For a brief, buzzing moment in 1983, the Coleco Adam looked like it might out-64 the Commodore 64. Announced with lots of ambition, this 8-bit marvel promised a complete computing package: a keyboard, digital storage, printer, and all for under $600. An important fact was that it could morph your ColecoVision into a full-fledged CP/M-compatible computer. So far this sounds like a hacker’s dream: modular, upgradeable, and… misunderstood.
The reality was glorious chaos. The Adam used a daisy-wheel printer as a power supply (yes, really), cassettes that demagnetized themselves, and a launch delayed into oblivion. Yet beneath the comedy of errors lurked something quite tempting: a Z80-based system with MSX-like architecture and just enough off-the-shelf parts to make clone fantasies plausible. Developers could have ported MSX software in weeks. Had Coleco shipped stable units on time, the Adam might well have eaten the C64’s lunch – while inspiring a new class of hybrid machines.
Instead, it became a collector’s oddball. But for the rest of us, it is a retro relic that invites us to ponder – or even start building: what if modular computing had gone mainstream in 1983?
Neat machine! I miss those days, when everything personal computing was new and innovation – even the stuff that never quite worked – was everywhere.
Glorious chaos, indeed.
Fully agree. It was a wonderful time of discovery and learning!
As a C64 owner I always looked with envy at those two cassette drives. Although one is just an empty bay allowing for the upgrade of adding a second cassette drive. The concept of the computer fully controlling the tape seems like so much fun to use.
It wasn’t until a few years ago until I saw some YouTube videos of these tape drives (and their problems), somehow they weren’t as magical as I imagined. But still, the concept of fully automated tapes is soooooo cool.
I remember one of my neighbors had one of these and I thought it was really cool how the tape could support random-access reads, for about 10 seconds until I realized how really slow it was to perform a seek operation.
I find it curious how people are lusting after useless 8-bit systems when in 1981 a 32-bit x86 IBM PC was released. It was a milestone so big that it changed the face of gaming forever. Then only revoultionary product after that would be PS3 with its Cell CPU and probably RTX GPUs nowdays (but those still run x86 code so in essence IBM won the gaming market with their PC).
Yes but the cost of a PC back then was prohibitive and you were stuck with CGA graphics. IBM was simply not targeting the home market although the PCJr was a step in the right direction. It was not until the late 80’s that PC gaming started to take off in earnest as cheap clones started appearing.
IBM MDA was the business standard, IBM CGA the home user standard.
And because Hercules (aka MGA) was a superset of MDA and had a printer port, it became industry standard very quickly (replaced MDA).
Many simple graphics cards from mid-late 80s had a switch or jumper to switch between CGA/Hercules.
That was easily possible because CGA and MDA/HGC had used the same Hitachi/Motorola CRTC.
In simple words..
Many CGA cards also were AT&T/Olivetti compatible and supported 400 lines.
In business, that was a more CGA-compatible alternative to using Hercules.
And don’t forget you needed a sound card unless you were content with the chirps and squeaks from the PC speaker. The Commodore blew it away for games and price. I didn’t buy a “PC” until 1993 when I could start running Linux on it. Because DOS really sucked.
PC-98. Ahem.
https://hackaday.com/2023/12/26/the-strange-world-of-japans-pc-98-computer-ecosystem/
It’s crazy how IBM hobbled the PC with CGA, offering decent graphics and sound only in the PC Jr., which was doomed due to its own limitations. IBM seemed to have the notion that “serious” users didn’t need colorful graphics and sound, that was kids’ stuff. Obviously this was ludicrous in hindsight. Luckily the Tandy 1000 got it right, offering the full-fledged MS-DOS machine with decent graphics and sound that IBM should have offered in the first place!
I think it’s because of several reasons.
a) IBM didn’t know what to make of the IBM PC 5150. Business PC or home computer?
When made, it had a limited BASIC interpreter in ROM, a cassette port (!), no floppy drive and 64KB of RAM..
b) The PC had two video standard by IBM. MDA for hi-res text, CGA for low-res graphics.
Both could be used same time, if both video boards were installed.
To satisfy both needs. AutoCAD 1.x supported dual-monitor use with IBM CGA and IBM MDA.
