ADAM'S Desktop?

[ChuckH]

Have you tried other dedicated ADAM cartridges like SmartBasic 1.1. There is a possibility that the ADAM emulators do not work with dedicated ADAM cartridge rom images.

 

I tried the image that you provided of SmartBASIC V1.1 and it would not boot up in either CoolCV or AdamEM. Version 1.0 works though. BTW, there is no separate CoolCV emulator for Adam. It just works for ColecoVision or Adam. SG-1000 roms as well.

[NIAD]

Looks like the archiving of Walters Software titles that are copy protected has hit a wall. I was passed on info to try Copy II PC to make good disk images, but I had already tried that program with an add-on for making disk images about five years ago to no avail. Maybe it was the version of Copy II PC that I was using, but I doubt it and used to use the PC version back in the 80s to make backup copies of these specific titles in question.

 

I also remember reading up about a Copy II PC hardware board for the PC, but never looked into it any further.

 

So anyway, if anyone has some thoughts on this, please share.

[HDTV1080P]

Looks like the archiving of Walters Software titles that are copy protected has hit a wall. I was passed on info to try Copy II PC to make good disk images, but I had already tried that program with an add-on for making disk images about five years ago to no avail. Maybe it was the version of Copy II PC that I was using, but I doubt it and used to use the PC version back in the 80s to make backup copies of these specific titles in question.

 

I also remember reading up about a Copy II PC hardware board for the PC, but never looked into it any further.

 

So anyway, if anyone has some thoughts on this, please share.

 

I am all for Walters Software and other companies protecting their hard work by using copy protection for the ADAM computer (back in the 80's and even more today software piracy is a real problem). But now in the 21^st Century decades later we have gotten permission to release Walters Software products for the ADAM computer into public domain, and are unable to because of 80’ copy protection technology that should easily be removed with modern technology.

 

When I get some time I well try and copy the 3.5 inch 720K and 1.44MB disks I have with the copy protection. If I am unable to remove the copy protection technique or find a way to make the copies run, then I well copy the entire ADAM 1.44MB disks and upload it online with information of where the bad blocks are suppose to be located. I know exactly where the bad blocks are located because File Manager tells me. One day in the future in theory a ADAM hacker well figure out how to insert the bad blocks onto the upload disk images or how to remove the copy protection bad block checking technique.

 

In answer to Jims comment in another post and thread, I have the original modified rom images of Defender and Super Cobra that Jim Marshall patched to work on the standalone ADAM. It was not lost to the ages. I did not know someone re-patched those games 5 years ago. I have them on a 3.5 inch 1.44MB disks, along with possible other things like a working version of the Coleco Super Action controller Tester that is actually uses 4KB of useable space for the program (I also have a cartridge rom image of Coleco’s unreleased Project Name by Line).

 

I have another issue now. I need to find a working Micro Innovations 1.44MB 3.5 inch floppy drive. The original one I purchased back in 1991 was working fine, but somewhere around a decade ago I wanted to turn my working 320K 5.25 inch Micro Innovations disk drive into a 3.5 inch 1.44MB disk drive, and so I took the working 1.44 inch 3.5 inch drive apart to look at the design. However when I took the cover off from the 1.44MB 3.5 inch drive I forgot about either Mark Gordon or someone else mentioning that there was some type of booby trap on the 1.44MB drives when one takes off the top cover. There is a copy protection booby trap wire that would change the software code to prevent someone from copying the floppy disk drive design (It’s my understanding that only Micro Innovations knew how to open and repair the drives without that short cable coming off the circuit board). I was not trying to copy the drive design but only wanted to in the early 21^st Century modify a late 80’s Micro Innovations 320K 5.25 inch disk drive to become a 3.5 inch 1.44MB drive for my own use. When I took the perfectly working 1.44MB 3.5 inch Micro Innovations drive apart, I discovered that there was some type of jumper wire cable that comes loose when the cover to the disk drive is removed. I could never get that 1.44MB disk drive working again properly after taking the cover off. The 320K and 720K models do not have that booby trap feature. Many years ago I purchase a couple of 3.5 inch 1.44MB Micro Innovations drives off EBAY and since my ADAM was in storage I did not get a chance to use them (I also paid at least double the list price for these rare drives off EBAY). When I pulled my ADAM out of storage many years later, I discovered that those two 1.44MB drives I got off EBAY were not working properly and I am working on fixing them. Therefore, I got a total of three 3.5 inch 1.44MB disk drives and I am trying to get one to work.

