My Official Coleco ADAM rant!

[HDTV1080P]

I see stuff like this and it makes me wonder if there are ADAM Super Game versions of Smurf, Time Pilot and Turbo waiting to be discovered.

 

This website brings back good memories. In 1982 I owned my first Colecovision system. Then in 1983 I purchased expansion module #3 that turned my Colecovision into a super game module called the Adam computer.

 

The Adam computer is a deluxe version of the Colecovision game system. Originally expansion module #3 was going to be a super game module but Coleco decided to make the add on a Computer and a super game module combination. When it comes to Coleco products I am an expert in that area from 1982 until the early 90's. Of course I am sure someone else I this board knows more or a former Coleco employee. After the early 90's I started using Microsoft products that were a lot better for word processing. I only kept the Adam around for games. Here is some official accurate information for those that are interested.

 

The Videogames for the Adam computer were mostly known as Super games. Super games had better graphics and sound with a hall of fame to record ones name and score. Coleco released super games on Digital Data Packs and 5 ¼" Disks. Digital Data Packs hold around 256K of data and 5 ¼" single sided disks hold 160K of data. The larges official size Colecovision cartridge every made was 32K. Many Super games went over 160K and most were only released on Digital Data packs. A third party company called Micro Innovations released a 1.44Meg 3 ½" floppy drive for the Adam computer, 1 Meg memory expander and a hard drive. Micro Innovations was the best third party developer for Adam with high quality hardware products.

 

Dragon's Lair the Super Game was officially released on Digital Data Pack and 5 ¼" Disk (153K). This version has good graphics but not as good as the planned Laserdisc version they were going to come out with that was canceled. The Laserdisc version would have been exactly the same as the arcade version using the exact same Laserdisc with a AdamNet connection for the Adam Computer.

 

Jeopardy (floating around in public domain but not officially released). 160K

 

Best of B.C. 67K

 

Colecovision Video catalog 192K

 

Troll's Tale (Demo) 39K

 

Dambuster's the Super Game (69K)

 

Buck Rodgers the Super Game (152K) Shipped with all Adam computers on Digital Data Pack

 

Project Name by Line (Coleco internal development cartridge for Adam) Used to create Supergames.

 

The Best of Electronic Arts (152K) Released on Digital Data Pack

 

Subroc the Supergame (92K) floating around in public domain but not officially released).

 

Richard Scary Best Electronic Workbench every (242K) Released on Digital Data Pack with awesome graphics.

 

2010: The text adventure Game (released on Digital Data Pack)

 

Zaxxon the Super Game (released on Disk and Digital Data Pack)

 

The Best of Broderbund (released on Digital Data Pack)

 

Donkey Kong the Super Game (released on Disk and Digital Data Pack) (95K) One of my favorite exactly like arcade with intermissions and ape climbing latter. Second screen is blue like arcade.

 

Donkey Kong Junior the Super game (released on Disk and Digital Data Pack)

 

This is another one of my favorites. The one I have is the unreleased version that is 76K. It contains an official Nintendo unreleased 5TH screen that was suppose to be included in the arcade version but was not. This version is better then the arcade and is an official Coleco Nintendo planned release but never made it to the retail shelf.

 

Family Feud (released on Digital Data Pack)

 

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I have many released and unreleased games for the Adam and Colecovision system on 3 ½" Disk. My 3 ½" micro innovations 1.44Meg Disk drive still works but my Adam is in bad shape. I wish someone would make an Adam eliminator for Windows XP or Vista platform.

 

It is disappointing that the Adam and Colecovision were discontinued in 1985. When I purchased my Adam computer in 1983 it was a state of the art computer back in 83 with easy to use smartkeys. The problem with Coleco was they marketed the Adam computer as a computer. They should have pushed the fact that it was also a Super game module for the Colecovision system. They also needed to come out with some newer Super Games. I love Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Junior Adam version versus the poor quality Colecovision cart version.They needed to come out with many new titles not just improved Zaxxon and Donkey Kong, etc.

 

I guess back then $600 was a little expensive to purchase a Video game system called Adam. I hope Playstation 3 selling for $600 this Christmas makes it. I like HDTV and Blu-ray.

 

I use to run a mail order Adam business back in the late 1980"s and early 90's that I had to close down since I could never make a profit and I was losing too much money. My salary from my full time job was paying for the Adam business. I spent a lot of money back then searching for unreleased Colecovision and Adam games and when I found them I had to lay out a lot of money to get them and then gave them away into Public domain. Some of the programs were unfinished or damaged and I paid a programmer to fix bugs or problems. Most the unreleased programs were finished by Coleco but when they shut down the operations in 1985 things got lost when employees left the company.

 

I have many Adam and colecovision software on 3 1/2 " disk in the Adam computer format. I wish I would have kept some hardware supplies when I closed down the mail order business. I use to have a 1Meg memory expander for the Adam.

 

Does Anyone know where I can purchase Adam computer hardware supplies? I have 3 1/2 " Disks that I will need to copy before they go bad. Many of the Disks are over 10 years old. I would hate to lose Super games and Coleco carts that can not be replaced. I need to purchase a memory expander for the Adam computer and a composite Video/Audio cable. The cable can always be made, but the memory expander would take to time to make.

 

It will be several months or a few years until I find time to play around with Adam again. If I wait to long some of the stuff I have will be lost due to disk magnetic degeneration. Last year I tested some disks and they all worked fine. Placed everything back in storage since I did not have time to mess with things.

 

Of course I am sure that there is someone out their who has much more stuff then I do like a former Coleco employee. Smurf the Super game was designed for the Super game module since I read an officially review for the game. Of course this game was not released. There are many rumors of a dozen or more unreleased Coleco games floating around.

 

At one time many years ago on my search I ran into someone that had many programs but would only release some of them for a huge amount of money and decided not to release others. There was a rumor of a official Atari Mis Pacman cart for Colecovision. The problem with rumors is they remain rumors until verified.