Hercules graphics was being recommended, though.
PS: The Sanyo MBC-550 and Sirius-1/Victor 9000 had been better designs that IBM PC, admittedly.
In Europe, the Sirius-1 was available before IBM PC, by the way.
https://computer.retromuseum.org:86/cm/old-computers/victor9000.html
It had 800×400 graphics and a DAC for sound output.
So it’s not true that the IBM PC was the measure of all things, everywhere.
There also were other great “MS-DOS compatibles” that weren’t IBM compatible.
The DEC Rainbow computer, for example. It had soft text-scrolling.
Um, no. The original IBM PC in 1981 used the 8088 processor with an 8-bit bus and 16-bit internal architecture with a monochrome display and 1-bit 1-channel sound for $1545.
An Atari 400 cost $550 with a 256-color programmable custom graphics chip and 4-channel 8-bit sound.
The IBM PC was a boring business computer. Systems like the Coleco, Commodore 64, and Atari were far less expensive and far more fun personal computers!
The first 32-bit x86 processor was the Intel 80386, released in 1985.
Any data on what you’re saying? Cause I smell bs from here all the way to KFC. The original IBM PC did indeed use the 8088 processor, but it was not merely a “boring business computer.” The IBM PC laid the foundation for PC gaming and introduced a standard that’s followed even by current XBox and PlayStation consoles. Its compatibility with a wide range of software made it a versatile choice for PC gamers. Additionally, the Atari was limited in its capabilities compared to the IBM PC. The 256-color graphics and 4-channel sound were impressive for a brief period in time, but the IBM PC’s architecture allowed for more complex applications and better performance in various tasks, including productivity and future FPS gaming titles like Doom, BF and CoD. Moreover, the claim that systems like the Coleco and Commodore 64 were “far more fun” is not actually true when Nintendo delivered games that, unlike Atari stuff, could actaully be finished. The IBM PC derivatives support a vast library of games (for example Steam) and its expandability allows users to upgrade and customize their systems in ways that many of the other systems could not. Finally, the Intel x86 was indeed a 32-bit processor, the evolution of PC gaming has been made to begun here and it marks a milestone in computing history. The advancements made by IBM and Intel are crucial in shaping the future of gaming.
You seem to be all over the place chronologically to try to make your point. XBox and PlayStation? Might as well be talking about chickens and turkeys in a conversation about dinosaurs!
Compare the ORIGINAL IBM PC with these other machines of the time and leave your knowledge of everything that came later at home. Yes, the PC was a “boring business machine” designed and marketed to be exactly that!
Without your knowledge of the “then future” all you are left with is “it could be expanded”. So what? So could an S-100 system. That was certainly no guarantee it would become a future gaming system!
Even the claim that it created a standard does not really come into play until a hardware generation or two later when the clones took off. Their ability to legally do so was a mistake on IBM’s part, not a plan.
Kid, seriously, you have no idea of what yore talking about.
Turkeys look and sound like dinosaurs.
Turkey is one of the most powerful countries in Europe (not EU), so I’d rather you not joke about my country because we have a long tradition and very well developed military industry.
The capital of Turkey needs to be moved to the city of Jive.
“he original IBM PC did indeed use the 8088 processor, but it was not merely a “boring business computer.” The IBM PC laid the foundation for PC gaming and introduced a standard that’s followed even by current XBox and PlayStation consoles.”
I was there. The original IBM PC was a boring business computer.
Only when the IBM PC got to the 386, and finally got VGA graphics. We are talking about 1987 now.
And basically it wasn’t even the IBM PC but the IBM PS/2 that got all that. It wasn’t IBM that finally brought the IBM PC into the non-boring world, but it were countless clone manufacturers that did it. IBM was concentrating on the PS/2, and the clone manufacturers were the one who furthered development of the IBM PC platform.
Of course the IBM PS/2 was software compatible with the IBM PC, you could see it as a PC. But it really was an evolution over the IBM PC architecture. But well, the clone manufacturers managed to evolve the PC architecture into what we now have, and PS/2 left the building via the back door.
This kids dad was still spanking the monkey to the GIFFY girls when the Commodore was around.