 

So to make a long story short I have a total of 4 Micro Innovations disk drives (One 320K 5.25 inch drive that works perfectly, but only 1% of my software is on 5.25 inch disks). I have a total of 3 Micro Innovations 1.44MB 3.5 inch disk drives that are defective (One 3.5 inch 1.44MB drive that was destroyed when I took the cover off and the jumper wire came loose, and it is not working even after the partial repair by a third party many years ago). I have two 3.5 inch 1.44MB Micro Innovations drives that are either defective from when I bought them off EBAY or defective after sitting around for 10 years since electronics do age.

 

These Micro Innovations disk drives are very reliable; however anything can break over many decades.

 

Therefore, my goal is to somehow take the three defective 3.5 inch 1.44MB Micro Innovations disk drives and to take them apart and try and make one working drive so that I can copy disk images to a MicroFox Virtual MicroSD disk drive emulator. I am afraid to take the two other disk drives apart in case I run into the booby trap jumper issue hardware copy protection technology (It is my understanding that feature was only placed on the 1.44MB disk drives. Some of the chips on those disk drives are also copy protected and cannot be read from what I have been told). I am hoping that it’s the disk drive itself, since that should be fairly easy to repair instead of the disk drive motherboard. If I cannot not get these disk drives fixed myself, maybe I can send the three defective drives to some classic computer repair shop that would at least be able to get one 3.5 inch 1.44MB disk drive working. Since Micro Innovations is no longer supporting these products, can anyone recommend a company that repairs stuff like this?

 

Now if there was a Windows emulator for the ADAM computer that actually could read 1.44MB 3.5 inch disks (not disk images, but the actual physical disks), that would be awesome. Can any ADAM emulator for Windows read 3.5 inch disks if one has a USB 1.44MB 3.5 inch disk drive?

Edited May 30, 2018 by HDTV1080P

[jblenkle]

I seem to remember trying that and I did get it to work. But I had to dig a very old computer out of the closet to make the copy. It would not work on the emachines computer I generally read/write disk images with from/to real disks, but it would work with the older computer and Copy II PC.

 

But all I succeeded in doing was copying the copy protected disk. I still couldn't make a .dsk image from it.

 

Looks like the archiving of Walters Software titles that are copy protected has hit a wall. I was passed on info to try Copy II PC to make good disk images, but I had already tried that program with an add-on for making disk images about five years ago to no avail. Maybe it was the version of Copy II PC that I was using, but I doubt it and used to use the PC version back in the 80s to make backup copies of these specific titles in question.

 

I also remember reading up about a Copy II PC hardware board for the PC, but never looked into it any further.

 

So anyway, if anyone has some thoughts on this, please share.

[HDTV1080P]

I seem to remember trying that and I did get it to work. But I had to dig a very old computer out of the closet to make the copy. It would not work on the emachines computer I generally read/write disk images with from/to real disks, but it would work with the older computer and Copy II PC.

 

But all I succeeded in doing was copying the copy protected disk. I still couldn't make a .dsk image from it.

 

So the technology exists to make a exact disk copy of a 1.44MB, 720K, 320K, and 160K disk with the bad blocks being copied. But it sounds like your are saying that one cannot make a disk image on a SD card or hard drive since the bad blocks could not be copied to that media. This means that someone has to manually modify the ADAM software to remove the copy protection technology that checks for bad blocks. Then if that occurs it well run from a hard drive and SD card as a disk image. It could take several weeks for a programmer to figure out how to remove the copy protection.

Edited May 30, 2018 by HDTV1080P

[NIAD]

Yes Shon. It was and still is possible to make 1:1 disk backup copies of protected software using Copy II PC... but the PC you are using seems to be the determining factor if you will be successful. This could also be the determining factor for making a good disk image that will also contain the Bad Block like the original disk.

