ADAMCON 09. - We Just Keep on Going and Going.

by Ron Mitchell

ADAMCON 09, now in the books was probably the first where I didn't 
take detailed notes. Normally I come home with pages and pages. 
This time I wrote down everything Bob Slopsema said at the ANN 
meeting, more or less, but otherwise just got plain lazy. So best 
we get this report down quick like. It's now only a week after the 
close of our Grand Rapids meet, and already memory is beginning to 
fade. Combination of age and inertia as usual. They say it gets 
worse.

Grand Rapids, and more particularly Kentwood boasts the busiest 
street in the State of Michigan. 28th (Ave. or Street Bob?) is 
wall to wall traffic day and night. One impression that jumped out 
at me right away was the complete absence of sidewalks. Another 
impression that jumped out at me right away was that the boulevard 
grass is either exquisitely kept or completely torn up, depending 
on how close you get to where the sidewalks should be. The final 
first impression, more of a lesson than an impression really, is 
that it's worth your life to cross 28th on foot, not at all for 
the faint of heart. That might just have something to do with the 
absence of sidewalks. 28th is made for cars and cars rule. There 
are parking lots, strip malls, eateries galore, and lots of places 
to shop. Perfect for an ADAMCON.

And  so for that reason we gathered at the Best Western Midway 
hotels on 28th in Kentwood Michigan between August 14 and August 
17 for ADAMCON 09. It was special for a variety of reasons, but 
mostly because it was 09. For nine years we've been doing this, 
and many attending have been to all nine. That's really special!

Bob and Judy Slopsema organized ADAMCON 09, and despite being hard 
at it late Wednesday night when my plane greased on to Grand 
Rapids Airport, they found time to meet me around midnight. Just 
as well. The hotel had me registered as inbound earlier in the 
day, but had trashed my record at 6pm when I didn't show, this 
despite the conversation that certain of their staffers had with 
Bob about my projected late arrival. Had it not been for Bob and 
Judy's kind generosity, Wednesday night might have been a long one 
out there on 28th. The hotel was full. As it was, I enjoyed the 
comfort of their spare bedroom for a few hours, and I'm certainly 
thankful for that. 

Suitable words were of course said Thursday morning and various 
hotel officials got the point. All I had to do was stand there and 
look suitably menacing while Bob Slopsema did the growling. They 
let me in, thank Heaven. The balance of the morning and afternoon 
were a bit of a blur. There was a lunch at Wendy's somewhere in 
there, and I think I managed to make myself useful for the balance 
of the day setting up equipment, retrieving cable, wires, and 
parts from boxes and making room 157 ready for the onslaught. 
Somewhere along the way I wondered if Coleco ever had any idea 
that some of their product would be transported so much, set up so 
often, or have to spend so much time aboard airplanes. It also 
occurred to me that this our little orphan is really quite sturdy, 
and able to stand up to bad packing, crunching against bulkheads, 
squashing inside suitcases, and a wide variety of other 
mistreatment. My own equipment made the trip in good order, with 
one exception.

Each year I succeed in busting something. This time it was a left 
slot MI serial card which emerged from its cardboard cover minus a 
crystal. The latter, bent almost double, tumbled out onto the 
floor leaving me wondering how I was going to communicate with the 
outside world. Fortunately I also had one of GMK/HLM's serial 
ports with me, and following a little re-configuration, it served 
my purposes quite well. Nevertheless, there was a lesson there in 
the proper care and packing of printed circuit boards.

By early Thursday evening, there was time for a swim and the Best 
Western hot tub. Patricia Herrington and her husband Bob had 
discovered the hot tub first. There was a yell from PJ across the 
rather vast indoor expanse containing a courtyard, swimming pool 
and hot tub. It stopped me dead in my tracks, and I was soon 
joining them in the water.

People drifted in all through Thursday night, and by the end of 
the evening some 34 ADAMites had gathered, sharing stories, 
enjoying refreshments, and talking eagerly of the few precious 
days ahead. All too early, we were into day 1.

Friday, August 15, 1997

Someone named Mitchell gave a keynote speech, and that can be read 
here as a separate file. As usual, any relationship between what I 
said there and what was actually written is pure coincidence.

The sessions over Friday, Saturday and Sunday followed in 
scheduled order, and the schedule is a matter of record so I won't 
repeat that here. What follows are capsule sketches of the 
sessions and a few personal impressions. There were one or two 
pieces of trivia that came to light that I wasn't aware of, and 
these are the things I'd like to share.

The ADAMcalc and PowerPaint sessions scheduled for Friday morning 
were delayed somewhat by the length of a certain party's keynote 
speech, but once underway, provided a solid start to the day. 
These two major pieces of ADAM software always generate user 
questions, and this year was no exception. Frances Clee, 
describing ADAMcalc, stayed with the basics and managed to embed 
something in my mind about the proper syntax for adding a column 
of figures. I concluded long ago that if I knew nothing else about 
spreadsheets in general, and ADAMcalc in particular, I should 
really at least know how to add a column of figures. Once again it 
was clearly explained to me.

Gene Welch demo'd Powerpaint, featuring some of the larger font 
sets that are part of Patricia Herrington's "Glory B". 

