Coleco Adam

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Coleco Adam
Coleco-adam.jpg
Developer Coleco
Release date October 1983 (1983-10)
Introductory price US$725
Discontinued January 1985 (1985-01)
CPU Zilog Z80A @ 3.58MHz
Related articles ColecoVision

The Coleco Adam is a home computer, and expansion for the ColecoVision (port 3), released in 1983 by American toy manufacturer Coleco. It was an attempt to follow on the success of the company's ColecoVision video game console. The Adam was not very successful, partly because of early production problems, and was orphaned in early 1985[1]

Introduction

Coleco announced the Adam at the Summer Consumer Electronics Show (CES)[2]:{{{3}}} in June 1983, and executives predicted sales of 500,000 by Christmas 1983. From the time of the computer's introduction to the time of its shipment, the price increased, from USD $525 to $725.

Failure

Coleco's 1983 announcement of the Adam received favorable press coverage.[2]:{{{3}}} The Boston Phoenix, observing that the computer's $600 price was comparable to the lowest price for a letter-quality printer alone, stated "a nice trick if they can do it!"[3] It was, in fact, a trick; the computers were shown behind tinted glass that hid the fact that they were hand-made and had non-working tape drives.[4]:{{{3}}}

In June the company promised to ship the computer by August. In August it promised to ship a half million Adams by Christmas, but missed shipping dates of 1 September, 15 September, 1 October, and 15 October. Ahoy! reported that Coleco had not shipped by early October because of various problems. Each month of delay could mean losing the opportunity to sell 100,000 units, the magazine reported, adding that missing the Christmas season would result in "inestimable losses".[5][4]:{{{3}}} The company only shipped 95,000 units by December, which were very defective; Creative Computing later reported that "the rumored return rate was absolutely alarming". One store manager stated that five of six sold Adams had been returned, and expected that the sixth would likely be returned after being opened on Christmas. Coleco partnered with Honeywell Information Systems to open up repair chain stores around the nation.[4]:{{{3}}}[6] By December 1983 the press reported that company executives at a news conference "fielded questions about Coleco's problems with its highly-publicized new Adam home computer, which has been plagued by production delays and complaints of defects", with the company only able to fulfill one third of its Canadian orders for Christmas. Less than 10% of Adam units had defects, the company claimed, "well below industry standards".[7]

An analyst stated in early 1984 that the company had[8]

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targeted a very special area: primarily home users who have students or teenage children who are writing term papers and who tend to be naive computer users. Coleco has tried to make the Adam easy to use and attractive to that group, consciously excluding other groups by the way that configured the machine.

By March 1984 John J. Anderson declared Adam as having caused for Coleco "a trail of broken promises, unfulfilled expectations, and extremely skittish stockholders."[4] On January 2, 1985, after continuing complaints about Adam failures and low sales, Coleco announced that it was discontinuing the Adam and would be selling off its inventory.[6] Coleco revealed that it lost $35 million in late 1983 (the time of the Adam's launch), along with a loss of $13.4 million in the first 9 months of 1984. Coleco did not reveal which company they were selling the inventory to, but stated that they had worked with this partner before. No final sales numbers were revealed of the Adam computer and Expansion.[6]

Technical details

In its favor, the Adam had a large software library from the start. It was derived from and compatible with the ColecoVision's software and accessories, and, in addition, the popular CP/M operating system was available as an option. Its price gave a complete system: an 80 kB RAM computer, tape drive, letter-quality printer, and software including the Buck Rogers: Planet of Zoom video game. The IBM PCjr sold for $669 but included no peripherals, and although the popular Commodore 64 sold for around $200, its price was not much lower after the purchase of a printer, tape or disk drive, and software.

Like many home computers of its day, the Adam was intended to use a television set for its display. The SmartWriter electronic typewriter loaded when the system was turned on. In this mode, the system operated just like a typewriter, printing letters as soon as the user typed them. Pressing the Escape/WP key put SmartWriter into word processor mode, which functioned similarly to a modern word processor.

Unlike other home computers at the time, the Adam did not have its BASIC interpreter permanently stored in ROM. Instead, it featured a built-in electronic typewriter and word processor, SmartWriter, as well as the Elementary Operating System (EOS) OS kernel and the 8kB OS-7 ColecoVision operating system. The SmartBASIC interpreter was delivered on a proprietary-format Digital Data Pack tape cassette.