 

A programmer would have to disasemble each Walters program that is copy protected in order to find thr Bad Block check routine and then remove it. I don't see anyone dedicating that much time to perform such a tedious task. The only saving grace is that the code should be very clean due to the programming skills of Jim Walters versus other spaghetti coders that were around like Sol Swift.

 

I actually have more of the Walters titles on disk than I realized and they include: Adams Desk Top, SmartMate for Hard Drives (think the IDE version), Clip-Art Graphics Converter, SpellingAid, Print Works, Label Works, Disassembler, Formatter II, Vase of Turr, etc.

 

I'll take another look at these programs to see if there is anything I missed re. making a working disk image.

[HDTV1080P]

Has anyone tried to use TeleDisk to make backups of the copy protected stuff? It doesnt care about bad blacks - I know you cant access it via the emulator but it makes a backup copy.

 

Milli

I have not tried that program, but when I get time I well look into it. Thanks for the information.

[HDTV1080P]

It was and still is possible to make 1:1 disk backup copies of protected software using Copy II PC... but the PC you are using seems to be the determining factor if you will be successful. This could also be the determining factor for making a good disk image that will also contain the Bad Block like the original disk.

 

A programmer would have to disasemble each Walters program that is copy protected in order to find thr Bad Block check routine and then remove it. I don't see anyone dedicating that much time to perform such a tedious task. The only saving grace is that the code should be very clean due to the programming skills of Jim Walters versus other spaghetti coders that were around like Sol Swift.

 

I actually have more of the Walters titles on disk than I realized and they include: Adams Desk Top, SmartMate for Hard Drives (think the IDE version), Clip-Art Graphics Converter, SpellingAid, Print Works, Label Works, Disassembler, Formatter II, Vase of Turr, etc.

 

I'll take another look at these programs to see if there is anything I missed re. making a working disk image.

Check your private email, Jim Walters mentioned if we use his Media Aid and his Disassembler ADAM programmers (which I do not have), that if we dissemble block zero and send it to him, he most likely well be able to tell you for each program where the copy protection technology can be removed from the disk media so that the program can run from other media like SD, hard drives, and solid state drives. It might be only disk media that can write bad blocks on a special older DOS style IBM PC’s. The reason why Jim Walters at Walters Software used the bad block copy protection technology for the ADAM 160K-1.44MB disk drives, is because no ADAM disk drive was able to write a bad block to disk media when doing a disk image copy. This made Walters Software ADAM products copy proof for the many hundreds of thousands of people that only owned an ADAM computer. If one wanted to make a backup copy or an unauthorized pirated copy of Walters Software products, they had to find someone with a special IBM PC that could copy the entire disk image including the bad block techniques using a special computer program. However, Digital Data Packs to my knowledge never used any copy protection technology except for one company that came out with ADAM software that required both a cartridge and a disk or tape to be ran at the exact same time for each title they released or planned on releasing.

 

Last night I was up very late and one of the Micro Innovations 3.5 inch 1.44MB disk drives I own started working again. After decades, some of this ADAM equipment appears to be temperature sensitive with a slight change in room temperature can effect the performance of the disk drive. When I get sometime, I plan on using a wet automatic 3.5 inch disk head cleaner to clean the disk drive. All or most of the 80’s 3.5 inch disks are still working that I tried, but I have not tried every disk. Some of the cheaper generic blank media might have problems, but the name brand 1.44MB disks appear to be flawless even after being decades old.

 

I really need to place this project on hold for a few weeks or months, the ADAM was always time consuming and would take up all or most of my free time in the 80’s and early 90’s. That is starting to happen again as things get much more complicated with equipment that is 35 years old.

Edited May 30, 2018 by HDTV1080P

[HDTV1080P]

I have a couple of Walters carts, one for ramdisk and one to boot the powermate hard drive but not the one for Desktop.

 

Walters Software RAMDISK cartridge and Powermate hard drive cartridge rom images have not yet been uploaded into public domain. Maybe sometime in the future I could borrow those cartridges so that I could make them available to the ADAM community by using the ATARIMAX cartridge rom copying (dumping) utility.