 

I think I might have Front Line the Super Game demo. Don't quote me on that. I have many disks unlabeled with stuff on it. What ticks me off is I paid big money for a copy of Troll's Tale. The program did not work. I paid a programmer to fix it and he informed me that someone purposely removed code from the program so it would not work. So the only thing that was able to be restored was the Troll's Tale Demo that loops. All of the programs I had restored for the Adam and colecovision by this one programmer for items that were not working were all done in such away to not add anything to the program but to restore the original function as the author attended. Kind of like film restoration for video games.

 

Did you know that the unreleased Jeopardy program for the Adam had to be restored by a programmer because someone that gave the program to public domain copied the program from a 256K Digital Data Pack to a 160K floppy drive. Jeopardy was one of the last programs finished by Coleco for Adam but no one has a full version since someone did not copy the entire program. I paid a programmer to fix Jeopardy because after it went to the last question it would lock up the program since the program was not all their. So the programmer wrote a code in the programmer that reset the program after it reached the last question. Without this fix Jeopardy would lock up. Program works fine but it would have been nice to have the original complete question set on the original unreleased Digital Data Pack.

 

Anyways good night you all. It has been many years since I messed around with Adam. I enjoyed it many years ago but I had to stop since it was taking up to much of my time and money and the Adam business was not profitable.

 

 

P.S.

 

 

Does anyone know what happen to Micro Innovations and Walters Software? Mirco Innovations was the best third party hardware developer for the Adam and Walter's Software made some nice professional SmartKey third party software and their improved OS 9 operating system was great. Thanks to Walter's Software and I some of the rare unreleased Adam programs would not be available today. Over the years I would pay Walter's Software to fix many of the unreleased Adam and Colecovision software that I had purchased from various unnamed individuals. Many of the stuff was working and nothing was done to modify working stuff. Only software that was damaged by someone on accident or on purpose was repaired to the best of Walter's ability. I can not remember the several thousands of dollars I spent on Adam. It was more like a hobby then a business. Walter did a good job restoring Video games. I wish Troll's Tale could have been fixed better. This was a completed game that someone purposely messed up.

 

Take care you all.

 

Edited February 26, 2007 by HDTV1080P

[HDTV1080P]

Correction,

 

 

I made an error Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Junior were only released on Digital Data Pack and not Disk.

[else]

Back in 1983 the Adam computer was a state of the Art Video game and computer system that ran circles around others.

 

Does nobody have a sense of reality around here? The Macintosh was introduced in early 1983. Calling the Adam "state of the art" in 1983 is just silly. For a low end computer it was good, but a state of the art computer? -- give me a break.....

 

Let's even take the low end computers of the day. They pretty much all could display 40 columns of text, and many could do 80 columns (not the Adam). You could buy a disk drive for pretty much all of them in 1983 (not the Adam). You could get software for pretty much all them that wasn't buggy as all get out (not the Adam). Remember how Adam's printer was so slow that Coleco wouldn't release any characters-per-second numbers to compare against the competition? Instead, Coleco would only release words-per-minute numbers. Do you think they did that because their printer was state of the art? No, I don't see too many circles being run around the competition -- except the circles that Coleco's market department wanted you to believe....

 

Maybe everyone else's Adam came with the blue pill back then. I guess I got the red pill somehow....

 

Anyhow, sorry for the interruption -- you may all return to Adam dreamland again.

Edited October 4, 2006 by else

[HDTV1080P]

Back in 1983 the Adam computer was a state of the Art Video game and computer system that ran circles around others.

 

Does nobody have a sense of reality around here? The Macintosh was introduced in early 1983. Calling the Adam "state of the art" in 1983 is just silly. For a low end computer it was good, but a state of the art computer? -- give me a break.....

 

Let's even take the low end computers of the day. They pretty much all could display 40 columns of text, and many could do 80 columns (not the Adam). You could buy a disk drive for pretty much all of them in 1983 (not the Adam). You could get software for pretty much all them that wasn't buggy as all get out (not the Adam). Remember how Adam's printer was so slow that Coleco wouldn't release any characters-per-second numbers to compare against the competition? Instead, Coleco would only release words-per-minute numbers. Do you think they did that because their printer was state of the art? No, I don't see too many circles being run around the competition -- except the circles that Coleco's market department wanted you to believe....

 

Anyhow, sorry for the interruption -- you may all return to Adam dreamland again.

You made some good points. Adam had its problems. Sometimes when one is young they think their system is the best.

 

The Colecovision and Adam were much better then Atari 2600 and Intelvision in the quality of the games. Adam printer sucked and printed 120 words per minute. Only thing good about Adam printer was the letter quality.

 

At least I did move on to a IBM compatible in the early 90’s. Some people might think I am nuts but the Adam was the only computer I owned until early 90’s.

 

When I saw 80 column display with MS Word and spell checker I boxed up my Adam. Now I am considering bringing it back to life for old fashion Video games and memories.

[Murph74]

I think the collector's market will tell you-- the Adam and ColecoVision will be remembered as toys, childhood memories. The Mac that you compare it to, and I could be WAY off here, seems to be recalled as outdated technology now.

 

As we've talked about before-- history is written by the winners, and Adam wasn't the winner. Had the Adam taken hold, DDP's became the American choice over floppy discs, and the crash of 84 didn't happen, we could (however outlandish it sounds) be singing a different tune today.

 

From a technical point of view, The Mac had 2x the processor speed (3.58 to 8MHz), twice the ram (64k to 128k), 400k discs to Adam's 256k DDPs, and a 512x342 resolution in black and white to Adam's 256x192 resolution in 16 colors. All for a lowly four times the price at introduction-- $2499 to $599.

 

Keep in mind, this was the first Mac-- the first of 4 varieties that were nicknamed "the big beige toaster" for their hardware problems. Adam still only had one variety. Mac would eventually fix many fo their hardware problems when they added fans to the systems in 1987.

 

The Adam was a 'current' product for Coleco from October 1983 to January 1985. The Macintosh 128k (the first variety of many) was 'current' model for Apple from January 1984 to October 1985. The two units had similar life spans. The two both had hardware problems. The two are remembered quite differently.