Probably has no clue how to get your Hayes AT compatible modem to 450 baud, either.
But hey, he’s an expert.
“Only when the IBM PC got to the 386, and finally got VGA graphics. We are talking about 1987 now.”
I don’t fully agree. The IBM PC/AT Model 5170 with 80286 processor was important, too.
Many new 80286 PCs from 1988 onwards had VGA graphics, the 386 was still high-end at the time.
The 80286 was the working horse that barely anyone noticed. The unsong hero, so to say.
Don’t get me wrong, the 386 was great, but it still wasn’t a household processor in the 1980s.
Even in the early 90s, it was still king in the budget-segment (am386-DX40)..
386DX40 mainboards were very compact and reliable at the time and capable of running Windows 95, OS/2 Warp or NT 3.5x.
Memory was primary limiting factor of performance.
Windows 3.1 still ran on a 286 in Standard-Mode, by the way.
You could use it on a 286 with sound card and CD-ROM drive.
An 286 was the basis of the original MPC-1 specification, also, before it was changed to 386SX.
Proof: https://youtu.be/SyTiOCqfH8I?t=1482
“Eleven hardware manufacturers have agreed to use a common logo on their computers
to indicate the PCs meet a minimum standard for multimedia applications.
The new MPC logo will mean the computer systems include at least a 286 processor,
2 megabytes of memory, a 30 megabyte hard drive, a CD-ROM drive and a VGA card.
Manufacturers intending to use this new MPC logo include heavyweights like AT&T, Tandy and Zenith.”
@TollHolio To be fair, I know of quite some older-than-me guys who talk about lots of nonsense, too.
They were witnesses of history, but have a lot of half-knowledge.
Some of these former experts are no experts anymore, but just old w. grumpy guys who repeat false information from gossip press.
They also tend to make fun of DOS era.
To someone like me and others, who never kept stopping using DOS (now as a side-hobby), these oldtimers are just a shame.
Sometimes I hope they will just go away, eventually.
Oh waitress, I’ll have whatever joelagnnel1’s smoking! 😂
You very obviously weren’t around that time. The original IBM PC WAS a boring business computer initially. It lacked all of the features the “home computer” market had at the time. The reasons it became popular is because of it’s expandability but also because it had more memory than “home computers”, which made it good for programs like Lotus123.
People tend to forget just how ridiculously expensive memory was back then too, which is why you see the tricks these early systems did to work with so little of it.
As for gaming, it wasn’t really until Wolfenstein 3D came out that people took the PC seriously as a gaming platform. The majority of people that had PCs didn’t even have sound cards, nevermind a fast VGA card; they were happy with the basic PC speaker since the computer was mainly a business took. I still remember one of my earlier bosses playing Access Software ‘s Links golf on his work computer with just the PC speaker for sound (which at the time was incredible since it could do speech through it too).
DOOM is when you really saw all the other platforms out there take a nosedive. Prices had dropped significantly on memory and storage that the average person could afford a PC and also get a Sound Blaster, Pro Audio Spectrum, AdLib, or any of the other audio cards that were coming out. By around this time the 486 was making it’s debut as well, outpacing alternative processors at the time.
Most games could only access 640MB of memory too. It wasn’t until DOS/4G & DOS/4GW came out and game developers started using it to be able to access to to 64MB of system memory… Not that many people had that much initially since it was still expensive.
“People tend to forget just how ridiculously expensive memory was back then too, which is why you see the tricks these early systems did to work with so little of it.”
No, they don’t necessarily. They’re just not envious, maybe.
Some users like me thought this:
If I do not buy an adequate amount of memory,
then my new computer is basically useless or frustrating to use.
Which in turn slows down workflow and makes the whole computer (as is) a loss of money.
However, if I do invest in proper memory expansion (maybe be a bit overkill here) then I’ll have peace of mind for the next two years and can be very productive meanwhile.
And in two years, who knows.. Maybe I can earn a multiple of money that the RAM did cost right now!
People are massively overrating/overhyping DOOM and Wolf 3D, I think.
As if they had any meaningful influence to PC platform or being a representation of it (that’d be MS Flight Sim and SimCity).
Multimedia was a thing before even these braindead games were released in mid-90s.