 

I think someone on ATARIAGE did not have access to the Powermate hard drive cartridge, so they manually converted the Powermate hard drive MIB3 prom image to a cartridge rom image that runs on the USB and SD ATARIMAX cartridges. However still it would be nice to have the original cartridge rom that Walter made for Micro innovations.

 

To my knowledge there was only two self-booting eprom software programs made for the Micro Innovations MIB3 card. Powermate hard drive and Walters Software ADAM Dekstop were both avialible as official software for the MIB3 card (perhaps there was more, but that is all I remember at the time). Back in the late 80’s and even back in the late 90’s the ATARIMAX USB and SD cartridges did not exist, therefore having a MIB3 card with a eprom socket was a lower cost solution compared to spending $30+ on a dedicated ADAM cartridge for each software program that one wanted to instantly boot.

 

I do have the ADAM Desktop MIB3 eprom that was working the last time I tried it. When my new eprom reader gets here I plan on copying the software image and uploading it to public domain so that anyone with a MIB3 card can use the ADAM Desktop program. The way the MIB3 card works is that instead of Smartwriter always coming up when the ADAM computer is turned on, what every program one has installed in the MIB3 card prom socket when the ADAM is tuned on well instantly load if the jumper on the MIB3 card has the prom socket enabled.

Edited June 4, 2018 by HDTV1080P

[Mike Harris]

I know I am late to the conversation but back when I bartered for my first ADAM 1983? ish. I also bought Defender and of course it did not work.

 

However I later bought a pile of disks along with an original ADAM programing manual labeled top secret 1984 coleco which I still have.

This was some insider who upgraded to an Amiga and wanted to get rid of all his ADAM stuff.

 

Anyway, one of the disks had a version Defender that ran on the standalone ADAM.

I know because I played the thing every day.

 

Now, could it be a cartridge thing? A patched version or a revision 80 deal?

 

I have no way of testing because these days I just use an emulator.

[Mike Harris]

BTW...

All this talk of Copy Protection.

 

Exactly what?

I have yet to encounter any copy protection whatsoever in any coleco software.

 

Unless it was hardware based and I am well versed in every byte of that code.

 

My earlier programing days on the Amiga I was programing an ADAM emulator for the A1200 when Tigervision or some outfit that said they owned the Coleco brand back in 95?? asked me to make one for the PC and actually get paid.

Instead of making it chip emulator based my version took the OS calls and translated them to code that ran on the Amiga because an 020 was just too slow to do screen updates.

 

Anyway, long story rant...

Outside of an eprom there is no such thing as a copyprotected program on an ADAM.

I can copy anything just by using CPM with an assembly language copier I wrote way back. And even that includes the eprom.

That's how I backed up all my cartridges long before the hackers guide to the ADAM even surfaced.

[Mike Harris]

Running ADAM Desktop in MESS.

Mount Cartridge.

Says cant find dot matrix printer...continue

Ramdisk Tools

Boot Tools

 

Looks like it is using mode 2, 40 column mode if I remember my terminology from 30 years ago.

 

Neat, has an about...

Rev 1.1 Copywrite 1991

Walters Software Co.

Program by James N. Walters.

Actually at second glance this isn't 40 column mode.

The characters are normal size while mode 2 they are 2 bytes shorter.

256/6 = 40 columns

256/8 is standard that's why you only got 32 in Smartbasic and most other titles.

2001 used mode 2 I believe.

I've used it personally as well as 16x16 sprites in my toys.

 

I bet you didn't know that there were 2 other modes which one was a cross between graphics and text but had limitations due to memory transfers and I think was limited to 8 sprites in total.

Edited June 4, 2018 by Mike Harris

[HDTV1080P]

Yes Coleco and most third party companies never used any copy protection on the ColecoVision or ADAM computer. However some companies like Walter's Software in the late 80's and early 90's started copy protecting everything. The quality of Walter Software products is amazing and since he spent several months and sometimes over a year writing new programs for the ADAM, he decided to use copy protection. The ADAM computer disk drives between 160K-1.44MB could not write bad blocks when doing a image copy. So the copy protection was impossible for people to make a perfect copy of a copy protected disk if they only owned a ADAM computer. Now a very knowledgeable programmer with only a ADAM computer might have been able to spend several weeks manually removing the copy protection techniques that look for the bad blocks on the disk. That was the only way one would be able to get a copy to run on the ADAM computer (and to my knowledge I never heard of anyone being able to defeat the copy protection that Walters Software used). There might have been some ADAM owners back in the late 80's or early 90's that had a IBM DOS machine with a special program that could make a perfect copy of disk images that had bad blocks. But then again that is using another computer to make the backup copy of copy protected disks and not using the ADAM computer.

