#COLECO ADAM

[retrocgads]

UK 1987

[commodorez]

Top 5 worse computers from the 80s

While I'm sure someone could come up with a more definitive well-curated list, here's what I came up with on a whim: Sinclair ZX-81 The ZX-80 was a good, inexpensive step forward for the burgeoning UK computer market. Its successor, the ZX-81, tripped and fell rather than do anything beyond streamlining it for mass production. A real pain in the ass to type on, and notoriously flaky to do any serious work on. Localized in the US as the Timex-Sinclair 1000, it was too weak to really compete with the American market. British users seem to like them but I'd chalk up most of that to nostalgia goggles.

Apple III Apple tried and failed to make a business machine, and Jobs got his way a bit too much, and it overheated alot because he mandated that it couldn't have a fan. Ultimately, it confused people and was surpassed by better Apple II's. A weird footnote in Apple failures.

IBM PCjr The answer to a question that nobody asked. Crappy wireless keyboard, intended to be bolted to your home television. Cartridges? On an IBM? WTF is that? The expansion options are hot garbage. Eventually it was upstaged by the Tandy 1000 at its own game. Just get a PC XT. Or a Tandy.

Coleco Adam Likes to erase its own tapes if you leave them in the drive on power-up due to an electrical surge it shoves through the tape mechanism. The main system power supply is integrated into the printer, so you NEED the chonky printer to be plugged in for it to work. Has those weird phone pad + joystick hybrid controllers. Just get a ColecoVision to play your cartridge games.

Commodore Plus/4 I was going to take a stab at the MAX Machine, but Commodore did worse with the whole concept of the Plus/4. This thing was too cheap for its own good, and went in a completely bonkers direction at the behest of Jack Tramiel. It's supposed to be a cheap business machine to eat the ZX Spectrum's lunch. Why go after the little guy from the UK market? Who knows. Lame rubber chiclet keyboard, totally incompatible with existing Commodore software and most peripherals, and having 121 colors can't save it from being a dumb idea. Apparently it was a hit in eastern Europe.

Remember, pretty much every system has its fanclub, regardless of how flawed, underpowered, or limited a platform it is. So while I personally don't care for any of these machines, if you're mad at me for taking a pot shot at your favorite, do keep in mind that my favorite computer of all time is the VIC-20. You know, the one that most Commodore enthusiasts ignore for only having 5K of RAM having only 8 foreground colors, only 22 columns of screen resolution, and just not being a C64.

[kurhl]

A jornada para a corrida com rodas na idade da pedra.

[brainmachinebroke]

Had a broken coleco adam controller in my stash, thought I'd try and show how pretty it is on the inside :)

[foone]

Hey look, some retro tech shows up in my supreme court microfiche!

Coleco started as a leather company (like Tandy/Radioshack): their name literally comes from "Connecticut Leather Company": Co Le Co.

They got into video games with their Telstar line of pong-consoles in the 70s, then the Colecovision console, and the Coleco Adam computer in 1983.

They got out of electronics in 1985, and focused more on Cabbage Patch Kids and assorted boardgames, before going bankrupt in 1988.

Anyway, this case is them suing a company they purchased that made above-ground aluminium swimming pools. Apparently there was some securities fraud going on.

[seat-safety-switch]

If you're like me, then you were born allergic to two things: most tomato-based dishes, and bullshit. Our era's defining characteristic is the latter: we are immersed, nay, assaulted by a fine spray of bovine fecal product at all times, from all possible angles. And now, the folks who once told us that magazines were unprofitable have made a machine that spits out words if you feed it just one rainforest.

Well, folks, we here at Bad Cars Monthly are not going to stand for this kind of thing. Writing well-intentioned but ultimately meaningless hoo-ha in order to pad the word count is our fucking racket, and we're not going to let any glorified Logo turtle play around in our territory. That's why we've decided to go low-tech, as a form of protest. The technology industry demands that we buy the newest and hottest machines, even when we predominantly write about machines made fifty years ago.

Every BCM contributor has been assigned one (1) Coleco Adam microcomputer with English-alphabet daisy wheel printer, and they will be mailing their work products and drafts to our offices. Yes, this means that at least one of the articles you are reading right now made at least two trips in an Iron Duke-equipped Grumman LLV. Low compression. Inexpensive. Durable. That's what the marketeers would call "living our values," if we hadn't already fired them to save more money for postage. And running up the odometer means it's just that much closer to being able to grab one at government auction, so we can try to finish Nightmare Ed's special article series, Going Under 17 Seconds In The Quarter-Mile With A Grumman LLV And Only Some Skin Grafts. I love that man. He even pads the title.

