is an incredible computer, especially for its day. The best pre-NES home video game system in America, plus a competent word processor, plus an AppleSoft-compatible (but for the incompatibility of the PEEK, POKE, and CALL commands as a result of the different processor) BASIC, plus the graphics, sound, and sprite capabilities that blast the 8-bit Apple II line out of the water. And I say that as someone who very much came to love the Apple II line when my copy of SmartBASIC failed, it was impossible to find a replacement, and I switched to the Apple IIe out of necessity.

Graphics and sound even equal to un-enhanced ColecoVision cartridges was impossible on a stock 8-bit Apple II. I wonder whether, if Coleco had released the Adam with a disk drive and not locked software developers into such a restrictive non-disclosure/non-disparagement agreement, could the Adam have eaten Apple's and Commodore's lunch? And become the basis (with occasional expansion modules) for the next five years of the American video game industry?

Or maybe that is all just silliness. After all, the Apple IIgs and Amiga would have represented a leap forward that would have left the Adam behind anyway, IBM was already entrenched in offices, and the Apple II line had a huge head start on both software development and hardware (expansion card) development. And the video game crash decimated the whole industry.

Other than remembering I had an issue with my Dragon's Lair tape, I don't believe I ran into any of the catastrophic power surges. I want to say that the cassette drive ate my DL tape and not that it was erased. And I was NOT biaching about my Adam, I actually liked a lot about it, still. I have been playing with Virtual Adam lately, since I don't have anywhere to setup my actual Adam, assuming it will still function after being in boxes since 1989.

It is kinda funny that one of my complaints about it was that if I needed to do a short paper for school, it took longer to do on the Adam than if I just typed it using my electronic typewriter (which I got after the Adam because while the Adam made a decent typewriter/WP, I recall trying to use it to fill out preprinted forms and having limited success, so my parents got me a typewriter when I had to fill out a lot of forms to apply for colleges). The Adam was my first and only computer until I got the PC from college. The funny part is, I ended up with the same complaint about that PC. A one to three page report I could bang out in about 15 minutes on the typewriter took a minimum of 1/2 hour with either computer.

One thing you bring up that I kinda disagree with, though, and perhaps I am missing something and perhaps I am bringing up an old argument, although I have not seen it brought up in any of the old newsletters. I think the main reason that SB was not fully Applesoft compatible was more likely due to fear of copyright infringement or that SB would end up taking more memory. Especially when it comes to the PEEK/POKE addresses. From what I have been able to put together, many (though certainly not all, I have found a few examples of where they are the same) of the PEEK/POKE addresses between V1.0 and V2.0 were different, if it was entirely processor dependent wouldn't they be the same out of necessity? The few V2.0 CALL's I have been able to find appear to be the same as the V1.0, I think, so there is some validity to the argument of processor dependence in that regard. Anyway, my argument that Coleco could have made SB more AS compatible is with the understanding that the Basic interpreter is between the code and the machine language. SB's interpreter could have been written in such a way that when you PEEK(#) it automatically redirects to the correct address so that the same # used for that PEEK in AS is the same # used in SB. Of course, that likely would have taken up more memory space leaving less memory for your program to occupy, which is a real concern since RAM memory was precious back then. CALL's may be a bit more difficult, but I believe they probably could also be handled similarly. Perhaps I am missing something in my assumptions because I am not a computer or software engineer, but after trying to catalog all the PEEK/POKE addresses and CALL's that I can scrounge up from the old newsletters, that was my thought.

As soon as I can get it in some semblance of shape, I plan on releasing on SmartBasic.net an Excel spreadsheet of all the PEEK/POKE and CALL addresses that I have compiled from the various newsletters, for both V1.0 and V2.0 as well as Apple -> Adam conversions where possible. So far it is quite extensive as I have exhausted all the newsletters from Blenke's (again, sorry if I misspelled your last name) website and am currently going through the ANN newsletters (about 2/3 through 1993). The advantage of putting it in Excel is that I am hoping to set it up to sort via different items, say sort the HGR related PEEK/POKE addresses, sort them via address # for V1 or V2, etc. Anyway, I only mention that because when I talk above about how I believe Coleco could have made SB more compatible with AS Basic, despite the different processors, it is because I have been really digging deep into the PEEK/POKE and CALL's for SB to catalog them and then thinking about how I understand Basic to work (which I totally admit I might be way off base about) and I should also say that I am not seeking to start up an argument on that point, only provide another POV and am open minded enough to learn where my POV may be skewed since all of the material, both from professional publications and user group newsletters, state that it was due to the different processors.