Edited June 4, 2018 by HDTV1080P

[Mike Harris]

 

I am all for Walters Software and other companies protecting their hard work by using copy protection for the ADAM computer (back in the 80's and even more today software piracy is a real problem). But now in the 21^st Century decades later we have gotten permission to release Walters Software products for the ADAM computer into public domain, and are unable to because of 80’ copy protection technology that should easily be removed with modern technology.

 

When I get some time I well try and copy the 3.5 inch 720K and 1.44MB disks I have with the copy protection. If I am unable to remove the copy protection technique or find a way to make the copies run, then I well copy the entire ADAM 1.44MB disks and upload it online with information of where the bad blocks are suppose to be located. I know exactly where the bad blocks are located because File Manager tells me. One day in the future in theory a ADAM hacker well figure out how to insert the bad blocks onto the upload disk images or how to remove the copy protection bad block checking technique.

 

In answer to Jims comment in another post and thread, I have the original modified rom images of Defender and Super Cobra that Jim Marshall patched to work on the standalone ADAM. It was not lost to the ages. I did not know someone re-patched those games 5 years ago. I have them on a 3.5 inch 1.44MB disks, along with possible other things like a working version of the Coleco Super Action controller Tester that is actually uses 4KB of useable space for the program (I also have a cartridge rom image of Coleco’s unreleased Project Name by Line).

 

I have another issue now. I need to find a working Micro Innovations 1.44MB 3.5 inch floppy drive. The original one I purchased back in 1991 was working fine, but somewhere around a decade ago I wanted to turn my working 320K 5.25 inch Micro Innovations disk drive into a 3.5 inch 1.44MB disk drive, and so I took the working 1.44 inch 3.5 inch drive apart to look at the design. However when I took the cover off from the 1.44MB 3.5 inch drive I forgot about either Mark Gordon or someone else mentioning that there was some type of booby trap on the 1.44MB drives when one takes off the top cover. There is a copy protection booby trap wire that would change the software code to prevent someone from copying the floppy disk drive design (It’s my understanding that only Micro Innovations knew how to open and repair the drives without that short cable coming off the circuit board). I was not trying to copy the drive design but only wanted to in the early 21^st Century modify a late 80’s Micro Innovations 320K 5.25 inch disk drive to become a 3.5 inch 1.44MB drive for my own use. When I took the perfectly working 1.44MB 3.5 inch Micro Innovations drive apart, I discovered that there was some type of jumper wire cable that comes loose when the cover to the disk drive is removed. I could never get that 1.44MB disk drive working again properly after taking the cover off. The 320K and 720K models do not have that booby trap feature. Many years ago I purchase a couple of 3.5 inch 1.44MB Micro Innovations drives off EBAY and since my ADAM was in storage I did not get a chance to use them (I also paid at least double the list price for these rare drives off EBAY). When I pulled my ADAM out of storage many years later, I discovered that those two 1.44MB drives I got off EBAY were not working properly and I am working on fixing them. Therefore, I got a total of three 3.5 inch 1.44MB disk drives and I am trying to get one to work.

 

So to make a long story short I have a total of 4 Micro Innovations disk drives (One 320K 5.25 inch drive that works perfectly, but only 1% of my software is on 5.25 inch disks). I have a total of 3 Micro Innovations 1.44MB 3.5 inch disk drives that are defective (One 3.5 inch 1.44MB drive that was destroyed when I took the cover off and the jumper wire came loose, and it is not working even after the partial repair by a third party many years ago). I have two 3.5 inch 1.44MB Micro Innovations drives that are either defective from when I bought them off EBAY or defective after sitting around for 10 years since electronics do age.

 

These Micro Innovations disk drives are very reliable; however anything can break over many decades.

