Presented at
Notacon 2 (2005),
April 9, 2005, 11 a.m.
(60 minutes).
The Coleco ADAM was one of dozens of interesting microcomputer architectures that were developed during the adaptive radiation period of the home computer in the early 1980s. When Coleco abandoned the ADAM in January 1985, during the great extinction caused by the emergence of the IBM-PC standard, nearly a million units had been sold, most to ordinary folks who had never before used or owned a computer. Unfazed, ADAM owners banded together in various ways to support their computer, trade information, fix bugs, and push it to heights undreamt of by Coleco's engineers. Through local users groups, monthly newsletters, BBSes run on ADAMs, the Internet, and 16 ADAMcons held all over the US and Canada, the ADAM community remained vibrant into the new century. This is the story of how one quirky home computer created a unique and enduring family, one that will share ADAMcon 17 in Ontario this July.
Presenters:
-
Rich Drushel
- AdamCon
Rich got his first Coleco ADAM computer in 1988 when he saved his Dad's buggy Revision 59 system from the trash. Working on his own, he reverse-engineered a commented source code listing for the operating system ROMs and wrote various utility programs in SmartBASIC until discovering a local users group on the Cleveland Freenet in 1990. He helped to run ADAMcon IV in 1992 and while there learned that (1) there was a large international ADAM community, and (2) he had technical knowledge about ADAM internals that nobody else did. Since then, Rich has attended all but one ADAMcon, chaired ADAMcon XIII, worked on many hardware and software projects, and amassed a large collection of original Coleco documentation and prototypes. In real life, "Dr. D." teaches anatomy, physiology, and autonomous robotics, and develops 3-D computer models of feeding in giant marine slugs. It goes without saying that he has found productive ways to use his ADAMs at work.
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