 

Not trying to argue the better of the two-- just showing that there were reasons to want an Adam over a Mac in that era-- price and color being the two main reasons. Had Adam become a "platform", and introduced an Adam 128, or Adam II+, etc, history may be telling a different story. That doesn't change what ultimately happened, but I think it does make me rethink your comment implying Macintosh was 'state of the art' and the Adam wasn't. The Mac wasn't even a favorite of geeks because of the GUI stolen from Lisa (anyone remember that? Wonder why it's not being discussed along side the Adam?), and the geek community was used to command line control.

Edited October 6, 2006 by Murph74

[HDTV1080P]

I think the collector's market will tell you-- the Adam and ColecoVision will be remembered as toys, childhood memories. The Mac that you compare it to, and I could be WAY off here, seems to be recalled as outdated technology now.

 

As we've talked about before-- history is written by the winners, and Adam wasn't the winner. Had the Adam taken hold, DDP's became the American choice over floppy discs, and the crash of 84 didn't happen, we could (however outlandish it sounds) be singing a different tune today.

 

From a technical point of view, The Mac had 2x the processor speed (3.58 to 8MHz), twice the ram (64k to 128k), 400k discs to Adam's 256k DDPs, and a 512x342 resolution in black and white to Adam's 256x192 resolution in 16 colors. All for a lowly four times the price at introduction-- $2499 to $599.

 

Keep in mind, this was the first Mac-- the first of 4 varieties that were nicknamed "the big beige toaster" for their hardware problems. Adam still only had one variety. Mac would eventually fix many fo their hardware problems when they added fans to the systems in 1987.

 

The Adam was a 'current' product for Coleco from October 1983 to January 1985. The Macintosh 128k (the first variety of many) was 'current' model for Apple from January 1984 to October 1985. The two units had similar life spans. The two both had hardware problems. The two are remembered quite differently.

 

Not trying to argue the better of the two-- just showing that there were reasons to want an Adam over a Mac in that era-- price and color being the two main reasons. Had Adam become a "platform", and introduced an Adam 128, or Adam II+, etc, history may be telling a different story. That doesn't change what ultimately happened, but I think it does make me rethink your comment implying Macintosh was 'state of the art' and the Adam wasn't. The Mac wasn't even a favorite of geeks because of the GUI stolen from Lisa (anyone remember that? Wonder why it's not being discussed along side the Adam?), and the geek community was used to command line control.

The Adam computer was released before the very first Mac even appeared on the market. When I purchased my Adam computer there was not a Mac to choose from. I never said anything negative or positive about the Mac in my postings.

 

Personally history will show that the Mac has always been state of the art in software and hardware. Mac’s have a very loyal following. The only reason I don’t own a MAC today is because I like building my own computers and choosing the motherboard, processor, case, power supply, etc. Last time I checked Apple is still the only manufactory of Mac’s. At one time Apple allowed clones but the Mac market is a niche market that Apple does not allow other companies to make clones like IBM does any more. The market is too small for Apple to allow companies to make clones, when they did they started loosing money since some of the clones were very good and cheaper.

 

I said the following in my comment “When I purchased my Adam computer in 1983 it was a state of the art computer back in 83 with easy to use smartkeys.” Since the Mac was not even around in 1983 there is nothing wrong with this comment.. At the time there was no other Video game system or computer system accept the Adam computer that had a better version of arcade classics like Buck Rodgers, Zaxxon, Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Junior, etc. Perhaps today there is a better version of Donkey Kong or Donkey Kong Junior then the Adam’s version. So far I have not seen a better version, but to be honest I have not been looking. I am sure that Nintendo must of came out with a classic Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Junior that is at least close or perhaps better then the Adam version (Anyone no the answer to this, Would like to know of modern version of the classic Donkey’s so I could compare.) When the Mac’s first generation appeared for game playing I would not be interested in black and white. Videogames should be played in color. Coleco Adam was a much better game machine then the 1984 black and white Mac. The Mac’s of course were real state of the art computers.

 

Coleco sold around 6 million Colecovisions. I purchased my first one in 1982. I was one of the first ones that owned a Colecovison. I then purchased expansion module #3 back in 1983 that turn the Colecovision into a Super game module and computer system. In 1983 there was no better quality state of the art Video game system then the Adam computer. When I played Buck Rodgers the Super game the quality in 1983 standards was state of the art. Several high quality screens and a hall of fame to record score with name. The graphics and sound ran circles around any Atari product in 1983. Adam had games like Buck Rodgers that was 153K long!!

 

Back in 1983 it was a bad time to introduce a new computer due to the Video game crash. Coleco released the Adam Computer in 1983. The following is a rumor that someone told me a while ago not sure if it is true, Coleco was going to delay the introduction of the Adam until 1984 but when their stock price started falling they rushed it to market in October 1983.

 

When I first bought my expansion module #3 Adam I was a little bit disappointed at first. The thing was $600 ($800 for combo Adam Colecovision). The price was not what disappointed me but it was the fact the thing did not work completely. Coleco rushed it to market and the built in word processor did not work at all. I had to exchange several to get a working model. Once I finally received a working model it was a great easy system to use for games and word processing.

 

The Adam received a bad name since it was rushed to market and did not work. Once the problems were fixed it was too late. At one time in late 1985 or 1986 Adams’s were being sold brand new for $200 with Colecovision. Christmas 1983 they were $800 with built in Colecovision.

 

Adam faced many problems. The major being rushing it to market to soon without getting the bugs fixed first. Bad business decision. The other problem was the printer design was poor with the built in power supply. If Coleco would have sold the computer $200 cheaper without a printer I personally believe the system would have sold better. They should have marketed more as a Super game module to Colecovision owners and also they could have marketed in stores that sold computers instead of just having the system located in toy stores.

 

Perhaps if Coleco would have marketed the Adam correctly and built a second generation Adam that had 80 columns, better resolution, and many other items they may have been still around today.