 

Therefore, my goal is to somehow take the three defective 3.5 inch 1.44MB Micro Innovations disk drives and to take them apart and try and make one working drive so that I can copy disk images to a MicroFox Virtual MicroSD disk drive emulator. I am afraid to take the two other disk drives apart in case I run into the booby trap jumper issue hardware copy protection technology (It is my understanding that feature was only placed on the 1.44MB disk drives. Some of the chips on those disk drives are also copy protected and cannot be read from what I have been told). I am hoping that it’s the disk drive itself, since that should be fairly easy to repair instead of the disk drive motherboard. If I cannot not get these disk drives fixed myself, maybe I can send the three defective drives to some classic computer repair shop that would at least be able to get one 3.5 inch 1.44MB disk drive working. Since Micro Innovations is no longer supporting these products, can anyone recommend a company that repairs stuff like this?

 

Now if there was a Windows emulator for the ADAM computer that actually could read 1.44MB 3.5 inch disks (not disk images, but the actual physical disks), that would be awesome. Can any ADAM emulator for Windows read 3.5 inch disks if one has a USB 1.44MB 3.5 inch disk drive?

 

 

The 80 track limitation is just a feature of the adam disk drive and not a copy protection.

 

It is still just a disk.

 

If I were you I would seek out someone with a compatible ADAM drive and get their help grabbing the files because they have sat there for that long a while longer won't hurt. No one is clamoring for Walters Software.

 

Or, if there is no dust or debris inside the disk you can take a chance.

Using A REAL dos based computer and a REAL disk drive you can use regular dos commands to copy ADAM disks.

I've done it and that is how I transferred all my old software over to my computer before I tossed it all in the trash when I went into the Army.

I copied everything including my smartbasic, logo, cpm, EVERYTHING...trust me it does work.

 

This is the problem with you younger generation who pick up my old toys.

The ADAM was cool in the day but most people gravitated to the C64 but I was at the beginning.

Feel free to ask questions.

Edited June 4, 2018 by Mike Harris

[Mike Harris]

Yes Coleco and most third party companies never used any copy protection on the ColecoVision or ADAM computer. However some companies like Walter's Software in the late 80's and early 90's started copy protecting everything. The quality of Walter Software products is amazing and since he spent several months and sometimes over a year writing new programs for the ADAM, he decided to use copy protection. The ADAM computer disk drives between 160K-1.44MB could not write bad blocks when doing a image copy. So the copy protection was impossible for people to make a perfect copy of a copy protected disk if they only owned a ADAM computer. Now a very knowledgeable programmer with only a ADAM computer might have been able to spend several weeks manually removing the copy protection techniques that look for the bad blocks on the disk. That was the only way one would be able to get a copy to run on the ADAM computer (and to my knowledge I never heard of anyone being able to defeat the copy protection that Walters Software used). There might have been some ADAM owners back in the late 80's or early 90's that had a IBM DOS machine with a special program that could make a perfect copy of disk images that had bad blocks. But then again that is using another computer to make the backup copy of copy protected disks and not using the ADAM computer.

 

If you know then you know.

I haven't made a Coleco program in over 30 years or so.

That said...

If you can't disassemble a 32k program and weed out the protection within 24 hours then...

 

Otherwise I highly suggest that someone grab an old 286 from one of these recycle drop off points and copy the disks.

 

As far as I am familiar with EOS accessing bad blocks on a disk would mean that you can't use a DDP.

And that it would have to directly access the drives emprom to check for bad disks.

Then you would have to have a custom disk writer.

Just thoughts off the top of my head but it seems like over kill.

[Mike Harris]

So at the moment are you guys saying you can't get the software off the disk or just copy the disk as a whole?

 

Because if I had a copy of the software I can try disassembling it and bypass the checks just to get it to work.

But all I have is an emulator so I can't account for an actual machine.

 

It's short work considering all it is is old z80 code.

[HDTV1080P]

It is my understanding that many of the modern PC's cannot make a backup copy of disks with bad blocks, however some people with very old IBM DOS PC's and perhaps other select models are able to backup the copy protected disks. However the problem is it is my understanding that writing bad blocks to SD media, hard drives, and solid state drives is not possible. Therefore someone would still need to remove the copy protection from the disk image so that it can be transferred to PC media that does not have bad blocks. Many of Walter Software products are designed not to not load the program into memory if those bad blocks do not exist on the media, and that is why the program needs modified so the software well run on a ADAM or ADAM emulator.

