New Coleco Adam Owner - Part Two!

[craigm71]

Hello everyone again!

 

So...I guess one Adam computer is not enough for me so I went out and bought myself a second Adam Computer. I just bought one, in the box from http://ann.hollowdreams.com/ (you can see the topis here: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/210378-new-coleco-adam-owner/)

 

Anyways, I was looking on Craigslist for awhile and one was there and has been for a month. I decided to contact the person and posted for $75.00 (was asking $150.00). She got back to me the same day and said she would do it for $95.00, so I said sure. BTW, in the post she said everything worked great.

 

So around 30 minutes before our meeting she texts me telling me the printer is acting weird and wanted to see if I was still interested, also, she then toldd me she was not able to test it since she did not have the proper connections.. I told her I was for $80.00 and she agreed. So I got it and broght it home and wanted to show everyone what I got and ask if you think I did well. I think I did...

 

I did the same thing I did for the Adam I got from ann.hollowdreams.com, made sure it worked, checked the Game slot, tape drive, keyboard, and cleaned it up.

 

So what did I find?

 

1. The printer is acting really weird, when I turn it on, the printer head moves to the left until it cannot go any further, then just makes this crazy loud noise, there is nothing I can see that is making it do that, if I mve the head manually to the left, it will just go back to the right and make that noise.

2. The Second joystick fire button is not working - Fixed! I opened it and cleaned the hell out of it, seems to of done the trick!

3. It looks like they painted the room the computer was in, there were white dots on the keyboard, printer, and on the main unit - Fixed, was able to remove it all on the cleaning process!

4. On boot up and it goes to the typing window, I can not type, I am not sure if this is because of the printer or the the program, I need to take my 1st Adam computer and attach the printer to it to see if that fixes it, if so, I really need to get that printer working!!!

5. Look at all the tapes!!! I tested a bunch of them and they all worked. They must of really, really, liked Buck Rogers.

6. Smart Filer, FlashcardMaker, and Leters and Forms are in nice shape, very happy with that since I never had them.

7. Look at the picture with "Adam's House", never seen that before, its in perfect condition and a 8 page spread I think.

8. Weird how some of the keys are super yellow and some are white. I will retrobright it so I am haping that fixes everything.

 

I want to get this cleaned up really well and box it up! Has anyone heard of this printer problem? Really the only big thing that I have found wrong so far?!?!

 

Thanks again!

[retroillucid]

Great score!

[ColecoDan]

I thought I remember that some people used to copy games over the coleco games. Are you sure those are actually all buck rogers and not games programmed over it?

[retroillucid]

I thought I remember that some people used to copy games over the coleco games. Are you sure those are actually all buck rogers and not games programmed over it?

 

Good point!

Imagine him playing a bunch of unreleased games!

[adamcon]

Hello everyone again!

 

So...I guess one Adam computer is not enough for me so I went out and bought myself a second Adam Computer. I just bought one, in the box from http://ann.hollowdreams.com/ (you can see the topis here: http://atariage.com/...eco-adam-owner/)

 

Anyways, I was looking on Craigslist for awhile and one was there and has been for a month. I decided to contact the person and posted for $75.00 (was asking $150.00). She got back to me the same day and said she would do it for $95.00, so I said sure. BTW, in the post she said everything worked great.

 

So around 30 minutes before our meeting she texts me telling me the printer is acting weird and wanted to see if I was still interested, also, she then toldd me she was not able to test it since she did not have the proper connections.. I told her I was for $80.00 and she agreed. So I got it and broght it home and wanted to show everyone what I got and ask if you think I did well. I think I did...

 

I did the same thing I did for the Adam I got from ann.hollowdreams.com, made sure it worked, checked the Game slot, tape drive, keyboard, and cleaned it up.

 

So what did I find?

 

1. The printer is acting really weird, when I turn it on, the printer head moves to the left until it cannot go any further, then just makes this crazy loud noise, there is nothing I can see that is making it do that, if I mve the head manually to the left, it will just go back to the right and make that noise.

2. The Second joystick fire button is not working - Fixed! I opened it and cleaned the hell out of it, seems to of done the trick!

3. It looks like they painted the room the computer was in, there were white dots on the keyboard, printer, and on the main unit - Fixed, was able to remove it all on the cleaning process!

