For the record, last Wednesday night we ended up with a rip=
roaring discussion on Delphi chat. Besides yours truly and 
chat proprietor Michael Hurst, Jack Pines and Dale Wick chimed 
in with an exchange that was highly relevant and extremely 
interesting to those who understood it (I didn't, but maybe some-
day), Ron Mitchell and Bob Slopsema wre there, and we even had a 
newbie from West Virginia, Willy Nelson. (Zonker and Joe, we miss-
edyou!) This effort sems to have significant potential. May I 
encourage allof you to join in? 

There are two ways to get set up for Delphi chat - the official 
way and the easy way. Don't know if the easy way works for those 
who are still accessing from an Adam in text mode. But for those 
with browsers, disable your cookie filter at least during this 
transaction, and go to delphi.com/colecoadam. This will take you 
to the Adam Forum page and bring up a challenge window asking for 
your password. The first time it will allow you to establish your
"handle" and password, which can be saved; subsequently just 
click on OK when it asks for your saved password. Once on the 
forum page you can then either enter into the message exchanges 
there or click on the toolbar which will transport you to the 
chat room. Officially the chat starts at 9 p.m. Eastern though 
some come early, and Michael tells me Delphi cuts it off at 
midnight. Whatever, it seems to be proving to be an excellent 
way to exchange the latest news, gossip and trivia within the 
Adam community. There are a number of downsides. Delphi does not 
have all the bugs worked out. Twice last session I lost my 
cursor when ad banners appeared, and the frame on the right 
side of my screen had a scroll bar (indicating something was 
there) but was otherwise blank. Almost all the others fell out 
of the room for no visible reason at one time or another. Still, 
they wre able to get back in reasonably quickly.  The day and 
hour may not be ideal. Neither is carved in stone. The 9 p.m.
start time was for the benefit of easterners with busy ISPs; 
any busy signals seem to start shortly thereafter. Wednesday 
was chosen as being no worse than the fourth busiest day of 
the week (as in few busy signals before  9 p.m., not necessar-
ily the case Sunday, Monday or Saturday evenings). But there's 
no reason why it couldn't be another day or time, or if it 
starts to get overcrowded why there couldn't be additional chat
room periods established.
We all have busy lives and can't necessarily keep a consistent 
schedule every week. But we now have very few surviving Adam 
newsletters, or club that still have meetings, and Adamcon comes 
only once a year. The chat room lets us all touch base and keep 
in contact with all our buddies all over the continent. It lets 
us "talk" to the newbies and get them known to the grizzled 
veterans. It lets news be passed around quickly. It is not a 
substitute for clubs or newsletters or this invaluable mailing 
list (whichis really a sort of slow chat process itself and 
more amenable to deeper discussions) or Adamcons. I suggest that 
there is something quite promising developing here, with the
potential for strongly reinforcing the solidarity of the Adam 
community. It can also just plain be good fun. May I suggest to 
those not yet aboard that you are missing a very gratifying 
opportunity, and encourage you to join in whenever you can?
 - Rich Clee


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