18 Mar
1997
18 Mar
'97
1:27 p.m.
At 05:03 PM 3/18/97 -0500, you wrote:
A friend of mine found a Coleco Adam "Super"
system, or something like
that, and was wondering how to operate the tape drive. I remember the tape
was fast. It looked like a standard audio tape but would spin like it was
in fast forward, and would be loading level 2, while you were still playing
level 1. Anyway, he says he is stuck in a typewriter mode and doesn't know
how to get out. I remember this mode too, but it's been so long I don't
remember either. Anyone?
mhop(a)snip.net
I don't know about an Adam super system but I founded and ran an
Adam Users
Group, and edited a regular Adam Newsletter for many years so maybe I can
help. There are other Adam interested users on this List.
First let me describe the Adam tape drive, which was officially called a
Digital Datadrive and the specially formatted digital cassettes were called
Digital Datapacks. The data was transferred to/from the CPU and recorded on
the tape in digital format. The read/write tape speed was 20 inches per
second and the transiting was 80 inches per second. Compare that with the
regular cassette recorder which has a tape speed of 1 and 3/8" per second.
Hence the need for good quality tapes.
Regular commercial support for Adam still exists in the US and Canada.
If your friend has the keyboard and the printer, which included the system
power supply, he should connect all three together and connect the video
output TV terminal to a standard TV (Channel 3 or 4 depending on the
position of the selector switch on the rear of the CPU). Then switch on the
system with the on-off switch at the rear of the printer, and if he gets the
"Electronic Typewriter screen, all he needs to do is press the Escape key
once and he's into a proprietary word processor called SmartWriter.
For this there is no requirement to have a tape in the drive. It comes on an
Eprom.
If he, or anyone else needs further help with the Coleco Adam, sent me
e-mail at my e-mail address and I'll gladly help as much as I can.
I still have my original Adam sitting in its workstation, but its been
modified somewhat. As well as its two original datadrives it now boasts a
320k 5.25" floppy drive, a 1.44 meg 3.5" f;loppy, a 40 meg IDE hard drive, 1
meg of RAM and produces video on either a composite colour monitor or a Wyse
50 terminal, depending on which of the four available operating systems I'm
using. With two serial ports and one parallel port.
Cheers.
David Cobley.
Fidonet on the ADAM, CP/M Tech
and Hewlett-Packard Echoes.
Internet-dcobley(a)mail.island.net, or,
davidc(a)macn.bc.ca