ADAMFACTS

The ADAM computer was introduced in the early 1980's at the same time as the Texas Instruments, Commodore, and Kaypro. The ADAM is an 8 bit computer with a Z80 processor chip, 81k of onboard memory, internal digital cassette data drive, attached daisy wheel printer - also housing the power supply for the system; all interconnected with a series of separate processor chips in the cpu, keyboard, printer and data drive circuitry. When introduced by Coleco Industries, the system was ready to use right out of the box; whether you bought the stand alone version or the version that attached to your existing ColecoVision game. The computer system included an built-in word processor, a blank storage tape, and a game tape - Buck Rogers. Shortly after introduction, Coleco added 5 1/4" disk drives, a 300 baud internal modem (remember, this was the eighties ...), a 64k memory expander and numerous new programs - SmartLogo, ADAMCalc, CP/M 2.2 and game cassettes and programs.

When Coleco orphaned the ADAM in early 1985, third party developers of software and hardware took over. They introduced speech synthesizers, 80 column video, serial/parallel interface cards for faster modems and dot matrix printers, bigger memory cards, larger disk drives and separate power supplies. As the nineties came along, more products were developed along with new software and a new TDOS operating system as a better running CPM system with more accessable memory, etc. Today, we have those 90's memory expanders up to 1 meg, serial modems with speeds to 9600 baud, clock interface cards, hard drives of MFM/RLL and IDE types accessable to 60 megabytes, and disk drives from 360k up to 1.44 meg. Last but not least; ADAMSERVE program to "take over" an ibm compatable computer and use its peripherals......disk drives, printers, etc.

The latest innovation is to use an IDE card with either a compact flash adapter OR a 100mg zip drive in place of actually using a physical moving hard drive platter. To date, we have available to the ADAM user; NEW 256k memory cards, 100mb dual compact flash card IDE systems, printer/addressor cards with onboard IDE boot eprom, a cartridge to boot the IDE system, and the newest hardware Virtual Disk Drive. This is a small box which is preloaded with ADAMemulator programming, is plug & play and works just as the oriiginal ADAM disk drives but without the physical disk.

Also, if you have "lost" your ADAM, there is an emulator on the Internet and many associated programs and applications to go along with it INCLUDING the monthly ADAM NEWS NETWORK disks

• return to homepage

Please feel free to contact me at the following address: