Does anyone use their Adam other than to play games?

[jeremysart]

Just curious what people may be using their Adams for, other than to play Colecovision games or DDP games.

 

Does anyone actually use DDP's to store digital information? I thought it would be pretty cool and dorky to store all of my favorite game codes on to a DDP.

 

It seemed like yesterday that Radioshack sold DDP's & 5 1/4 floppies..

[Murph74]

I still have a bunch of my old school papers and such on DDP from some 20 years ago. Damn-- thanks Jeremy-- now I feel old! lol

[jeremysart]

Thanks for the reply.

Heh, dont feel bad, I have some stuff backed up on 5 1/4 for the 1200XL. I think one of my floppies alone is the instructions on how to get my bootleg copy of space shuttle to run.

[coleconut]

Just curious what people may be using their Adams for, other than to play Colecovision games or DDP games.

 

Does anyone actually use DDP's to store digital information? I thought it would be pretty cool and dorky to store all of my favorite game codes on to a DDP.

 

It seemed like yesterday that Radioshack sold DDP's & 5 1/4 floppies..

 

Whereas I dont usually have a Colecovision hooked up at any given point in time, I always have the ADAM ready to go, and yes to play CV carts either on the cart but just as often from disk. Also use the ADAM to test hardware as I have some diagnostic software. Once in a while I will boot up something else for the heck of it. I also have 2 hard drives but never got them up and running because I lack the necessary card and cant seem to find anyone who has a spare....

[Bill Loguidice]

I no longer trust DDP's for storing anything, in fact I never really did. Too easy to get corrupted. That's why I'm thankful I have a disk drive.

 

Since I have a stand-alone power supply now, I'll often use my Adam over my ColecoVision for the better video output.

[+remowilliams]

Does anyone use their Adam other than to play games?

 

Really giant bookends?

[Tempest]

I used mine to play Infocom games via CP/M once (I think it was Deadline). True I'm still playing games on it, but I'm using the CP/M DDP to do it.

 

Unfortunately there isn't really much good productivity software for the ADAM and what there is pales in comparison to programs available for other systems like the Apple or Atari. The ADAM got the short end of both sticks it would appear.

 

Tempest

[Bill Loguidice]

Well, the Adam wasn't out long enough to have much depth to its productivity offerings, but - especially for a system effectively on the market for just a year - it did have all of the necessary points covered, including word processor, spreadsheet and database, though generally in "home user" strength. Semi-pro third parties filled in most of the rest towards the end of/after the system's demise. Of course you add to the mix 40 column CP/M and the possibilities open up considerably. The fact that its Smart BASIC is semi-compatible with Applesoft BASIC and further possibilities open up.

 

With all that said, the Adam will always be a poorly constructed computer platform with a lot of potential and some glaring flaws (the power supply/printer thing and data packs being the two biggest in my book), whose future possibilities were probably most closely realized in the MSX specification.

[Rik]

There was a complete boxed ADAM at the thrift a while ago for only $7.99.I decided against buying it because of the headaches,bugs,difficulty getting supplies,etc.I'm kicking myself for NOT getting it because I heard after the fact of how good the Cartridge player part of it is.I would have used it just for games.The guy there did say everything worked.

Edited December 5, 2009 by Rik

[lhfreak]

I remember doing school papers on the ADAM when I was in high school. I would finish late at night and then print the whole thing.....I had to keep the door closed because of the racket that printer made LOL!!! These days I just bring it out for atari parties for game playing only...

[Bill Loguidice]

I used my Adam for school papers too for a while in high school, at least some of the time. The C-64 was my primary system for the longest time, but I picked up a cheap, second-hand Adam. Obviously back then dot matrix printers had inferior text to daisy wheel printers, which were typewriter quality. The printer I had for my C-64 was only 9-pin (versus top of the line 24-pin printers) and I would often cheat to get better output from it, mostly involving carbon paper. If you printed on the carbon paper, what came out on the other side would help the dots merge. I also used GEOS to print text graphically on the MPS-803 dot matrix printer, which helped dramatically (it was a reasonable simulation of laser output, if not as dark). Anyway, other than the buggy word processor and frequent crashes, the Adam was pretty good and at least an improvement over having to mess around with a typewriter (I stopped using a typewriter by 6th grade, when I had my C-64). By the time college rolled around, I used my Amiga and a nice color dot matrix printer, before eventually ending up with a 386 SX-20 laptop with Okidata printer (laser class) through to the end.