 

When I get time Jim Walter well help with this project. I am putting this project off for awhile.

[NIAD]

I finally have a free night from coaching multiple baseball teams and will get started on disassembling all Block #0s of the Walters Software programs that I have on 5 1/4" disk. This is where the Bad Block check routine resides.

 

Data Packs were specially formatted, I think by E&T Software if not by Jim Walters himself, to contain Bad Block(s) for the copy protected Walters Software titles. Don't need to worry about these, however, once you get the disk version images working correctly.

[NIAD]

I know I am late to the conversation but back when I bartered for my first ADAM 1983? ish. I also bought Defender and of course it did not work.

 

However I later bought a pile of disks along with an original ADAM programing manual labeled top secret 1984 coleco which I still have.

This was some insider who upgraded to an Amiga and wanted to get rid of all his ADAM stuff.

 

Anyway, one of the disks had a version Defender that ran on the standalone ADAM.

I know because I played the thing every day.

 

Now, could it be a cartridge thing? A patched version or a revision 80 deal?

 

I have no way of testing because these days I just use an emulator.

The incompatibility issue with Defender on the ADAM is due to the memory location where the original program places game data. On the CV, the memory location can be used, but not on the ADAM.

 

Jim Marshall / MMSG or Jim Walters / Walters Software Co. dumped the Defender cart and patched the game code to use proper memory locations to make the game compatible with the ADAM with the added side effect being that the radar screen displayed properly on PAL CVs. This patched version was released on cartridge by eColeco with the help of CBS Electronics and Telegames, which allowed ADAMites to dump it to a rom file and this is what you had.

 

A couple years ago, Nanochess patched Defender when this incompatibility with the ADAM was brought up, not knowing that it had already been patched back in the 80s.

[NIAD]

BTW...

All this talk of Copy Protection.

 

Exactly what?

I have yet to encounter any copy protection whatsoever in any coleco software.

 

Unless it was hardware based and I am well versed in every byte of that code.

 

My earlier programing days on the Amiga I was programing an ADAM emulator for the A1200 when Tigervision or some outfit that said they owned the Coleco brand back in 95?? asked me to make one for the PC and actually get paid.

Instead of making it chip emulator based my version took the OS calls and translated them to code that ran on the Amiga because an 020 was just too slow to do screen updates.

 

Anyway, long story rant...

Outside of an eprom there is no such thing as a copyprotected program on an ADAM.

I can copy anything just by using CPM with an assembly language copier I wrote way back. And even that includes the eprom.

That's how I backed up all my cartridges long before the hackers guide to the ADAM even surfaced.

Indeed, probably 99% of ADAM disk and data pack software is not copy protected and can easily be copied using numerous backup utility programs in EOS and CP/M. They can also be copied on a DOS based PC using numerous backup utilities such as Copy II PC and Diskcopy.com because the ADAM disk dormat is very similar to PC formats used back in the 80s. Copy II PC could even make 1:1 disk backups of the handful of copy protected ADAM disks that were released by Strategic Software and Walters Software. Actually, the first copy protected ADAM program was Strategic Software's ProofReader and when they saw that the copy protection was easily thwarted by using DOS based PCs of the time, the stopped using copy protection on future releases.

 

Yes, Eproms and GAL chips were using in 3rd Party hardware releases, but only the GAL chips proved undumpable at the time... early 90s.

 

Anyway, it's nice to hear from you, Mike, especially seeing that you seem very knowledgeable and we need more people with your skills active in the ADAM community.

[HDTV1080P]

I finally have a free night from coaching multiple baseball teams and will get started on disassembling all Block #0s of the Walters Software programs that I have on 5 1/4" disk. This is where the Bad Block check routine resides.

 

Data Packs were specially formatted, I think by E&T Software if not by Jim Walters himself, to contain Bad Block(s) for the copy protected Walters Software titles. Don't need to worry about these, however, once you get the disk version images working correctly.

