14 Sep
1999
14 Sep
'99
5:53 p.m.
-----Original Message-----
From: Glenatacme(a)aol.com <Glenatacme(a)aol.com>
I'm not familiar with the Adam. When you say it
"really didn't work," do
you
mean:
1) it was poorly designed
2) it was poorly manufactured
3) it was a PITA to use or program
The easy answer would be all three, but it was a decent 1983-4 design, the
printer quality control left a lot to be desired, but it was a daisy wheel
printer for a very cheap price back then. (note: the Adam came with the
printer, basic, and a word processor for $800 in 1984, the KayPro 2X with a
Juki 6100 Daisy wheel printer I replaced the Adam with costs $1750.)
I found you would not want to trust the printer to print out your work on
deadline. It might take you a long time to get the formatting correct.
It was definetily a PITA to use and program, and program you did. At least
you typed in basic programs form listings in books and magazines.
My first and last project was to type in a basic progam to make a mailing
list for my customers. I never could get it to work and finally found the
authors telephone number and called him. He immediately admitted the
program didn't work as Coleco had shipped a different version of basic than
the one they had given him to work with. He also confirmed that the printer
was "very difficult" to get to print correctly. He also admitted that he
was without a current Adam as he himself had returned two machines for
refunds.
I think later the basic was improved and the printer was improved.
"Really didn't work" sounds as if _nothing_ useful could be done with the
machine, no matter the skills and/or perseverance of the user.
I think as time went on, there were some useful filing, spreadsheet, and
better word pocessing progams for the Adam. They could not have been any
worse anyway :-)
There was a lot of talk of CP/M for the Adam while I had one, I don't know
if that ever happened.
More plainly stated: are these things _totally_ _crap_ ??? I like
collecting the smaller machines, but don't wish to waste my time if the
Adam
"really doesn't work."
No, not total loss, but darn close IMHO. As I remember, I could always type
something into the Adam, and then play hell trying to get the thing to give
it back to me out of the printerr in some kind of recognizable form.
With all the activity yet, they are not rare I guess. Perhaps the Adam
bomb has earned it's place in any well stocked collection. There appears to
be plenty of information on the Web surprisingly, to get you started visit:
http://www.flash.net/~coleco/start.htm
Good luck,
Jim Rossbach, Tonkin Gulf Yacht Club, www.TonkinYachts.cjb.net
You've heard it said that the early bird gets the worm? Well the second
mouse gets the cheese ! (W. Rian Adams)
14 Sep
14 Sep
6:09 p.m.
New subject: 12
Our latest acquisition is a PDP-9, one of 455 built. It served until
this summer controlling a very large 60"x60" XY plotter. This is one of
only 2 of this size in the world, and is used to prepare glass plates for
etching. The plotter moves in increments of 1/10000 of an inch. The
plotter was built in the late 1960's by Concord Electronics in
California. The plotter is built on a granite slab about 3 feet thick,
which rests on supports which were drilled down to bedrock. In order to
be installed, the rear wall of the building was removed. The Concord
controls fill 3 cabinets, and these are controlled in turn by the PDP-9.
Two PDP-11's are used to control and programme the PDP-9. This summer a
more modern control system the size of a filing cabinet replaced the 3
six-foot control racks, and a Dell server and UPS replaced the DEC's. We
were give the PDP-9, PDP-11's, and Concord control parts, as well as
spare flip chips, terminals, paper tapes, manuals, etc.
7:01 p.m.
New subject: 12
Merle K. Peirce wrote:
Our latest acquisition is a PDP-9, one of 455 built. It served until
this summer controlling a very large 60"x60" XY plotter. This is one of
only 2 of this size in the world, and is used to prepare glass plates for
etching. The plotter moves in increments of 1/10000 of an inch. The
plotter was built in the late 1960's by Concord Electronics in
California. The plotter is built on a granite slab about 3 feet thick,
which rests on supports which were drilled down to bedrock. In order to
be installed, the rear wall of the building was removed. The Concord
controls fill 3 cabinets, and these are controlled in turn by the PDP-9.
Two PDP-11's are used to control and programme the PDP-9. This summer a
more modern control system the size of a filing cabinet replaced the 3
six-foot control racks, and a Dell server and UPS replaced the DEC's. We
were give the PDP-9, PDP-11's, and Concord control parts, as well as
spare flip chips, terminals, paper tapes, manuals, etc.
Congratualtions. ACONIT, here in Grenoble, has 2 PDP-9's one used to
control an experiment at CERN. We laso have a quite extensive library of
documentation, paper-tapes and DECtapes. The state of the DECtapes is
unknown till we got our system working again.
If you need any assistance please feel free to contact me.
This is the 5th PDP-9 that I am aware of, we have two, there is one in
Australia and I learnt of another one in Germany a few days ago.
Regards
_---_--__-_-_----__-_----_-__-__-_-___--_-__--___-__----__--_--__-___-
Hans B Pufal Comprehensive Computer Catalogue
<mailto:hansp@digiweb.com> <http://digiweb.com/~hansp/ccc>
15 Sep
15 Sep
2:19 a.m.
New subject: 12
While we have to store it for a bit until we figure out how to get it
upstairs, we're really interested in getting it to work. Unfortunately,
our elevator has not been repaired, and the 9 is about 10 inches too tall
for it anyway. It was brutal getting the 2 PDP-10's upstairs, and we
still have two tape drives to bring up.
On Wed, 15 Sep 1999, Hans B Pufal wrote:
Merle K. Peirce wrote:
M. K. Peirce
Rhode Island Computer Museum, Inc.
215 Shady Lea Road,
North Kingstown, RI 02852
"Casta est qui nemo rogavit."
- Ovid
Our latest acquisition is a PDP-9, one of 455 built. It served until
this summer controlling a very large 60"x60" XY plotter. This is one of
only 2 of this size in the world, and is used to prepare glass plates for
etching. The plotter moves in increments of 1/10000 of an inch. The
plotter was built in the late 1960's by Concord Electronics in
California. The plotter is built on a granite slab about 3 feet thick,
which rests on supports which were drilled down to bedrock. In order to
be installed, the rear wall of the building was removed. The Concord
controls fill 3 cabinets, and these are controlled in turn by the PDP-9.
Two PDP-11's are used to control and programme the PDP-9. This summer a
more modern control system the size of a filing cabinet replaced the 3
six-foot control racks, and a Dell server and UPS replaced the DEC's. We
were give the PDP-9, PDP-11's, and Concord control parts, as well as
spare flip chips, terminals, paper tapes, manuals, etc.
Congratualtions. ACONIT, here in Grenoble, has 2 PDP-9's one used to
control an experiment at CERN. We laso have a quite extensive library of
documentation, paper-tapes and DECtapes. The state of the DECtapes is
unknown till we got our system working again.
If you need any assistance please feel free to contact me.
This is the 5th PDP-9 that I am aware of, we have two, there is one in
Australia and I learnt of another one in Germany a few days ago.
Regards
_---_--__-_-_----__-_----_-__-__-_-___--_-__--___-__----__--_--__-___-
Hans B Pufal Comprehensive Computer Catalogue
<mailto:hansp@digiweb.com> <http://digiweb.com/~hansp/ccc>
9079
days inactive
9080
days old
3 comments
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