In fact, I went happily through the 90s without these poorly made games.
Back in the 90s I played the demos and they looked outdated to me when new (SNES owner here).
There were better games on Super Nintendo and Sega MD/Genesis, IMHO.
On PC, too. Such as, say, Skunny Kart, Jazz Jackrabbit, Jill of Jungle, Commander Keen, Wing Commander, A Final Unity, Descent, Sam&Max, Skyroads or Universe (both PC/Amiga).
Just to name a few..
About memory being expensive.. It’s merely half-true, actually.
Because we false assume that technology was young and thus must been very expensive all the time.
But by mid-1980s, the RAM price had become quite low!
Production of 256Kbit (?) chips worked nicely at the time.
But then, -due to production stop of low-capacity DRAM and issues with then-new 1Mbit chip production-, the RAM prices had skyrocketed suddenly. A RAM shortage, a crisis was the result.
By 1987/1988, RAM was very pricey thus!
More information:
https://tedium.co/2016/11/24/1988-ram-shortage-history/
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cxrkC-pMH_s
Oh my god people, give it a break. I was tired of the IBM vs Commodore vs Atari argument in the 80s. It’s 2025 and YOU’RE STILL DOING IT.
Different people have different preferences and priorities. There, I’ve settled it for you.
No chance. 😁 People still fight the 16-Bit console wars.. Sega vs Nintendo.
Though gratefully, those same people nowadays do appreciate both SNES and Genesis/MD and enjoy their game libraries..
The IBM PC 5150, -basically an 8-Bit CP/M era motherboard design-,
wasn’t that great, but it had an big influence because of being open architecture and from IBM.
The “ISA” slots were being inspired by Apple II, by the way.
If you want to see really interesting PCs, please have a look at
Altair 8800, IMSAI 8080, Sirius1/Victor9000, Tandy 2000 (Windows 1.x dev PC), Tandy 1000, Amstrad PC1512 etc.
Also, both the i8080 and i8088 were pretty crappy.
The processor of the IBM PC 5150 ran at 4,77 MHz but performed worse than
the C64’s 6510 at ca. 1 MHz due to a poor bus unit and long cycles (4 cycles per one instruction).
More information: https://tinyurl.com/2p7kezxs
The i8086 and the NEC V30 were much better in retrospect.
They didn’t perform worse than C64 processor, either.
There’s a reason why users felt sorry for IBM PC users back then and why the NEC V20 was installed as an i8088 replacement so often. Users felt physical pain waiting for their PC.
You could literally go get some coffee while the IBM PC was finishing its work.
The IBM PC/AT and the Turbo XTs were much better, though.
That’s when PC use started to make fun, not just gaming wise.
I’m speaking from experience, by the way.
I do own some 4,77 MHz PCs and use them for retro-computing.
After using a 4,77 MHz PC for a while, you’ll stop making fun of the poor, “brain-dead” 80286. ;)
We did it all with Commodore 64 for a number of years. Used Quick Brown Fox cartridge word processor, very capable, even had boilerplating. Handic Software’s Calc Result spreadsheet (Lotus 123 clone) was very good for my business pricing charts, monthly and annual tax accounting. Kids mostly typed in games from Compute! magazine, and a few store bought games. 1541 floppy disk was weak link after heavy use; head alignment issues. And the power brick was failure-prone epoxy filled door stop. Even after-market chassis-built power supplies also not long lasting. Cardco printer interface box made printing easy-to-use with Star Micronics dot matrix printer. All in all, not bad! Ushered kids into success with computer related work. Friends kids could not deal with C-64; gave to us.
Having no money, I even typed in the spreadsheet and word processor programs from Compute!’s Gazette. I used the WP to do several term papers in high school and college. I had to retype the ones in high school after I finished them on a “real” typewriter since the teachers wouldn’t accept them printed on a dot matrix with no descenders. In retrospect I don’t blame them…
Fully agree. I was teaching at a small college when I bought my first computer. A C64 exactly as yours, except that I bought an inexpensive monochrome monitor, and used PaperClip*** and Delphi’s Oracle by Batteries Included. In 1988 I typed a 160-page dissertation on that machine, using a borrowed daisy-wheel printer.