 

Atari, Coleco, and many other videogame/computer systems never survived the big crash in the 1980’s. Only IBM and Apple Mac are the two that made it. Video game consoles all died. Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft are the big 3 in Videogame consoles in the 21 century.

 

After the Coleco/Adam death in the 1980’s I lost track of video game systems. In the Early 1990’s I stopped using Adam for word processing and went to an IBM compatible. Perhaps I might get back into videogames. I hope Sony’s Playstation 3 is a huge success at $600. I like Blu-ray 1080P HDTV and videogames. Sounds like an excellent combination to me.

[Murph74]

Um... ok.

 

I was referring to Else's post.

 

Time for another beer....

[else]

You're missing my main point though. The Mac was an example of a state of the art computer. The sun was setting on 8-bit computing, and the ADAM was introduced just at sunset. The era of 8-bit computing was over, but Coleco failed to realize that....

 

Look, I've said it 1000 times already I'm not picking on the Adam. I accept it for what it was -- a good, low cost computer. But introducing an 8-bit computer in 1983 was just plain a bad idea. The world was moving on.

 

P.S. The Mac was introduced on March 17, 1983. The Adam was introduced in June 1983. The Mac beat the Adam to market.

Edited October 6, 2006 by else

[Bill Loguidice]

You're missing my main point though. The Mac was an example of a state of the art computer. The sun was setting on 8-bit computing, and the ADAM was introduced just at sunset. The era of 8-bit computing was over, but Coleco failed to realize that....

 

That's something of an overstatement in regards to Coleco's decision in that 8-bit technology was still viable and really the only choice for a low cost home computer at the time and in fact for several years thereafter (let's remember that the Apple IIe was produced up to 1994, and the Commodore 64 remained reasonably viable into the early 90's). The Mac, at its introduction, while slick, was hardly affordable and it really wasn't ready for primetime in its first iteration (the demands of the operating system were a bit much for the original disk-based system and low RAM). Regardless, Coleco was building off of its ColecoVision base technology, which was logical enough, particularly at a time when most corporations still thought people wanted the option to expand their consoles into computer systems (which it turns out they never did).

[else]

Look, I said it was a good low cost computer. This marks 1001 times I've said it now. But state of the art?

 

Whatever -- I give. The ADAM was state of the art in 1983. The Apple II was state of the art in 1994 and going strong. Everybody happy?

Edited October 6, 2006 by else

[HDTV1080P]

I had weird version of DK Jr. It had a "released to the public domain" title screen before the regular title screen IIRC. The way I remember it, the 5th screen - Mario's bakery/pie level, was a hidden easter egg that you could only access after entering a code on the keypad. When you get to the level select screen, you press in and hold the left and right buttons and enter (IIRC) something like 1,2,3,1,2,1,2 and then it says "WARNING: MASTER SEQUENCE ACTIVATED", then the game starts. I've tried this on ADAMEM with a version I downloaded and as soon as I press the left and right controller buttons(simulated with the keyboard) I get the "WARNING: MASTER SEQUENCE ACTIVATED" message. I don't think entering a code has any effect on this version as far as I can tell.

 

Does anyone know what triggers that blob of dough to come out and chase you around on the 5th screen? Sometimes I play it and it comes out over and over and other times it never does.

What you are talking about is a preproduction release of Donkey Kong Junior for the Adam computer that was not finished by Coleco. I paid Walters Software a lot of hours to finish the program the way the program was suppose to be designed when it was finished. No modifications were made to graphics or sound in the videogame restoration. The only thing that needed to be done was to remove the secret hidden internal code and have the game automatically go to the 5th screen. If this version of Donkey Kong Junior with the 5th screen was every going to be released to the public that is the way it would have worked. Walter did an awesome job of restoring the Donkey Kong Junior to a quality of A+.

 

The version of Cabbage Patch Kids that says 148K appears to be a hacker that purposely was messing around with title screen. I have the exact same version of the improved Cabbage Patch Colecovision cartridge image that has a normal title screen. I had Walter look at it one day and he thought that someone for the fun of it just changed the title screen to say 148K. The cartridge was around 24K for the improved version if my memory was correct. I think Walter got the Front Line Super Game demo working also. Adam Link II and Smart Basic were Coleco products. Other versions were improvements made by individuals. The fastest modem one could have hooked up to the Adam was 19,200. I had a 2400 baud external modem for my Adam but could not afford a $1000 9600 baud modem at the time. At one time I was running 80 columns on the Adam using CP/M and an amber 80 column terminal.

 

Fall Guy, Yolk’s On You, Front Line the Super game demo, Troll’s Tale demo, Project Name By Line, and various other programs were given to NIAD for free. NIAD then turned around and placed the programs in their public domain. Since NIAD took credit cards very few people purchased public domain games from S.M. Video even though I had the best versions. Back then I lost money on the Adam business and was unable to make a profit. I guess back then I was too young to make wise business decisions and was carrying to much software and hardware inventory in the late 80’s and early 90’s for the Adam. I spent several thousands of dollars over the years buying programs from individuals and paying a programmer several hours on videogame restoration for unfinished programs. Back then just a copy of a prototype not an original ran several hundred dollars. My full time job was feeding my Adam business and my hobby to collect videogames unreleased Coleco items. In the early 90’s after working full time and spending the rest of my time with the Adam business that was losing money I decided to give 95% of all the Adam stuff away. I sent all my stuff to an Adamcom to give away to people as door prices. One 3 ½” Disk Drive and several S.M. Video IBM style power supplies for Adam were given away with boxed Super games and various other stuff as door prices at a AdamCon.

 

I basically set myself free from the Adam boxed it up and closed down the business. Went onto an IBM computer with awesome 80 column display and a spelling checker in MS Word that was better then the Adam version of spell checker.