4. On boot up and it goes to the typing window, I can not type, I am not sure if this is because of the printer or the the program, I need to take my 1st Adam computer and attach the printer to it to see if that fixes it, if so, I really need to get that printer working!!!

5. Look at all the tapes!!! I tested a bunch of them and they all worked. They must of really, really, liked Buck Rogers.

6. Smart Filer, FlashcardMaker, and Leters and Forms are in nice shape, very happy with that since I never had them.

7. Look at the picture with "Adam's House", never seen that before, its in perfect condition and a 8 page spread I think.

8. Weird how some of the keys are super yellow and some are white. I will retrobright it so I am haping that fixes everything.

 

I want to get this cleaned up really well and box it up! Has anyone heard of this printer problem? Really the only big thing that I have found wrong so far?!?!

 

Thanks again!

 

Good score Craig. Keyboard quite yellowed, but if it works, great! Many of the tapes may well be just Buck Rogers tapes with other stuff on them. They are nothing more than right directory tapes which can be erased and reused. As far as the printe goes, sounds like the printer circuit board is bad, you need a good one.

[bob]

[craigm71]

I need to try all the tapes, but I did try a few and they were Buck Rogers, I will check them all though, you never know what you can find.

 

I agree, this Adam is more yellowed then the one I got from you. Its a good test subject for me though on the Retrobright, I have all the chemicals so will be getting that up and going next weekend. I wil post how it worked after.

 

Bob, any chance you have a board laying around? If so you will have another sale =)

[+digress]

It's so hard to find a coleco adam up here in canada. I would love to have a disk drive if anyone has one to sell.

 

I had one 17 years ago. I donated the whole system to a reuse center. I really regret it now.

[NIAD]

Hear we go again!

 

Well, actually I can't say anything about you picking up another system lot seeing as I just grabbed 3 systems (still need to test) with 2 working disk drives that I just cleaned up and fully tested. I guess you can say that I couldn't help myself after taking last year off from acquiring systems after a frenzy of about 10 systems in 2010/2011. It's just a lot of fun to acquire, test, clean and then assemble a package to make available on here or thru eBay... even more so when you roll the dice on untested equipment and it ends up all to be in working order. I guess you can say I'm still trying to disprove all the bad press that the ADAM received in 1983 concerning defective systems and system components even all these years later, although the Data Drives are still very hit or miss depending on which one of the three revisions of the drive are acquired.

 

There have been a rash of ADAM systems up on eBay of late and some have gone for very cheap ($20-40), while others have gone for considerably more ($375 and $900). So with that being said, the $80 that you spent on your latest system with all the extra is a GREAT price even with some of the stated issues... plus no shipping expenses and more importantly no tax!

 

As far as your list of issues/observations:

1) The Printer Logic Board could be at fault here, but it could also be a bad sensor switch that detects when the print head has moved completely to the left. If the switch is working properly, the print wheel will cycle and then the print head will move back to the right a little bit before stopping. Remove the printer pop-off lid and look on the left side inside the printer above the rails and you'll see the switch that the print head comes into contact with and clean it up as well as make sure all the wiring looks good. In the NIAD newsletters, we covered this issue numerous times in maintenance articles and you can find the newsletters on Joe. B's site which is linked in my message footer text.

4) It's because of the issue you are experiencing with the printer. Swap out the printer with your other one and you will see.

5) NIAD and other groups/mail-orders purchased thousands of loose Data Packs from Coleco in 1984/1985. The Buck Rogers DDPs (Right Directory DDP) were used for backing up/making copies of other Coleco Super Games and SmartBASIC/E.F.M. (Center Directory DDP) were used for backing up/making copies of all the standard programs. More than likely, all those DDPs will contain the actual program that they are labeled with, but check everything nonetheless... just in case. Likelihood of finding some unreleaased software on them is ZERO.

7) ADAM's House was a users group/mail-order/newsletter back in the day and they still exist today as eColeco. Their website addy is www.ecoleco.com . The picture you provided is one of their catalogs.

Doesn't it drive you crazy how some keys yellowed while others did not? Let us know how the clean-up works out although I have read-up on this and it seems that the yellowing does come back after a period of time.

[NIAD]

It's so hard to find a coleco adam up here in canada. I would love to have a disk drive if anyone has one to sell.

 

I had one 17 years ago. I donated the whole system to a reuse center. I really regret it now.