My system–C64, monitor, 1541 drive, Cardco interface, and Star Micronics dot-matrix printer ran around $1200 in 1983-84. I would have had to pay rather more than that for an IBM-compatible. No monitor, no printer, and software that was considerably more expensive than C64 products.
**PaperClip had a useful feature that I *still can’t get Word to do–I’m probably being stoopid. Anyway, you could subscript or superscript a single character with a single command (in Word you have to turn on sub/superscript, type the character, then turn off sub/superscript). Very useful when typing hundreds of chemical formulas.
The Sanyo MBC-55x was available for about that price, I think.
Not really an IBM PC, but it was good enough for Turbo Pascal on DOS or WordStar, GW-BASIC etc.
The optional RAM/CGA board made it 90% PC compatible.
Good enough to run AutoCAD, for example. Or MS Flight Simulator 2.
It was rather slow clocked, though. A V20 upgrade might help a tiny bit, but not enough.
Playing chess games such as Chess88 or Psion Chess was possible, likely.
“We did it all with Commodore 64 for a number of years.”
Oh, please! Spare me. 🙄😮💨
That’s a totally different league.
Business users had a Commodore PET with 80×25 screen and the industry standard interface ports.
Something like an CBM 8032 or CBM 8296-GD.
” Used Quick Brown Fox cartridge word processor, very capable, even had boilerplating.”
There’s a German C64 RTTY software named QBF. It was book ware.
It supported the Pagefox cartridge for RAM expansion.
” 1541 floppy disk was weak link after heavy use; head alignment issues. ”
Indeed! The newer 1541-C had a light barrier and proper firmware, though.
Too bad it was often hacked to make this improvement undone (to alllow parallel interface). :(
I find it curious you think you know what you are talking about.
Go look up when IBM released a 32 bit machine.
Ill wait. Think 1987.
Everything else you drivel on about is moot since your basic premise is just wrong.
I think he meant x86 architecure (32-Bit), opposed to x64 architecture (64-Bit; x86_64) here.
Since plain 16-Bit architecture (pre i386) basically has no common everyday term nowadays,
we should be more forgiving here, maybe.
Places like W-WorldPC use an “8086” symbol to refer to 16-Bit x86.
But do calling it 8086 would probably make some people scream “the PC had an 8088, not an 8086!” or ask about the 8018x, 80286 etc..
The reason it’s called x86 is because it refers to 386, 486, 586 (Pentium), 686 (Pentium Pro/II), etc., like, there are numbers that fill in the ‘x’.
Back in the day there wasn’t any reason to genericize the ISA because there just weren’t that many choices to genericize. More commonly, things would just say “PC” or “PC/AT” to refer to 8086/8088 or 80286, respectively, and if it required something specific it’d just say that, like “Requires an 80386 or better.”
Most Linux distributions originally referred to the architecture as “i386,” and I think many still do. Windows referred to 32-bit support as “Win32” (with “Win32s” as the transitional 32-bit layer for Windows 3.1, “s” being short for “subset”), and even when it started requiring a particular processor class for memory protection and expansion, they called it “Windows/286” or “Windows/386.”
There were early terms such as “iAPX86” or “iAPX286”, but they’re proprietary to intel.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IAPX
“things would just say “PC” or “PC/AT” to refer to 8086/8088 or 80286, respectively”
Yes, but it’s not entirely correct. Never was. Too simple!
The PC architecture, PC/AT and PS/2 architecture aren’t just about different processors.
The PC/AT introduced the AT BIOS, the real time clock with CMOS and difference in bus: AT bus with 16/24-Bit, and a second IRQ and DMA controller (in cascade)!
The “ISA bus” term was coined by Gang of Nine when specifiying EISA bus.
Early 386 PCs were called “AT 386”, to distinguish from ordinary PC/ATs with 80286.
PS/2 was a dead-end. PS/2 computers have a PS/2 BIOS that’s loosely based on AT BIOS.
Certain PS/2 specific BIOS routines never made it into the mid-90s when Pentium PCs became the norm.
What’s left are the PS/2 ports, though.
“Windows referred to 32-bit support as “Win32” (with “Win32s” as the transitional 32-bit layer for Windows 3.1, “s” being short for “subset””
There were three implementations of Win32, actually.