April 30

1 hour ago, Tempest said:

I converted all my tapes to disks and never looked back. I do love the tapes, but their unreliability worries me.

I wish I had done that. I didn't know how to do that at the time and I thought all those Adam software adverts in Family Computer were fly by night companies, so I never trusted them. I have been going through some of the old user group newsletters (Thanks Joe Blenke(? sorry if I misspelled your name)) and see now just HOW mistaken I was in my naive youth.

Should be "Family Computing" magazine.

April 30

2 hours ago, adamcon said:

You guys (and gals) need to get a good ADAM or two. I have never had all these problems with the ADAM; maybe I am just lucky. I leave data packs in drives for boot purposes, use the original printer/ps on 2 different systems setup, and have had virtually no data pack failures that I can remember. I am KEEPING my fingers crossed here!!! 🙂

To be honest, I did not have those problems experienced by others, and I used mine back in the day. Unfortunately, when I started college in 1989, I had only one computer desk and my college gave us freshmen new PC's, so the Adam had to go into boxes with the hope of putting it back together again once I got my own house. Have the house, still waiting for the day to be able to put the Adam back together.

The only problem that I think I had was, and my memory is fuzzy, is I think the tape drive ate my Dragon's Lair tape. I don't believe it erased it due to the EMP surge, I believe it ate it like a cassette deck can eat a music cassette.

April 29

I like the SB on cartridge idea, the cartridge is probably how Coleco should have handled SB originally and just included a blank tape (or two) for saving SB programs. If I ever setup my Adam again, I might consider purchasing such a beast. Not sure if the SB on cartridge that is mentioned already has this feature, but better would be to include alternate SB's (minimum of 1.0 and 2.0, although additional bonus for including the variants by created by fans based on 1.0 and 2.0) with a menu to select which one to load.

I will say that I don't disagree with Coleco's reasoning for having the Adam boot to a word-processor (well, technically electric typewriter). I admit I don't think I ever thought of this back in the day when I used my Adam, but having the computer boot to a menu where you choose which you'd prefer to boot to (i.e. SB or SW), would have been the best of both worlds, of course that might mean they would have needed to use either a larger ROM (capacity not necessarily physical size) or two ROM's. Oh, what could have been, had they actually taken the time to refine it it before shipping it.

March 27

18 hours ago, NIAD said:

SmartBasic is compatible as it was supplied by Coleco with all sizes of disks or disk images that include 320K, 360K, 720K, 1.2Mb, 1.44Mb... no patches are required. Place the SmartBasic disk image in disk drive #1 and the 320K disk image in disk drive #2 in virtual Adam and boot. Once SmartBasic is loaded, enter CATALOG,D6 and the directory of the 320K disk image will be displayed and IIRC it will list 318 Blocks Free. In order to use these larger sized disks on a real ADAM, you would need a disk drive that has been upgraded with 320K drive mechanics and firmware.

OK, that is what I did and it still did not recognize the 320K image, for some reason. It recognized the 160K right away. When I would type "catalog,d6" it gave an I/O error. I will try it again. Perhaps it was because it was an image created by Adam Image Manager? Again, I'll try it both ways, creating an image from AIM and also a d/l'd image from adamarchive.

Really, the only two reasons why I wanted to load SB from a ddp was to, first confirm my memory of being able to do that back in the day and second to troubleshoot why booting using a SB disk image, I still could not see the 320K disk image. Since the article in AUG made it sound like SB needed the "dos" disk included with the drive to be able to work with the disk drive, I thought it loaded some extensions into RAM that SB needed to be able to access the disk drive (under the assumption that in the rush to get the Adam to market, Coleco left out the capability to use a disk drive). However, when I still could not read the disk, I knew it had to be something else that went wrong, so when I was able to have SB access the 160K disk image created by AIM and not the 320K disk image, I concluded, wrongly apparently, that SB cannot access it. Other than that, I really don't wish to go through all of that to boot to SB, I'll just use the disk image and keep my blanks in one of the other drives.