A less expensive version of the Adam plugged into a ColecoVision, which delivered on one of ColecoVision's launch commitments that owners would one day be able to upgrade their game system to a fully featured computer system.

Problems

The Adam was not without weaknesses:

  • The Adam generates a surge of electromagnetic energy on startup, which can erase the contents of any removable media left in or near the drive.[9] Making this problem worse, some of the Coleco manuals instructed the user to put the tape in the drive before turning the computer on; presumably these were printed before the issue was known.[9][10]:{{{3}}}
  • Since Coleco made the unusual decision of using the printer to supply power to the entire Adam system, if the printer's power supply failed or the printer was missing, none of the system worked.[9]
  • Once put into Word Processor mode, SmartWriter could not get back into the typewriter mode without the system being rebooted.
  • The Adam's Digital Data Pack drives, although faster and of higher capacity than the audio cassette drives used for competing computers, were less reliable and still not as fast as a floppy disk drive.[10]:{{{3}}} At the time of Adam's design, tape drives were still a popular storage medium for home users, but by the time of its release, floppy disks had dropped in cost dramatically and were the preferred medium. Coleco eventually shipped a 160kB 5¼ inch disk drive for the Adam.
  • Software developers who received technical information had to agree to an extremely restrictive license. Coleco demanded the right to inspect and demand changes in their software, forced them to destroy inventories of software if Coleco revoked the license, and prohibited them from publicly criticizing Coleco in any way.[10]:{{{3}}}
  • The entire computer was difficult to assemble in the factory as the mounting holes in the motherboard did not line up with the threaded mounts molded into the case.

Games

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Further information: List of Coleco Adam games

Software

Colecovision software that was not built in were mostly on ROM catridges, with Adam Calculator, Personal Checkbook, and Smart Filer programs also being on floppy disk.

Selected software programs

  • Adam Banner
  • Business Pack I
  • AdamCalc
  • Update for Coleco AdamLink Modem
  • Data Calculator
  • Home Budget Planning
  • Power Print
  • Personal Checkbook
  • Personal Accountant
  • Smart Filer
  • Smart Letters & Forms
  • Savings and Loan
  • Turbo Load

Reception

To showcase the machine at the June 1983 CES, Coleco decided to demonstrate a port of its ColecoVision conversion of Donkey Kong on the system. Nintendo was in the midst of negotiating a deal with Atari to license its Famicom for distribution outside of Japan, and the final signing would have been done at CES. Atari had exclusive rights to Donkey Kong for home computers (as Coleco had for game consoles), and when Atari saw that Coleco was showing Donkey Kong on a computer, its proposed deal with Nintendo was delayed. Coleco had to agree not to sell the Adam version of Donkey Kong. Ultimately, it had no bearing on the Atari/Nintendo deal, as Atari's CEO Ray Kassar was fired the next month and the proposal went nowhere, with Nintendo deciding to market its system on its own.

BYTE reported in September 1983 that the Adam's introduction had "dominated" the Consumer Electronics Show in Chicago. Citing its $599 price, bundled hardware, and compatibility with ColecoVision and CP/M software, the magazine compared the Adam's potential impact on the home-computer industry to that of the Osborne 1.[2] Ahoy! reported in January 1984 that "Early indications were that the Adam would be a runaway best seller" but the delays, technical problems, and Coleco's reputation as a toy company "should combine to keep buyers away in droves", and predicted that "there is no reason to think that the Adam will topple the C-64 from the catbird seat".[5]:{{{3}}}

Compute!'s March 1984 review approved of the Adam's prepackaged, all-in-one nature and called the keyboard "impressive", but cited widespread reports of hardware failures.[9]:{{{3}}} BYTE's April 1984 review was much harsher, stating that "It is often said that if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. The Coleco Adam is no exception to this rule". It called the tape-drive technology "impressive", and approved of the keyboard, but reported several cases of data errors and deletions when using the tape drives, a buggy word processor, and a BASIC manual that was "the worst I have ever seen". The reviewer reported that he was waiting for his fifth Adam after four previous systems malfunctioned in two months; only the keyboard did not fail. Surmising that "the computer was apparently rushed into production", he advised "don't buy an Adam—yet. Wait until Coleco fixes all of the Adam's bugs and delivers on all of its promises", and concluded "Coleco is [apparently] betting the whole company on the Adam and it's not yet clear that it's going to win that bet".[10]

The Adam received some good reviews based on the quality of its keyboard and printer, and offered competitive sound and graphics. Its BASIC interpreter, called SmartBASIC, was largely compatible with Applesoft BASIC, which meant that many type-in programs from computer books and magazines would work with the Adam with little or no modification.