– Win32 (Windows NT)
– Win32c (“compatibility”, Windows Chicago aka Windows 95)
– Win32s (“subset”, Windows 3.1x with Win32s)
And lastly, Windows CE API.
The old API routine named “GetWindowsVersion” returned a number for each of them.
Win64 is based on Win32, but with 64-Bit pointers.
Actually, they all do run on plain 8088/8086.
Windows 2.x (plain, such as popular Win 2.03) runs on any x86 PC and has no special support
Windows/286 uses the High Memory Area (HMA) of the PC/AT with 286 processor, if available.
64KB minus 16 Bytes above 1MB are used by Windows, if available.
Windows/286 needs no 80286 processor to run, though.
If run on an original IBM PC with 8088, it just can’t have HMA’s extra memory.
Windows/386 includes a Virtual Machine Monitor with EMS manager.
It runs in V86 mode and can multitask large DOS applications,
but Windows applications run inside the one and only Windows VM.
Windows applications see not more memory than when run on plain IBM PC.
The only difference is that EMS is available via 386 MMU.
And that CGA graphics can be emulated when DOS applications run in a window.
That’s why some Windows 2.x graphics drivers are written for Windows/386.
Windows itself can be started directly via WIN86.COM, still.
The copy of Windows that’s sold with Windows/386 package can still be run on a basic IBM PC with 8088 in Real-Mode.
It’s not looking any different to the popular retail copy of Windows 2.03, for example.
PS: To get Windows 2.x running use PC-DOS 3.30 or use MS-DOS 5/6 with SETVER loaded.
It fixes the crash problem.
What are you talking about? The ps3 cell processor was based off of PowerPC architecture. Just like the xbox360 which was a tri-core ppc.
That’s the problem with people who look at history with 20/20 vision. Sure x86 won out but at the time no one knew this in the 80’s. The 68000 was by far a better chip than x86. IBM even wanted to use the 68k but it was delayed so they went with intel. Good grief do some history. For argument sake probably one of the most advanced systems for a home computer was the Amiga in the 80’s. Preemptive multitasking OS. Unheard of in 1985. Unix yes but for home it was all cooperative mutitasking.
Just because you have a 32 bit hardware doesn’t mean you have a 32 bit operating system to take full advantage of the hardware.
Windows did not have preemptive multitasking until windows NT. Mac didn’t get until OSX
So yeah the intel based pc was for business. Mac was for desktop publishing and the like. Amiga was honestly the first multimedia computer. Atari ST takes a close second at the time. You act like intel set all the standards right out of the gate. This took years for standards to be accepted across all platforms. Good example pci and pcie or USB.
I could go on and on. But to sit there and say false things and act like people who lived the history only know half the story is just low resolution thinking. The 80s was probably the coolest time to watch computer innovation because everything was being tried and invented.
If anything now it is boring. Which is why for me it fun to watch SoCs and SBCs. Aka raspberry pi or any single board computers. That is fun.
joelagnel1 Originally thought your misinformed tripe was some sort of joke but am guessing you’re serious 🤡🤣
I remember my father hacking Coleco Adam power supplies to run our C64s in the ’80s. The power supplies were available cheap and a lot more reliable than the Commodore design.
Atari 8bit was superior hardware wise to the c64
And better software (os rom, etc), basically the first USB serial port, and later the pbi bus for hard drives, ram, or another CPU
Z80 or 6809 run whatever you want
The graphics system was a true Dma system, way back in 1979
Although the display list wasn’t fully turning complete
Can’t do memory operations
My Atari clone display can modify its own display list
Even modern upgrades allow the Atari to be more comparable to later IBM PC
With a 65816 instead of 6502C (no not 65c02 different chip,6502c has built-in tristate control and halt, not a 3mhz variant, just an Atari custom chip)
“Atari 8bit was superior hardware wise to the c64”
Weren’t both made by same designer?
No the Amiga and Atari 8bit were
Atari st ironically was designed by c64 engineers
Ah, I see. Thanks.