I switched to Disk Drives on the ADAM computer as soon as I could get my hands on one (around late 1984+). However, I never knew that someone developed a special third party formatted Digital Data Pack with bad blocks copy protection technique. I always thought Walter Software only released disk software with copy protection, and never knew Digital Data Packs were developed with bad block copy protection technology also. Therefore copy protection for the Coleco ADAM was more widespread then I originally thought and expanding to several different media. There is a possibility that a programmer might be able to create an updated Windows style version of Copy II PC that would format SD cards, solid state drives, and hard drives with bad blocks. If other media can have bad blocks then the Microfox microSD Floppy Emulator could run Walters Software copy protected programs without the copy protection being removed.

 

Back in 1983 I used 100% Digital Data Packs for the Coleco ADAM since Disk Drives were not released yet. In 1984 Disk Drives started appearing for the ADAM community for those that could find them. Between 1984 to Jan 1985 160K single sided Coleco disk drives were made in such low QTY’s that most ADAM owners never owned a disk drive which is disappointing, since the ADAM computer is a much more faster and reliable computer when a disk drive is attached. Of course sometime around 1988 or 1989+ Micro Innovations for the first time started making state of the art 3.5 inch and 5 ¼ disk drives. Micro Innovations disk drives between 320K to 1.44MB capacity were better quality then Coleco’s, however most likely less than a QTY of a 1,000 were sold by Micro Innovations to the 500,000+ Coleco ADAM owners (Its too bad Micro Innovations did not exist back in 1985 when the potential to sale over 10,000+ disk drives would have been possible). In the early to mid 90’s many ADAM owners had already or were in the process of moving to a Windows PC. Those early to mid 90’s years saw Micor Innovations, Walter Software, and many third party companies stop making computer products for the Coleco ADAM. The ADAM had a good decade of support after Jan 1985 for those that continued to use it as their main computer or second computer system.

 

Thanks Jim for all your years of service to the ADAM community in the NIAD newsletter years and all the way up to 2018+. Your knowledge is A+++. While I owned all the Coleco ADAM software programs that were officially made by Coleco, when it came to third party programs I mainly had a select few from Walters Software and others. Some of the third party ADAM programmers were better quality when compared to the earlier years. Some third party companies released their programs in slower SmartBASIC style instead of the faster machine language EOS Smartkey style. As the years went on programs got better. Walter Software made some of the best third party software for the ADAM computer.

Edited June 7, 2018 by HDTV1080P

[Mike Harris]

I can not believe that after 30+ years I am still learning something new about this machine.

 

It's like learning a new feature of the Model T that Ford kept secret.

 

 

So happy that these type of sites exist.

[Mike Harris]

Here is a link to a really great site.

 

It has tons of information and over 1800 hundred downloads of disk and data packs.

Probably from TOSEC but at first glance I would say some custom jobs in there too.

 

Also has some code and guide to creating your own digital data packs.

If I understand is that this code formats your DD Drive with a regular tape in it after you drill the hole.

All of this, once again, a glance.

 

I am sure that all of you know about this person but if you don't then send a greeting and welcome him into the community.

 

http://smartbasic.net/2017/10/17/making-tapes-and-disks-from-images/

Edited June 8, 2018 by Mike Harris

[NIAD]

Here is a link to a really great site.

This is MilliV's website and he has also created a Coleco ADAM Archive site that will contain all the same files, but is also open for other to contribute content. Most of the files he has posted on these sites were part of the archive that Joe Blenkle, Mark D., Bob Slopsema and myself had archived since the 90s and I made the whole lot available to download on MediaFire. The TOSEC archive is a total mess with a lot of confusing files, etc. unless they have updated it in recent years with everything that we have made available.

 

Once I get through this baseball season, I will be going full bore to finish everything up and will be bugging some people to try to fill in the gaps.

[Mike Harris]

Awesome, always love new info, and software.

 

Bring on the links.

 

ADAM was my first real computer, I met some really great people on the John Galt Line and Night Owl BBS's through 300 baud.

Played my first online text adventure.

Programed the thing.

Spent thousands of hours on this machine. It is a piece of my teenage years.

 

Anything new will go straight to my heart.

Edited June 8, 2018 by Mike Harris