However, sales were weak, especially after the technical issues became obvious. Coleco lost $35 million in the fourth quarter of 1984 as returns flooded in. Officially, Coleco blamed "manuals which did not offer the first-time user adequate assistance."[11] Coleco reintroduced Adam with a new instruction manual, lower price, and a $500 college scholarship along with each unit for use by a young child (with $125 paid for each completed year of college). Fewer than 100,000 units ultimately sold.

Ketchum Advertising, a NYC marketing agency, won the assignment of promoting the computer. The agency staffed up to handle the work, and the prestige, of the new business. However, agency executives opened their New York Times on a morning in January 1985 to read, with no previous warning, that Coleco was abandoning the computer. Agency employees branded this news the Adam Bomb.[verification needed]

The Adam was permanently discontinued in 1985, less than two years after its introduction.[12]

Legacy

A group of Adam enthusiasts have been gathering every year since 1989 for an event called AdamCon.[13]

AdamCon Date Location
10 October 9-11, 1998[14] Orlando, Florida, USA
11 July 15-18, 1999[15] Kent, Washington, USA
12 July 20-23, 2000[16] Toronto, Ontario, Canada
13 July 12-15, 2001[17] Brook Park, Ohio, USA
14 August 8-11, 2002[18] Kentwood, Michigan, USA
15 August 7-10, 2003[19] Courtenay, British Columbia, Canada
16 September 17-20, 2004[20] El Paso, Texas, USA
17 July 14-17, 2005[21] Whitby, Ontario, Canada
18 July 14-17, 2006[22]  ?
19 July 26-29, 2007[23]  ?
20 June 19-22, 2008[24]  ?
21 June 25-28, 2009[25]  ?
22 June 18-20, 2010[26] Laval - Montreal, Quebec, Canada
23 July 14-17, 2011 Grand Rapids, Minnesota, USA
24 July 13-15, 2012[13] Quebec, Quebec, Canada
25 July 18-21, 2013[13] Kingston, Ontario, Canada

Third-party developers contributed to the overall success of the ADAM after Coleco abandoned the ADAM. Developers such as Orphanware, In House Reps, Thomas Electronics, Oasis Pensive, Eve, E&T, Micro Innovations, Microfox Technologies and others added multiple-density disk drives, memory expanders, speech synthesizers, serial cards, printer cards, IDE cards and other hardware so the ADAM could follow other computers into a newer modern age. In 2012, most of this hardware is still available to upgrade the ADAM.[citation needed]

Specifications

The Coleco Adam, in word processing mode.
  • CPU: Zilog Z80[27] @ 3.58 MHz
  • Support processors: three Motorola 6801 processors at 1 MHz (memory & I/O, tape, and keyboard control)
  • Memory: 80 kB RAM, 16 kB video RAM; 32 kB ROM
  • Expansion: 3 internal slots, 1 cartridge slot, and a 62.5 kbit/s half-duplex serial bus called AdamNet. The stand-alone also has an external expansion port of the same type as the ColecoVision expansion port, on the right hand side.
  • Secondary storage: Digital Data Pack tape cassette, 256 kB
  • Graphics: Texas Instruments TMS9928A (a close relative of the TMS9918 in the TI-99/4A)
  • Sound: Texas Instruments SN76489AN (a rebranded version of the TMS9919 in the TI-99/4A)

References

  1. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  3. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 News.google.com
  7. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  8. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 10.3 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  11. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  12. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 AdamCon - Coleco Adam Convention News and Adam News Archives
  14. ↑ [1]
  15. ↑ [2]
  16. ↑ [3]
  17. ↑ [4]
  18. ↑ [5]
  19. ↑ [6]
  20. ↑ [7]
  21. ↑ [8]
  22. ↑ [9]
  23. ↑ [10]
  24. ↑ [11]
  25. ↑ [12]
  26. ↑ [13]
  27. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.

External links

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