All this is to say, if you're a real, live, flesh-and-blood writer, or just someone who would like to have a Coleco Adam in their house and can write convincing enough garbage to trick us into publishing it, send us a self-addressed stamped envelope with said garbage. Please also include photographs of your Plymouths.

[linkandorf]

Every Mario Character Update #13

Donkey Kong Jr. (Coleco Adam, 1984)

Look at this thing I only just learned about yesterday!! It's a creature made of cake batter (presumably) that appears in a new level exclusive to the Coleco Adam version. Mental.

If you think I missed anyone or you don't recognize someone, please let me know!

[faulix]

can i play brc on the colecovision or on the coleco adam or on sg-1000 or on a beat up fast food cash register or on a overworked office workers Common Operating Machine Purposely Used for Technological and Educational Research aka ‘computer’ as one would call it? can i?

hi nat 👋 as long as your computer is naganuma compatible good news. you too can play brc

[gmlocg]

46.) Donkey Kong

Release: July 9th, 1981 | GGF: Action, Arcade, Platformer | Developer(s): Nintendo R&D1, Nintendo Co., Ltd. | Publisher(s): Nintendo Co., Ltd., Coleco Industries, Inc., Atari Corporation, CBS Electronics, Ocean Software Ltd., Erbe Software, S.A., HAMSTER Corporation | Platform(s): Arcade (1981), Atari 2600 (1982), ColecoVision (1982), Dedicated Handheld (1982), Intellivision (1982), Atari 8-bit (1983), Commodore 64 (1983), NES (1983), PC Booter (1983), TI-99/4A (1983), VIC-20 (1983), Apple II (1984), Coleco Adam (1984), Amstrad CPC (1986), MSX (1986), ZX Spectrum (1986), Atari 7800 (1988), Game Boy Advance (2002), Wii (2006), Nintendo DS (2012), Wii U (2013), Nintendo Switch (2018)

[drgaellon]

I am this old. C64 was my first computer. (Dad wanted a Coleco ADAM, had already bought the Colecovision game console to connect it to, but the project was delayed and delayed, so we got the Commodore 64 instead.)

Tumblr wouldn't let me reblog from @unforth so I had to screenshot.

[retrocgads]

UK 1987

[shizuitu-blog]

DK JR

When porting the arcade classic over to their new home computer add-on, the Coleco Adam, Coleco thought it would be a novel idea to add their own features and levels to the game to separate it more from other versions. The one featured above is an elaborate setup where Mario tries to drop pies onto your head. Very cruel. This was not sanctioned by Nintendo however, and it’s thought that the poor…

[taperwolf]

I was at a thrift store I don't often get to, and could not justify buying a vintage Radio Shack computer keyboard that I'd never seen before, but I dearly wish I'd at least thought to take photos.

I had previously seen two kinds of these DIY keyboards: a very early one that connected to an expansion board — sold as a kit — to create a full ASCII keyboard like the Altair-era hobbyist computers used, and one from circa 1985 that had four large function keys to the right, like a Commodore used. In searching just now, I found a third kind, one with a detached arrow key cluster, that was meant to replace the original keyboard on the Coleco Adam. The latter two — and the first, if you didn't get the expander — were, under the hood, simple key matrices.

But this one at the store, still in the "Archer" branded packaging, had three things I have not seen elsewhere. First, several keys — I believe things like shift and return — were red instead of the black of the rest of them; next, there were arrow keys on either side of the space bar, in a very odd layout. But most intriguingly, it wasn't just a key matrix; it had a chip on the board to multiplex reading it.

I really should have taken pictures! I can't find it despite looking through '70s and '80s catalogs, though admittedly my search hasn't been deep.

[archiveosorg]

AdamEm

AdamEm – a portable Coleco ADAM emulator https://archivegame.org/adamem/

[ulan-bator]

[nostalgiarewind]

Coleco Adam (1983)

Coleco’s Adam was an absolute sensation when it was announced: 80K of memory, full-size keyboard, word processing software, high-speed data recorder, a letter-quality printer, 2 controllers, backward compatible to the entire ColecoVision library - all for $600. Unfortunately, things didn’t quite turn out as expected: Many early Adams were defective. To make things worse, they generated a surge of electromagnetic energy on startup, which could potentially erase the contents of any removable media left in or near the drive. Adam was discontinued in 1985, two years after its launch.