Your best option is to keep bugging Rich Clee seeing as he has a basement full of CV & ADAM gear. He's been dealing with a lot of health issues, so when you do bug him again... be nice.

[+digress]

Yeah, Rich got back to me. I'm meeting him on Monday. He's got a tape drive for me. That's great news.

 

1 thing at a time of course. I'll be looking into a disk drive next eventually. I have a pc hookedup with a zip drive, a 3.5 inch drive and a 5.25 inch drive specificially for moving files back & forth to older pc's. How do you make a safe backup of you adam data if you make anything cuz I can't plug a tape into the pc. So it would be an easy interface for making an image so I don't have to worry about it.

 

I use the zip drive and older pc's specifically a tandy 1000tl and PCjr as a hard drive. It's really convenient way to add mass storage to an older dos system.

 

As it happens I got a line on a adam with ... a dead motherboard. Hmmm now maybe that extra one might come in useful afterall.

 

Your best option is to keep bugging Rich Clee seeing as he has a basement full of CV & ADAM gear. He's been dealing with a lot of health issues, so when you do bug him again... be nice.

[adamcon]

I need to try all the tapes, but I did try a few and they were Buck Rogers, I will check them all though, you never know what you can find.

 

I agree, this Adam is more yellowed then the one I got from you. Its a good test subject for me though on the Retrobright, I have all the chemicals so will be getting that up and going next weekend. I wil post how it worked after.

 

Bob, any chance you have a board laying around? If so you will have another sale =)

Sorry but no craig. I am out of extra boards all together. Wished I had some extra's, especially video boards.

[NIAD]

Bob, any chance you have a board laying around? If so you will have another sale =)

Seeing as Bob does not have any extra Printer Logic Boards, your best option would be to contact Terry Fowler of eColeco at www.ecoleco.com . I don't know what he has left from his HUGE purchase of CV & ADAM gear from Coleco back in the day, but if anyone would have'em, he would.

[NIAD]

Digress... glad to hear that things have worked out with Rich.

 

As far as transferring/backing up Data Packs directly to a PC, there is no way that I have been successful with, but your options would be limited to a direct connection of the two systems using either Modems or Serial Interfaces. The easiest and tried-and-true method is copying the DDP contents to 1 or 2 ADAM 5 1/4" disks, then using one of the available MS-DOS conversion utilities to create a disk image and then in an ADAM emulator you can rebuild the DDP with the disk images. You really need an ADAM 5 1/4" Disk Drive.

 

Good luck with those ADAM motherboards, now I am glad that you won them.

Edited March 31, 2013 by NIAD

[craigm71]

NIAD,

 

Thanks again for being so helpful! Your suggestion worked!

 

I first took my working printer and tried it with the ADAM I just bought and everything worked as it should. So I put the non-working on back on and the same issues happened. So I removed the "trigger" switch and it started working perfectly (Startup worked, the printer worked, heck, even the ink was still usable)! I am glad it's working since I could tell getting a printer board would of been a pain.

 

Oddly enough, If I reinstall the Trigger switch and tighten down, the same problem occurs, if I install it but just loosen it a bit. It works great, telling me it's shorting out. I probably will just install a thin sheet of non-shock plastic between the switch and printer.

 

I have read about the Retrobright also not being forever, my game plan though is to whiten the ADAM I just bought, make sure it's 100%, clean it again, then put it in the box I bought my first ADAM in. From what I read though, while not forever, it should last 10 years an application and that's in Sunlight. In the box, in my closet (climate controlled), then I think it would last longer.

I was going to do it next week but we have a garage sale, but that is ok, I need to do a trial on some plastic that I have that is yellowed but not the ADAM, once that passes, I will make sure I show my findings.

Edited April 1, 2013 by craigm71

[ColecoDan]

Just make sure some sneaky family members don't put your adam in the garage sale.

[NIAD]

NIAD,

 

Thanks again for being so helpful! Your suggestion worked!

Congrats! It feels good to now that another ADAM component has been saved and that I am still good for something.

 

Not being the hardware guru that others are, I tend to start with the simplist causes when trying to diagnose a problem and amazingly with the ADAM alot of issues are very easily remedied. This all further enforces my belief from years of experience with the system that MOST of the issues experienced with the ADAM Computer back in the day were in fact user related.