ADAM Tape Drive No-EMP Mod

[CyberTaco]

I'm just curious - has anyone made a mod to stop an Adam from damaging a tape left in when it's turned on? Was the exact source of the problem ever found?

[rietveld]

25 minutes ago, CyberTaco said:

I'm just curious - has anyone made a mod to stop an Adam from damaging a tape left in when it's turned on? Was the exact source of the problem ever found?

I leave my Hard Drive Boot DDP in all the time without a problem.  I am not sure how prevalent this problem really was  

[adamcon]

1 hour ago, rietveld said:

I leave my Hard Drive Boot DDP in all the time without a problem.  I am not sure how prevalent this problem really was  

Agreed. I leave a tape in the drive to boot the hd.  When I use it for a long time, I pop it loose so it doesn't sit in the drive and keep the motors tensioned and therefore getting hot.

[phattyboombatty]

I have never seen a problem. I think it is largely fabled, but then again, I’m sure that the earliest Adam runs may have had this problem. I would need a source from 1983 to see if it’s documented.
 

Years ago, I had found DDPs at thrift stores with a dust on them. I popped them in and they worked perfectly.

[NIAD]

Seriously a lot of the initial reported issues where due to first time computer owners. This is absolutely not to say that there weren’t issues with the earliest of systems that found there way to store shelves, especially in the Northeast of the USA, because there were far too many DOA/defective systems. The numbers aren’t known, but I’d be surprised if the percentages weren’t on par or slightly more than some of the other computers of the era and the user error returns was a major financial hit to Coleco as well as a strike against the ADAM’s reputation.

 

It all boils down to best practices. Do you leave a disk in a disk drive for other systems when you turn on or turn off power? No, you don’t, so why would you leave a data pack in the drive (even though you can) when powering on or off. I never even left a cassette tape in a stereo tape deck and especially in a car stereo deck.

Edited July 26, 2021 by NIAD