Actually, it was the IBM PC whose lunch an on-time Adam might have eaten. You underestimate the power of that shitty printer. Yes, it was shitty, but it was letter quality in a day when many professional outlets and editors were starting to refuse to read dot-matrix manuscripts, and the entire Adam was cheaper than the cheapest low-quality standalone daisy wheel printer you could find. Laser printers were the stuff of Popular Electronics world of the future articles. With the printer, not very good but good enough for personal use, the entire ColecoVision library of games, and enough RAM to easily run a spreadsheet had one ever been ported, Adam could have been a quick and cheap route to a real home office with lots more fun stuff available if that didn’t work out. Oh, and you could run the detachable keyboard through ordinary RJ-12 6-pin phone cable and use your TV as a display while sitting on the couch.
When I was very little we had a ColecoVision. I remember my dad saw an add for the expansion to turn it into a computer. He asked my mom and I if we would like to turn the game system in to a computer.
Now at that time if you asked me if I would like to have had a computer it would have been a definite yes. But the way he worded the question.. I thought it meant we would no longer have a game console! So I said “no way”. Mom probably understood but was happy not to spend the money. And getting a computer was put out of mind for several more years until we finally got a Tandy 1000.
In August of 1984, Charles Winterble, formerly of Commodore’s MOS Technology, joined Coleco as VP of Computer Products to lead the ADAM team! I’m sure Bil Herd has some stories to share.
I bought one off of EBay like 6 years ago, just out of nostalgia because my folks wouldn’t get me one when it came out. It remains in the basement, in its original box to this day, unopened (by me). Maybe I should open er up…
Ah, good memories. This was my first computer. I still have my tattered copy of the ADAM SmartBasic Programmers Manual on my bookshelf.
Same here. I think I only really used it for word processing and BASIC programming to make my own CYOA stories. Spent hundreds of hours on it. The printer used to shake my desk right across the room!
I had one of these as a kid. The cassettes were terribly slow, but it had some fun games. We eventually got a 5.25″ external floppy drive for it as well, but I only used it to save text files from the word processor. I don’t know if there was any software that came on floppies for it. The system came with a copy of SmartBasic and I would type in the code from Family Computing magazine for biorhythms or ascii skiing. It also came with LOGO and I would play around with drawing shapes and patterns. One of the coolest things was an expansion you could get that would let you play Atari 2600 games. It connected to the side of the main chassis and would have a second cartridge slot. Our actual Atari 2600 had died, so we used the ADAM. The Coleco controllers were crazy too. One set had a joystick, a keypad and a scroll wheel on top and 4 buttons on a pistol-grip style handle. We eventually gave it to my uncle once we got a 386.
I wanted to love the ADAM so badly. We bought one, returned it due to issues with the DAT. The replacement unit suffered the same fate. From there, we went with the 64. I had my eyes on Atari – in or around that time – but the price point was out of reach for a single-income, blue collar family of five.
What a wild ride though.
My mom bought me one of these as a kid. I started coding in basic and got all the way to make my own version of a Tron Light Cycle game (basically a two player Snake). Not long after, someone broke into our house and stole it, among other things. Had that not happened, I’m convinced I would have been an indie game developer. Loved that machine!
I loved my Adam! Playing colecoVision games through the cartridge slot, dual tape drives, upgraded ram, and AdamBasic. Yes, Adam had a version of basic. We had a filing cabinet full of games on tape, some were multi-tape games. We had a 13 inch black and white tv attached to it, but I dreamt in color. I so want one, just to bring back that little 8 year old kid who had the world at his finger tips.
I learned to code on a hand-me-down Coleco ADAM. Ironically, I went on to marry someone who is also a fan. It’s a niche market, but he makes modern mods for Coleco ADAM and ColecoVision: https://lundyelectronics.com. Old school!
The Atari 520 ST was another contender. Motorola 60000 16/32:bit processor. GEM graphical user interface in ROM, for instant bootup. VT 52 terminal emulator in ROM. PC compatibility through software or hardware box. Mac compatibility through hardware box (Magic Sack). Built in SCSI and MIDI. 640 X 400 monochrome graphics (pointy W’s, as a friend commented), 320 X 240 color graphics. All for a lot less than an IBM PC. But Atari under Tramiel was clueless. Amazing they did as well as they did…