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New Adam, new problems


Retro_Ally

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Hi all!

While I enjoy these forums, I've never really had anything meaningful to add to them, so I've never joined joined until today.

 

I've been at these retro video games since they were brand new, so I'm fairly familiar with them, and 8-bit era computers (the PET, TRS-80, etc).

So the other day, I saw a huge Adam box in good shape, and managed to haggle the price down to where I couldn't resist, because the unit wouldn't power up. They even threw in one of those old wooden cassette holders full of programs. Nice!

Got it home, and I've been doing all the normal things, clean it well, power switches, power adapter, clean and reseat chips, the usual.

 

But I cannot get this one figured out, so I am hopeful someone here can help, or at least give me a new direction to go.

Note, this is the add-on Adam (Expansion #3), not the Adam with the built-in CV.

 

Symptoms: Power up the CV and Adam plugged in, the printer goes to home, indexes the daisy wheel, sets ok. Video is black, kind of a high pitch squeal from the TV.

Unplug the tape drives and modem, no change.

Press the reset button on the Adam - no change. Press it on the CV, and I get the Colecovision rainbow screen (do not insert expansion module, etc).

Ok, so I test the Expansion #1 adapter on the side port of the Adam, and hit the CV reset, it plays the Atari game well, but I already have a 2600 for that...

Unplugged the Atari adapter, and put in Slither, pressed reset on the CV, and got 12 wide vertical bars. Changed to Smurfs & Omega Race, same deal.

Took out the cartridge, still get the black screen on the Adam, but now when I press reset on the CV, no rainbow screen, just the same 12 bars.

 

There is currently no way to test the CV without the Adam, as the power brick it came with had 5v, until I turned on the power, then it went to 1.38v. With the Adam power supply, it measures 5v at the switch. I have a new Power Supply in transit, but it's a few days out, and won't help the Adam anyways.

 

So I'm really out of ideas, and I'm not sure what else to try. Quite frankly, I'm not even sure where to look next, so any suggestions will be tried.

 

Thanks,

~Allison

 

 

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When you say you got a rainbow screen when using the ColecoVision portion of the Adam... you mean the ColecoVision BIOS screen that states to turn power off before inserting a cartridge?

 

Since you don't have a ColecoVision power supply yet, you'll have to wait for it to arrive so that you can test the ColecoVision without the ADAM. As you probably know all too well, we need to isolate as much as possible and then test. Sounds like there may be an issue with the CV.

 

The Exp. Mod #1 only uses power and rf output from the CV or CV/Adam combo, so no surprise that it worked.

 

So test the CV by iteself first. If good, remove the CV power supply, connect the printer, connect the EM #3 Memory Console (remove/unplug all items like the Data Drive, Expansion Cards), do not connect the keyboard. Next test connect the keyboard. Next test connect the Data Drive... and on.

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Well, new power supply showed up, and it doesn't work either. There is a rattling noise inside the power supply.

So still stuck on this one until I can find another power supply...

 

if you have a multimeter (which it sounds like you do) check the psu itself, if you get +5,-5,+12 it should be okay. Also try cleaning out the power switch with compressed air, it might fix it or atleast make it better. Bad on off switches are a major issue with colecovisions. Also the video ram fails on colecovisions all the time, there is a pretty simple mod to replace it with 5v ram

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First thing - open up the Adam and make sure nothing is loose or shorting it - then make sure the chips are seated good. Since the CV is working odds are you have an issue with Rom and / or ram. The ROM chips you can reseat, the ram are soldered in. Also clean the edge connector on both CV and Adam. As for the CV power supply you do not need it and should not have it plugged in when using the Adam. You may want to head over to the facebook coleco adam page - more of us hang out there too - you may get quicker responses

 

Milli

 

Facebook is becoming a better forum for classic gaming/computing. It fits the smartphone formfactor, and everyone knows of it - moreso than these obscure forums done in 1980's BBS character.

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