Oops, I Did It Again...

[veg-o-matic]

So about a month ago, I bought an ADAM. On Monday, another one followed me home...

 

https://youtu.be/Ngj3YN8y_4I

Edited June 28, 2018 by veg-o-matic

[veg-o-matic]

So my second Adam was about a 50/50 mixture of Fail and Win.

 

When I first powered it up, I got to the electronic typewriter screen but I couldn't get into SMARTwriter, I rebooted and got the blue background and platen, but nothing saying Electronic Typewriter and no Smart Keys. On the third and subsequent tries, I got nothing onscreen at all. The data drive didn't work, which didn't surprise me, since the system couldn't find the keyboard, either. When I stuck in the Donkey Kong cartridge, though, it worked fine.

 

Okay, so the ColecoVision board was working, but not the Adam one. Going by 8-bit Guy's advice, I took it apart and reseated all the socketed chips. This brought back the blue screen and platen, but the system still couldn't find anything on AdamNet--no keyboard, no tape drive. Decided to close it up and not fiddle with it.

 

I did notice that the date on the Adam motherboard was Dec. 7, 1983. I imagine that quality control was at an all-time low at that point. I'm sure Coleco was only concerned with how many units they could push out the door.

 

I harvested the data drive and installed it as drive 2 in my working Adam, where it seems to be happy and productive.

 

The printer with the second Adam seemed to work fine, which is a good thing as my original printer suddenly started printing garbage. At first I thought the daisy wheel had slipped from its mounting, but it looked fine. It prints gibberish in both typewriter and SMARTWriter mode. Frankly, I don't think I have the patience to try and track down the problem.

 

I've read that you can get the printer to perform a self-test by putting a jumper between the E8 connection and the RF shield on the circuit board and then powering it on. I'm not sure if this would prove anything or not. Also, does anyone know where the E8 connection might be?

 

So the upshot is that now I own a complete working ADAM with two tape drives and a ColecoVision wearing Adam's clothes.

 

And something tells me that if another one comes along, I won't say no....