At this point, I am not sure I will ever feel the need to actually write a disk image to be used my Adam. Not sure I'll ever set it back up, though it is on my bucket list.

BTW, I don't mean to go off topic, but are you a member of SmartBasic.net? I registered for an account there a week ago, yesterday and it still has not been approved. I used the form on the site to contact the administrator and still have not heard if I needed to do anything else. I keep checking my Spam folder and trying to log into the site and my account is still inactive. I see some fairly new comments there (from earlier in this month) but am wondering if its pretty much a defunct forum or if the Admin is busy.

Thanks,

Paul

March 27

Thanks, I'll give it a try.

March 26

On 3/24/2021 at 9:40 AM, FmrAdamuser said:

OK, then the reason I never ran into that issue is likely because I added the disk after. I only bought one disk drive for my Adam, so I needed to use the cassette for SB and saved my basic programs on the disk.

Issue #2 from first post is resolved!

Unlike what I suspected was happening in my previous post, I found the answer to my question while investigating why I still could not get SB to recognize the second disk I wanted to load/save SB code to. Thinking there was something I was forgetting about the "Catalog" command that I spent about an hour going through some old Adam newsletters and found my answer in one of the issues between #3 and #5 of the Adam User Group's newsletter that reminded me that the disk drive came with a rudimentary "dos" disk that was needed for SB and SmartWriter to be able to "see" the disk drive. Which confirmed what I knew, that I did not have a separate SB disk. After about an hour of searching adamarchive.org and passing over a file called "AdamDiskManager (1984) (Coleco).dsk" over on adamarchive.org, I decided to give it a try and when I put that disk in drive #1, and boot it up. While I can't say that all my memories came flooding back, I did see a very familiar screen and did have some memories come back. It was a rudimentary, quasi-gui that allowed you to use the special keys to select different actions, and you could use the cursor keys to select any files or programs shown. The special keys allowed you to switch between disks and datapacks and allowed you to run SB from the datapack or essentially exit the dos and go to SW. Anyway, now I remember that that is how I used to use SB and my DD together since I only had (have) a basic Adam system with a single cassette drive and single disk drive.

In the end, I find you don't need all that, but it helped me to diagnose that I was using the wrong blank disk format. I had selected the 320K disk format under the assumption that someone had found a way to get double the capacity out of it, but still be backward compatible with SB. Unless I am missing something, it is apparent the original verison of SB is not compatible with that format of disk. Once I switched to a 160K format disk, I was able to simply book SB using the disk image version in disk drive #1 and was able to read the disk in #2 using the "catalog,d6" command. Took a long road to figure it out since I have not played with Adam stuff, literally, since 1989 (except for playing just the roms on emulators, not trying to actually use SB).

Sorry about being long winded, but it has been a bit of a journey re-learning the in's and out's of an Adam, even virtually.

Thank you for your help,

Paul

March 26

18 hours ago, NIAD said:

AdamDsk is no longer supported by it’s author and Eric Pearson released a much better Windows utility for working with Adam images files called Adam Image Manager.

Thank you, I did find AIM and it was giving me issues which I why I was searching for an alternate. I finally got it to work, but I had to downgrade to 1.0 instead of using 1.1. Whenever I tried to add a file to an Adam disk image, the app would close itself with no error message and without writing the file. Using v1.0 will write the file and not crash. If there's a newer version than 1.1 (which I found on adamarchive.org), I would appreciate a pointer to it so I can give it a try.

Thank you, again,

Paul

March 25

Is this still available anywhere? Apparently Codeplex is shutting down and this is no longer available from those links.

Thanks,

Paul

March 24

13 hours ago, jblenkle said:

Yes, the real ADAM does that. It looks for bootable media in Disk 1 first. If Disk 1 is empty then it will check for Disk 2, Data Drive 1 and lastly Data Drive 2

OK, then the reason I never ran into that issue is likely because I added the disk after. I only bought one disk drive for my Adam, so I needed to use the cassette for SB and saved my basic programs on the disk.

March 24

Thank you both for your help. I will try those other emulators. I saw over on the Adamarchive that there are disk images of the original SB, so I assume someone already converted a .ddp image over to a .dsk image. It's a workaround I can use. However, being able to add disks without exiting would be handy, but not sure it is something I would do much of.