 

I lived within a few miles from Mark Gordon of Micro Innovations. Once and a while I would go over to his business and purchase state of the art Adam equipment. Almost everyone would agree with me when I say that Micro Innovations was the best third party hardware developer for the Adam computer. He designed and sold 3 ½” 1.44 Meg Disk drives for Adam, 1 Meg memory expanders, Hard Drives, and printer/serial interfaces. Everything that Mirco Innovations made was state of the art. Micro Innovations at one time made a deal to purchase several thousands of dollars worth of hard drives to install into his Adam external hard drive cases to resale to the Adam community at a low price. This dealer was selling hard drives “as is” at a very good deal. Mark paid for some samples of this hard drive from this company. The company sent Mark good working refurbished hard drives with no problems. Then Mark spent several thousands (might have been several tens of thousands of dollars) of dollars from this hard drive company to get low cost hard drives for the Adam. Every single hard drive he received in the big purchase for the “as is” hard drives did not work and had to be thrown away. This turned out to be a big business lost for Mirco Innovations since he was ripped of by a hard drive manufactory.

 

I guess there are companies out their that are selling or were selling stuff as is and when they sent you a samples of hard drives they all worked fine, but when you made the big purchase you would get nothing but junk that did not work.

 

Micro Innovations did much to keep the Adam alive. It was a professional run business that had quality products that lasted for years. All my Mirco Innovation products still work. I wish I would have kept the 1 Meg memory expander and some more floppy drives. The adam was a Dying market with less and less people using it every year. All third party companies closed down shop.

[Bill Loguidice]

Look, I said it was a good low cost computer. This marks 1001 times I've said it now. But state of the art?

 

Whatever -- I give. The ADAM was state of the art in 1983. The Apple II was state of the art in 1994 and going strong. Everybody happy?

 

I don't think anyone can reasonably say Adam was state-of-the-art nor do I think anyone who did say it really meant it that way. What *I* said was based off of what you said about Coleco not making a smart business decision in regards to using 8-bit technology. To me, the 8-bit technology was not the issue - it was still viable on the low end consumer market and would be for several more years - it was the build quality, the overly bulky integrated printer and the tape drives. Obviously timing with the videogame depression/crash was also an issue, since Coleco and those 8-bit computers were more associated with gaming than anything else.

[Murph74]

P.S. The Mac was introduced on March 17, 1983. The Adam was introduced in June 1983. The Mac beat the Adam to market.

 

Not sure where you got that from, and while it might be accurate, all net references seem to point to October 83 for Adam as the introduction date (June was when it was announced, not when it reached the market), and January 1984 as the Mac's available date after missing several commit dates thru 1983 (closest reference I find to your March date is May 17, 1983 as another missed date).

 

As for the 8 Bit Sunset, tell that to all the users of Commodore, Atari, and NES (ok, you can point out we're talking computing not gaming here) systems during the 80's and beyond. If you reference the article on the Summer 1983 CES at http://www.atarimagazines.com/creative/v9n...ions_on_CES.php it's fairly easy to see Coelco wasn't alone on the 8 bit ship in 1983-- just the most attention getting. The famous Wall Street Journal article just may be the publicity that ultimately set the bar too high for Coleco to meet. Notice we're not comparing the Adam to the Aquarius, the Atari XL line, the Tomy Tutor, or even the C-64. Not to mention, the Intelivision ECS or the Atari VCS Computer upgrades from various manufacturers. To me, those would be more apple to apple comparisons (no pun inteded) than Adam and Mac. It's a Hummer vs a Yugo with Adam and Mac from where I'm sitting.

 

Although, even in 1984, Adam had the upper hand on support and library-- the Mac didn't really pick up much business until Pagemaker was released if you believe what you read on Mac history sites. Adam of course, was backwards compatible-- a feature still important in the gaming world today, and not quite as much int eh PC world.

 

There's also some good observations about the soon-to-implode gaming scene and the number of publishers arriving int he link above. Had the NES publishing structure been in place, the 84 crash may have been averted IMO, and the tone of conversation in this thread could be considerably different.

 

I'll agree with Bill though-- there were a handful of major mistakes made, and history hasn't forgotten those.

 

Murph

Edited October 6, 2006 by Murph74

[Bill Brasky]

The MSX was released in 1983. It was similar spec-wise to the ADAM and was very successful all over the world for several years. Who cares that 16bit computers were available then. There were probably 32 and 64 bit computers back then too. If consumers can't afford them it doesn't matter.

[HDTV1080P]

Look, I said it was a good low cost computer. This marks 1001 times I've said it now. But state of the art?

 

Whatever -- I give. The ADAM was state of the art in 1983. The Apple II was state of the art in 1994 and going strong. Everybody happy?

Perhaps I need to watch how I use the term “stat of the art”. In some ways its one persons opinion over the others. When I say state of the art I mean top of the line.

 

People who purchased the first pong games that hooked up to their TV sets in the 1970’s might have called their pong game state of the art since it was the very first electronic game available. Back in 1977 many people would consider the Atari 2600 state of the art.

 

When I was calling the Colecovision Adam system state of the Art I was referring to games like Subroc the Supergame, Donkey Kong Junior the Super game, Donkey the Super game, Zaxxon the Supergame, Buck Rodgers the Supergame, etc. Back around 1983 and 1984 the best version of these games was on the Adam computer. The Colecovision cartridges maxed out at 32K for games. Some Adam games approached 256K in length!! Much time and money must have went into making these Super games which were better then any other system that had the same titles.

 

On the computer side yes the Mac was more powerful and more money. There is no doubt that the Mac is true state of the art back in the 80’s 90’s and even today. Generally speaking more expensive items are better quality. The Adam printer was a big joke, so noise with built in power supply to power the entire system. Bad design. Also 80 columns would have been nice to have but it would most likely have raised the overall price of the computer over $1,000. The Adam was not perfect it had its problems. Low cost disk drives started appearing on the market a year or two later. The reason behind the high tape drive was to have a low cost alternative to a disk drive. When the tape drive operated correctly it was not too bad. Problem occured when people ejected the tape when it was going threw a high speed search and then the early drives would keep running for 30 seconds or so. Then some people placed the tape back in while the drive was running and the tape would get eaten up .I hated the tape drives. I went to a 160K Disk Drive in 1984 and then later on a 320K Disk Drive, then a 720K disk drive. Then went to a 3 ½” 1.44 Meg disk drive. Everything I have on the Adam computer is on 3 ½. And for many years did not use tape any more. My Adam has not been used in a serious matter for over 10 years. Did briefly a year ago play around with it for a couple hours and then boxed it up.

