
Ron's Week'n'ADAM March 10, 1998


ADAM V Chapter 2

Almost sounds like a Bible reference.

Sometimes when old ADAMs materialize here in the 'snakepit', it's
not so much the computer itself that is interesting. It's the 
goodies packed up and accompanying the orphan to my doorstep that 
are sometimes quite illuminating. 

A half dozen data packs were included in my lastest deal with St.
Vincent de Paul which netted the dear Saint, and the local second
hand store that bears his name $35. Canadian, and me my fifth 
ADAM. You already know about that. 

I went exploring. There are seven Coleco ADAM data drives in this
house.  Oddly enough, all of them work very well despite being 
left to gather dust for a very long time. It seems that Murphy 
puts the working data drives in places where they will not be 
used, and leaves non-working units in the hands of people who 
have nothing else for storage. At least that has been my 
experience in dealing with ADAMites for more than 10 years. Far
be it for me to argue with Murphy. Suffice it to say that if I 
had had the same types of horror stories happen to me in using 
data drives that other ADAMites have described over the years, 
my period of ADAM advocacy would have ended long before this. 
As it is, I still regard the Coleco data drive as a viable and 
efficient form of storage, particularly when compared to the
Commodore 64 or VIC 20 tape system and others of its era (TI 
99/4A, etc etc.).

But then, 
that's just my experience. And I am a patient man.


Be that as it may, these 6 data packs revealed some interesting
clues about the identity of this particular ADAM's ownership 
and the uses to which it was put. It would seem that for a time 
at least, the computer was gainfully employed and earned its keep.


DDP #1. Labelled "Insurance Customers from Letter A - Z" (I
wonder what other letters might by stashed away somewhere. ) 

Application: Data base. 

The tape contains a list, alphabetically organized, of names and
addresses.  It seems rather obvious that a good percentage of the 
clientele was oriental.  Some customers were individuals, some 
businesses. This is the kind of information that detective 
stories are made of. Fascinating stuff if you let your imagina-
tion run wild. I will nonetheless confine myself to the task
at hand.

There are 35 files in all, 33 on the main directory and 2 on the
backup. Each file contains part of the total list, sorted on the
last name. 

The idea of keeping a data base with Smartwriter would never have
occurred to me. Back in those days, I wanted a proper database 
program for such work, and anyone in the ADAM User Friendly Group
who wanted my advice about setting up such a record would have 
been told about DBASE II, EZ-Filer (Sol Swift) and SmartFiler in 
that order. But you know something? The way this particular
data pack is set up, I can't fault it in any way based on what
this user has done. As long as the data base doesn't get too big,
or doesn't require changes too often, it's probably a reasonable
way of storing the information.  It couldn't be sorted, but as 
long as each file was kept to a reasonable size, that could 
probably be done by hand.


DDP #2. Labelled "Programs" (Aha... now the neat stuff)

Application: Programming and Word Processing Files

I booted SmartBASIC in preparation from Data pack for the first
time in about 85 years.. The ADAM I'm using has a disk drive, 
but that would be cheating.

Somebody's personal resume, and a dozen or so SmartBASIC
programs. It looks like this user had more than a passing 
interest in SmartBASIC.  There's an adventure game that is 8k 
long on here, and if I ever get it figured out,  I'll pass it 
along to Bob Slopsema for the ANN disks. There is also another
interesting program called "DICE" which I've seen in various
forms before.  This one is not that remarkable except for the 
method used for generating random numbers. Obviously this user 
did not have access to the several articles written for ADAM 
newsletters by Guy Cousineau et al about how to 'fake' a random 
seed, thereby generating a better series of random numbers. 
This program asks the user to enter the seed at the beginning of
the program.  There are limitations to that way of doing 
business. At any rate, it's worth passing on for demonstration 
purposes, and I will do so.

There is another program called "SAVING" which looks like a work
in progress.  What is interesting is the REM statement at the 
beginning which reads,  

110 REM SAVING
130 REM By JOEL S. MOSKOWITZ
140 REM AND THE HCM STAFF
150 REM HOME COMPUTER MAGAZINE
160 REM VERSION 4.1.1
170 REM APPLE II SERIES APPLESOFT

Unfortunately, the program when run gives an "undefined statement
error in line 190". At line 190 there's a GOSUB 1110. The program
listing ends at line 340, so we are obviously missing something.

Let's guess. The program probably calculated the interest payable
on a given capital amount at a given rate of interest over a 
stated period of time. It no doubt concluded by telling the user 
how much richer he or she would be at the end of the time period 
given. That was fairly typical stuff back in the beginning when 
the earth was flat and there were dragons at either end. Now we 
have high powered bank software that is written for us and
provides charts of such information on demand. Too bad really. 

I still believe that typing in and studying other people's
programs is as good a way as any of learning BASIC or any other 
computer language.  Magazines don't provide program listings to 
type in any more.   Pity.


DDP #3. No label, no case. Looks like more programs and Smart-
Writer stuff.

It almost looks like this ADAM had two different owners. The list
of insurance clients described earlier was almost all oriental, 
and all address were in Vancouver British Columbia. On this data 
pack (number 3) there is a letter dated March 13, 1992,  from a 
local Comox address covering submission of a resume. The name of 
the signer is shown, but I'll leave that out.
Suffice it to say that there is a fair amount of employment
history given. 


Snooping around is interesting, but I'm not about to do anything
with this  information except perhaps to write my Pulitzer Prize 
willing novel based on it.

On this data pack, there is a SmartWriter file called "QST". HAMs
in the group will recognize QST as an international radio "Q" 
signal, whose meaning I've long since forgotten (something to do 
with making a radio call, I think). It is also the name of a 
rather well known Radio Communications magazine. I believe it's 
still around.  The SmartWriter file so named contains a list of 
articles published in QST between 1968 and 1971 about radio 
antennae plus related topics.  It would serve as a good outline 
for a book on the subject. Articles are given by page number 
and month. Again, another data keeping application.

In summary, I find it rather interesting to snoop about and to
discover what other people did with their ADAM's. I find myself 
wondering whether or not these people were satisfied with the 
information they were able to keep,  and able to live with the 
limitations imposed by keeping it in this way.
I suppose I'll never know.


The other 3 data backs by the way were:
                
        (1) Buck Rogers

        (2) SmartFiler

        (3) A Data Tape for SmartFiler.

I was never much good at Buck Rogers, and as far as SmartFiler is
concerned, I said I was a patient man.  But I'm not that patient.


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