March 23

1 hour ago, jblenkle said:

The author of Virtual ADAM abandoned any development of it years ago. That's why it's stuck in the "world" of an older version of NET Framework.

As for your booting problem...if you put a blank disk or some other kind of disk in and are trying to boot from a ddp image, ADAM defaults to the disk drive so it's going to try to boot the disk. If it's blank or is a non-bootable disk, it's going to drop into SmartWriter.

Thank you for that. Is that how the actual Adam behaves? I forgot when I posted my original question that I likely booted to SB and then inserted a disk once it was booted, so I likely never ran into this when I was actually using my Adam. Unfortunately, this is not something that looks like it can be done using the emulator, once its booted, it does not appear I can add another disk or cassette.

I am waiting for my membership to be approved over at Smartbasic.net, I will let the Admin over there know about the issue with .NET. Since it looks like he also maintains the Adamarchive.org site, perhaps he'd be willing to bundle the correct .NET with VA or at least keep it alongside VA.

Thanks again for your help,

Paul

March 23

53 minutes ago, jblenkle said:

I think I just answered this in another post...but...

If you are trying to boot SmartBasic from a ddp and have any kind of disk inserted elsewhere, ADAM is going to try to boot the disk. so if it's a blank, non-bootable disk, it's going to go to SmartWriter. The disk always boots first over a ddp.

OK, if you answered that in the thread I created, I will respond there. Thanks.

BTW, I dragged and dropped SB 1.0 with disk enhancements.dsk to CoolCV and it booted into SB. Do other cassette images work with CoolCV? Like Buck Rogers, Dragon's Lair, etc.?

March 23

1 hour ago, intvdave said:

I use AdamEM to handle multiple disk/ddps. I believe I have accessed 4 drives with it. I do not believe CoolCV handles more than one drive.

OK, thanks. I have been using Virtual Adam which I believe is a frontend for AdamEm. I posted about the issue I was having over in that thread. I am able to run SB 1.0 with disk enhancements disk image in one disk drive with a blank floppy in the other drive, but not with the SB ddp image and a blank disk in one of the drives (tried all 4). It will only boot to SW like that, take out the disk and try it again and it boots right to the SB. Perhaps its the mixing of cassette image to disk. I want to say, and it has been a couple of decades since I used my actual Adam, that I believe I was able to use my SB cassette with my Adam floppy disk drive.

March 23

I have two issues with Virtual Adam, one I was able to address on my own, but I wanted to bring it to people's attention. The first issue was installing VA. It appears to look for a specific version of MS Framework .NET, version 2.0. I tried to load newer versions to see if the installer would allow the program to install and it would not. It took some digging but I did finally find a version of .NET that would work, 2.0.6, I think. I emailed the creator of VA yesterday to let him know. I recommended either, if it was possible to do easily, modify the install to not look for a specific version of .NET or to bundle the correct version of .NET with it, since it is several generations old and at some point I expect MS will drop it from its website. Anyway, after getting the right version of .NET, the installation went fine and it does work fine. Per another thread on the subject, you do need to install it into a folder that you have full access to or you will get an error.

Issue #2 I accidentally found a workaround, but still have a question for anyone who uses it. I had been trying to use SmartBasic v. 1.0, cassette image (.ddp file). The version is plain "1.0", not 1.x or 1.0 with the disk access enhancements. Anyway, SB boots fine when it is the only thing in one of the drives. When I include a blank disk image or a disk image that I put a text file in, it no longer boots to SB but boots to Smartwriter. And, no, I do not have the "Boot to WP" checked. If I remove the virtual disk and try booting to SB, it works, add the disk, it does not work. The work around I found was that I accidentally put in a disk image of SB 1.0 with disk enhancements and I was able to boot to SB with the blank disk image in another drive. That may be the only way it will work, but I was wondering if anyone is able to use a .ddp SB image and a blank disk image in a disk drive together? I have yet to try to use a blank .ddp image and try booting with the original SB.ddp and a blank.ddp together.

I am running VA 1.03 on a Windows 10 laptop. Windows tells me that I fully up-to-date.

Thank you,

Paul

Sign In

Profiles

Member Map

Forums

Blogs

Gallery

Calendar

Store

Posts posted by FmrAdamuser