 

The main reason I bought the Adam was for the Super games feature, the computer side was a bonus for the low package price. Coleco would have been smarter if they would have canceled the Adam computer and released expansion module #3 as a super game module only. Inside of building a combination Colecovision with Adam combination they could have just called it Colecovision II. The Colecovision II would be a combination Colecovision with built in expansion module #3.

 

The other problem Coleco did was in the marketing of games. For the Adam computer it was great to have new Super Games based on old Coleco cartridges but they also needed to come up with a catalog of new games not just old improved releases of previous Coleco carts. Sure there was Family Feud and Dragon’s Lair for the Adam that was really good but when you look at most of the games for the Adam they were just improved old improved Colecovision games. Most people thought why should I by an Adam for several hundred dollars when I already own these games for coleocvision. Some people did not realize the Adam versions were much better then the Colecovision versions, other people really did not care they wanted to see more catalog of games for Adam before they laid out $600-$800.

[HDTV1080P]

The MSX was released in 1983. It was similar spec-wise to the ADAM and was very successful all over the world for several years. Who cares that 16bit computers were available then. There were probably 32 and 64 bit computers back then too. If consumers can't afford them it doesn't matter.

Guys I am just catching up to speed on what is going on in the Colecovision and Adam world. Since the early 90’s I have not paid attention in regards to what is going on with the Coelcovision and Adam computer system. Last time I checked around 170 Coelcovision carts had been released back in the 1980’s. I see now that there still is development going on in both the Adam and Colecovision world. Some one developed a cool 128 in 1 Flash cart that I am considering purchasing. Also see that people have been making Colecovision and Adam programs still. This one website has 306 Colecovision game rom’s. Some of these are third party developers making games for the Coleco in the 90’s and the early 2000 years, but others are official pro type games for Coleco like Atari Pacman and Dig Dug, etc.

 

http://www.globalroms.com/colecovision/0-page1.shtml

 

Does anyone know of a website that has this many colecovision games. 306 cartridges is a lot. It looks like I might need to pay $22.95 to sign up and join. I am very interested in getting the Atari Pacman and Dig Dug preproduction games. Global roms appears to be the only place to find games like Pacman.

 

Thanks to the Internet more and more unreleased and preproduction games are being found for the Colecovision and Adam. I wish someone would find Smurf the Super game that was verified by a reliable source to be finished.

 

I just tried the Blue MSX emulation software for the Colecovision. This software is the best Coleco emulator that I have every seen so far. I have not tried every cartridge yet, only about a dozen. The Blue MSX was well design and is very stable running under Windows XP Professional and appears to work with all or most carts (still have not tested it fully). I am new to this program but there appears to be one problem with this software. It appears to emulate only the standard Coleco hand controller. It would be ideal if it could also emulate the Super Action Controller, Roller Controller, and expansion module #2 Steering wheel/pedal.

 

Someone should design an Adam Computer emulation software based on the Blue MSX. It would be awesome to have a high quality emulation software for the Adam using the Blue MX design. I am not cutting on other Adam computer software emulations which I have not tried yet. But looking at the Blue MSX Colecovision emulation this is such an awesome tool.

 

If a good quality Blue MX Adam emulation was available that functioned exactly like the Adam including running 3 ½” 1.44 Meg Adam disk this would be great. I would even be willing to pay $100 for such a program and I a sure some other Adam owners would also. My Adam has installed the improved un released EOS 6 operating system. If my memory is correct EOS 6 was slightly better then the released EOS 5. Walter Software developed EOS 9 (think that’s what it was called) which was the best Adam operating system.

Edited October 6, 2006 by HDTV1080P

[Bill Brasky]

There's no way there's 306 CV games out there currrently. Those are bad rom dumps mixed in with other good dumps and mis-labelled as alternative versions. You shouldn't pay a cent to download CV roms as they're all over the net for free.

 

romnation and digital Press among hundreds of others have them for free.

 

 

You might want to try MEKA. It's a Sega Master System and CV emulator. It doesn't ever get mentioned because it's considered by most as a dedicated SMS emulator but it emulates CV very well also, has high compatibility with roms and is very easy to use.

[HDTV1080P]

I see stuff like this and it makes me wonder if there are ADAM Super Game versions of Smurf, Time Pilot and Turbo waiting to be discovered.

 

Check this website out it has very accurate detailed information about Colecovision and the Adam.

 

http://www.classicgaming.com/colecofaq/#4.2

 

 

Here is a quote from the classic gaming website from someone that played the preproduction unreleased Supergame module. I also have the magazine for this review somewhere.

 

 

“Brown claims to have played the system for 8 hours over two different days. Load time for the wafers is clocked at about 10 seconds. Super Games Brown tested: Super Donkey Kong, Super Donkey Kong Jr., Super Smurf Rescue in Gargamel's Castle. Brown further notes better colors and additional levels in all three games. Planned titles included: Zaxxon, Buck Rogers Planet of Zoom, Time Pilot, Turbo and Sub-Roc. Brown also notes the ability to enter your initials for high score, which is then stored on the tape.”

 

 

Most of us have played Donket Kong the Super game (released), Donkey Kong Junior the Super game (released), Zaxxon the Super Game (released), Buck Rodgers the Super game (released), and Sub-Roc the Super game on the Adam. Subroc the Supergame was unreleased and is floating around in public domain as a finished product. Most likely since there is an eyewitness account of Brown playing Smurf the Super Game then this was a real product that was finished just like Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Junior. The question remains was the wafer image converted to an Adam format or is it still in the unreleased prototype wafer image. Some Coleco employee out their most likely still has Smurf the Super Game in either an Adam format or in the pre Adam wafer image format (I bet those preproduction wafer drives no longer work.) Now possible Time Pilot the Super Game and Turbo the Super game never were never written by a programmer since Coleco stopped making new items in Jan 1985.

 

 

 

I want to keep my posts as accurate as possible. Earlier I said Colceo was working on a Laserdisc Super game module to play games like Dragon’s Lair. I thought I read this somewhere or at least heard it from someone. After doing more research it appears Coleco decided not to go with the better quality more expensive Laserdisc system but were seriously considering using the RCA CED cheaper needle and groove system. It would have cost around $495. I am glad this was canceled. The CED system was a failed movie delivery system. The Optical Pioneer Laserdisc format would have been a better choice. Laserdisc was popular between 1978 until the late 1990’s. The only reason Laserdiscs stopped being made was of a new improved optical system known as the DVD format.

 

Some times I wonder about Coleco. They sometimes were thinking about how cheap one can make the systems. The Digital Data Pack was a failed concept and then Coleco had RCA make a few Coleco CED pro- types with plans to have the optical Laserdisc Dragon’s Lair image placed on the poor quality CED needle and groove system. This would have been a bad decision since the CED was a failed movie system. Possible for a few hundred dollars more they could have made a deal with Pioneer. Some Coleco employee might have a protype Coleco CED system laying around.

 

The Dragon’s Lair Laserdisc from the arcade and Space Ace were sold many years ago by this one mail order company. People that purchased the Laserdisc can place it into there Laserdisc player and watch the game as a movie. Those with RS-232 interfaces on their Laserdisc players can hook it up to their computer and with a program play the game. Now days people just play the original Space Ace and Dragon’s Lair Game on a DVD-Rom that is exactly the same as the arcade version. All the Adam Super games were faithful to the Arcade in quality accept Dragon’s Lair which required a Laserdisc to make it as good as the arcade. I have to laugh, if Coleco would have came out with games on a Coleco CED there would have been all kinds of problems. Optical Laserdiscs from Pioneer are so much more reliable then the needle and groove system.

 

 

 

Looks like Colecovision had the best version of Pacman if Atari would have released it.

 

Quote from Colecovision FAQ

 

“Pac-Man -

 

Has the same aspect ratio as the 2600 (and 5200 - JH) version; plays really well, and maintains all the bonuses and intermissions. The title screen includes a neat dissolve-in of "Pac Man". Atari did not release the cartridge because of their advertising campaign at the time, which boasted "you will only be able to play Pac-Man on the Atari!". - 53

 

The _best_ home version of Pac-Man I've ever played. Scores over the competition on the basis of:

 

2600 - absolutely everything (no big surprise)

5200 - better detail (the ghosts have eyes) and better control

NES - better control (which outweighs the aspect ratio and attract screen advantages of the NES version in my opinion)

 

Seems to be 100% complete and ready for release. – JH”

 

This is an awesome webite with very accurate information

 

http://www.classicgaming.com/colecofaq/#4.2

[HDTV1080P]

Ok I was right I new I read it some where that Coleco decided on the Laserdisc system for Dragon's Lair before the crash instead of the CED system that they were thinking about using in the late 1983 time frame. By 1984 people realized that the Laserdisc system was better and more popular then RCA CED system and Coleco was considering using Laserdisc. I still own Laserdisc movies that are not available on DVD or Blu-ray yet.

 

Quote from

 

http://www.classicgaming.com/colecofaq/#4.2

 

"Right before the crash, Coleco had the rights to Dragon's Lair, and was going to release an expansion unit to let you hook up an LD player. The idea was the controller would be the ColecoVision, and you could play Dragon's Lair in its entirety. – 16"

 

 

LD stands for Laserdisc.

 

Coleco was know to have many prototype hardware and software products. Another quote from classic computing talks about the protype Intellivision adapter that people claim to have seen at shows but the product never was released.

 

I"Intellivision Adapter by Coleco.

 

Coleco had plans for an adapter that would play Intellivision cartridges. Supposedly there are several working prototypes of this adapter that were shown at electronic shows. If Coleco would have only gone through with production, the ColecoVision would have been able to play Intellivision, 2600, and ColecoVision cartridges! – JC"

 

http://www.classicgaming.com/colecofaq/#4.2

 

It appears many Coleco employees when they were laid off in 1985, one of their benefits was they got to take home preproduction hardware and software. Many of these items were finished while others were not completed yet. I personally saw someone at an Adam meeting that had the Address Book software on 5 ¼" Disk that was never released. Yes I know Address book was released on Digital Data Pack but Coleco never officially released it on Disk. He informed me he received the unreleased Disk version form a Coleco employee. The Disk had the neat looking Coleco label on it and it was genuine. Some of these programs and Super games were made in small production quantities for internal use.

 

At the very first Adam convention I went to (Adamcon one) I spoke with a Coleco employee who also had an Adam wholesale business that supplied released products and software to various Adam dealers. This person had pictures and claimed to own an actual preproduction piece of hardware. This person was a reliable honest person in my opinion that I did business with over the years. Anyways based on the pictures and schematics that I saw the official Coleco Adamnet external parallel printer interface was a product that was completed but never released. This Coleco employee claimed it was in perfect working order and worked with all Coleco software without a software patch since it used the Adamnet. Those in the Adam community know that all third party printer interfaces needed a software patch to work since they did not use the Adamnet interface. This Coleco employee would not allow anyone to borrow the device since he used it all the time on his Adam to run his mail order business.

 

Not being able to hookup another printer to the Adam was a bad feature on the Adam. Coleco was planning on fixing this problem with a special device that required no special software patches to any programs including the built in word processor.

Edited October 7, 2006 by HDTV1080P

[Pixelboy]

Looks like Colecovision had the best version of Pacman if Atari would have released it.

 

Quote from Colecovision FAQ

 

“Pac-Man -

 

Has the same aspect ratio as the 2600 (and 5200 - JH) version; plays really well, and maintains all the bonuses and intermissions. The title screen includes a neat dissolve-in of "Pac Man". Atari did not release the cartridge because of their advertising campaign at the time, which boasted "you will only be able to play Pac-Man on the Atari!". - 53

 

The _best_ home version of Pac-Man I've ever played. Scores over the competition on the basis of:

 

2600 - absolutely everything (no big surprise)

5200 - better detail (the ghosts have eyes) and better control

NES - better control (which outweighs the aspect ratio and attract screen advantages of the NES version in my opinion)

 

Seems to be 100% complete and ready for release. – JH”

 

This is an awesome webite with very accurate information

 

http://www.classicgaming.com/colecofaq/#4.2

 

Most of us already know about the Coleco FAQ, you know. We're not all CV newbies here, although I do realize the info you posted can be useful to some less-knowledgeable people.

 

Also, Opcode's Pac-Man Collection is arcade perfect down to the last detail, and it's only a matter of time before it (finally) gets released on the CV, and that will make the Atari Pac-Man proto irrelevant, whether it still exists out there or not.

[HDTV1080P]

Looks like Colecovision had the best version of Pacman if Atari would have released it.

 

Quote from Colecovision FAQ

 

"Pac-Man -

 

Has the same aspect ratio as the 2600 (and 5200 - JH) version; plays really well, and maintains all the bonuses and intermissions. The title screen includes a neat dissolve-in of "Pac Man". Atari did not release the cartridge because of their advertising campaign at the time, which boasted "you will only be able to play Pac-Man on the Atari!". - 53

 

The _best_ home version of Pac-Man I've ever played. Scores over the competition on the basis of:

 

2600 - absolutely everything (no big surprise)

5200 - better detail (the ghosts have eyes) and better control

NES - better control (which outweighs the aspect ratio and attract screen advantages of the NES version in my opinion)

 

Seems to be 100% complete and ready for release. – JH"

 

This is an awesome webite with very accurate information

 

http://www.classicgaming.com/colecofaq/#4.2

 

Most of us already know about the Coleco FAQ, you know. We're not all CV newbies here, although I do realize the info you posted can be useful to some less-knowledgeable people.

 

Also, Opcode's Pac-Man Collection is arcade perfect down to the last detail, and it's only a matter of time before it (finally) gets released on the CV, and that will make the Atari Pac-Man proto irrelevant, whether it still exists out there or not.

Thanks for the info. Last night while searching the net I ran into info on the Pac Man collection. It appears Opcode is making new games for the Colecovision like Space Invaders collection and the Pac-man collection. This is awesome. What is really interesting is the Pac-man collection cartridge is going to be 1meg of memory!! This is a new record in size for a game in the Coleco/Adam collection. All other Colecovision cartridges to my knowledge from Coleco and any other company maxed out at 32K. The Adam Supergames by Coleco maxed out at 256K. This Pacman collection at 1meg that is planned for a 2007 release must be an awesome faithful reproduction of all the Pacman games.

 

Does anyone know where I can purchase the Space Invaders Collection 32K rom image to run on a Coleco emulator? Or I could purchase the Space Invaders Collection cartridge and with Copycart 2.0 make a backup copy onto 3 ½" Disk and play it on the Adam off of 3 ½" Disk. Then with some type of conversion program I could convert it to an IBM format Disk to be read by a Colecovision emulator.

 

The sound and Video quality of the Blue MX emulator for Colecovision is better quality then composte Video and Audio output on the Adam computer standalone. Only problem with Blue MX is it appears to only emulate the standard Coleco hand controllers and not the Super action controller, Roller controller and Expansion module #2 the steering wheel/pedal. Some coleco games require these other controllers.

Edited October 7, 2006 by HDTV1080P

[Pixelboy]

Thanks for the info. Last night while searching the net I ran into info on the Pac Man collection. It appears Opcode is making new games for the Colecovision like Space Invaders collection and the Pac-man collection. This is awesome. What is really interesting is the Pac-man collection cartridge is going to be 1meg of memory!! This is a new record in size for a game in the Coleco/Adam collection. All other Colecovision cartridges to my knowledge from Coleco and any other company maxed out at 32K. The Adam Supergames by Coleco maxed out at 256K. This Pacman collection at 1meg that is planned for a 2007 release must be an awesome faithful reproduction of all the Pacman games.

It is, trust me. The MegaCart comes in 128K, 256K, etc. up to 1 megabyte. If I'm not mistaken, Opcode uses the 128K (1 Mbit) version for PMC.

 

Does anyone know where I can purchase the Space Invaders Collection 32K rom image to run on a Coleco emulator? Or I could purchase the Space Invaders Collection cartridge and with Copycart 2.0 make a backup copy onto 3 ½" Disk and play it on the Adam off of 3 ½" Disk. Then with some type of conversion program I could convert it to an IBM format Disk to be read by a Colecovision emulator.

Opcode is a member of these boards, and you don't want him reading that...

Anyhow, he's currently in the process of producing a few more SIC carts, but there's no set release date for this new batch. Otherwise, you can monitor eBay. In fact, there's one SIC under auction on eBay right now. Look for it.

[Jess Ragan]

Yikes, it's the attack of the wildly variant fonts! And me without my Century Gothic typeface!

 

Anyway, which version of Jeopardy! was the Adam game based on? I played it a few years ago but can't recall whether it was the "new" Alex Trebek show with the updated money values or the older one from the 1960's.

 

The Adam game was released in the same year that the new Jeopardy! debuted, but it seemed like Weird Al Yankovich's song "I Lost On Jeopardy!" came out around the same time, and that was based on the 1960's game show. I'm so confused!

 

JR

[Inky]

.

 

The Adam game was released in the same year that the new Jeopardy! debuted, but it seemed like Weird Al Yankovich's song "I Lost On Jeopardy!" came out around the same time, and that was based on the 1960's game show. I'm so confused!

 

JR

 

Who's Weird Al Yankovich?

 

</spelling nazi>

 

Jeopard was indeed based upon Alex Trebek's version.

[Bill Brasky]

 

Who's Weird Al Yankovich?

 

</spelling nazi>

 

Jeopard was indeed based upon Alex Trebek's version.

 

What's Jeopard?