The session on hard drive setup and repair didn't unfold quite as 
planned. We were in fact provided with an opportunity (suppose 
that's one way of putting it) to watch Herman Mason's attempts to 
resurrect a non-functional hard drive that Bart "Zonker" Lynch had 
brought with him. I believe that Zonker actually expected the 
drive to be fixed, although I'm not completely sure. One thing is 
certain however; by the time efforts concluded an hour and a half 
or so into Friday afternoon, the hard drive wasn't the only thing 
that was non-functional. At one stage, I wasn't sure who was doing 
what to whom, but it became clear the hard drive would never work 
again, not on an ADAM, not on an IBM, not anywhere. You win some, 
you lose some.

The Internet session that followed was another "good news/bad 
news" affair. The good news was that this year we actually 
succeeded in getting online with not too much effort. The bad news 
was that once again, we showed up the disadvantages of the 80 
column display in these demo situations. Unfortunately most of the 
ADAMites gathered were unable to see what was happening on the 
screen. So while the session went well enough, it lost something 
in viewability. At least we were able to get on line and use the 
LYNX web browser with the ADAM.

Friday evening featured Rich Drushel and some ADAM trivia that 
proved most enlightening. Rich has recently been in touch with 
Joel Lagerquist, one of the programmers who worked for Laser Micro 
Systems when ADAM software was being developed. Many ADAMites will 
recognize Mr. Lagerquist as the author of JKL utilities.

Rich received some interesting items from Joel and some 
information that was probably not common knowledge at the time.

Item:         a pair of circuit cards that plug in (one at a time)
              to the ADAM game cart slot and boot up CP/M along
              with a set of programmer utilities.

Item:         Documentation for JKL Utilities autographed by the
              author.

Item:         Documentation for Splat, the EOS debug utility
              autographed by the author.

Item:         An original wire wound memory expander produced
              by Coleco.

Rich reported that Laser Micro Systems was bought out some time 
back, but still produces programming for small control systems. 
Apparently nobody currently at Laser's successor company can 
recall anything about SmartBasic, versions 1 or 2, ADAMCalc or any 
other project they were involved in for the ADAM. The same applies 
apparently, to LCSI, Logo Computer Systems Inc. in Montreal. 
Unfortunate.

I see that Richard has provided full detail of his detective work 
in the latest "This Week With My Coleco ADAM" (97.08.24), so you 
can read all about it there. 

Saturday August 16, 1997

Rich Clee started the day with his keynote speech describing most 
everything you could want to know about the transition between the 
ADAM and DOS worlds, but were afraid to ask. It all rang a few 
familiar chords with me. Richard's experience of starting a DOS 
box for the first time, sounds quite familiar indeed. His address 
will also be on the ANN disks.

Saturday morning was devoted to Powerpaint sessions by Patricia
Herrington, and a session by Gene Welch on the ADAM keyboard 
clock. Patricia managed to find a limited quantity of her booklet, 
"Oh Yes You Can". I was even able to grab one. I remember well the 
series of articles she produced a few years back based on the 
premise that any user who puts just a little work into mastering 
PowerPaint can produced some impressive graphics work. 

Gene's description of the ADAMnet clock was based on work done 
last year by Chris Braymen. Chris produced an article and 
accompanying circuit diagrams that were published in 463 ADAM in 
the spring of 1996. Anyone who wants to build this clock will, as 
Gene Welch explained, require a spare ADAM keyboard and a number 
of other parts available from most electronics supply stores. 
Total cost, Gene estimated, was around $40.

The ANN meeting took place on Saturday afternoon right after 
lunch. A separate set of minutes will be produced for that, so 
I'll not deal with it here. Suffice it to say that we're alive and 
financially well, and Bob Slopsema has agreed to serve another 
year as your ADAM News Network Editor. That is indeed good news. 
The group present at the meeting all agreed that the ANN disks are 
back on track and regularly issued thanks to Bob's hard work.

A point worth mentioning relative to the ANN meeting deals with 
appropriate uses for our 'cash on hand'. We've agreed that it 
would be desirable to investigate the possibility of supporting 
another run of IDE host adaptors for the ADAM. The availability of 
these boards from existing sources needs to be confirmed, but if 
required, we could fund the production of additional quantities, 
depending on user interest. Given the increasing availability of 
smaller IDE hard drives (20 and 40 MEG) and given that the host 
adaptor is all that is required to physically equip an ADAM with a 
hard drive, we believe that the source of supply for these 
adaptors should be maintained if at all possible. Bob Slopsema 
will be reporting further. 

Following the ANN meeting, Bart Lynch took the floor to present a 
session on conversion of files between TDOS and EOS. Many ADAMites 
shy away from using CLONE.COM, IMAGE.COM, TRANS.COM and FC.COM. 
These 4 programs provide the user with tools required to move text 
files between ADAM's two operating systems, and to make sure that 
the formatting is correct for Smartwriter, Speedywrite, VDE and 
Wordstar. Once again Bart remembered the contribution made to our 
world by Guy Cousineau, author of these programs.

Bart used an interesting technique during his presentation. He had 
prepared the actual computer screens for his talk on a video tape, 
which took the audience step by step through the file conversion 
process. The 80 column display made it a little difficult to see 
from the back of the room, but it was nonetheless an effective 
tool. Even Bart's hard drive failure was fully documented
(intended or not) as part of the presentation.

Bart's session was followed by a Gene Welch's presentation on ADAM 
Multi Media Sound Drivers. We spent some time exploring Chris 
Braymen's programs for adding visuals and music to BASIC programs. 
While these drivers make it easy to produce some impressive multi- 
media effects on the ADAM, they are not easily explained. Despite 
some difficulties in getting the demo's to work, Gene did a pretty 
creditible job of making sense out a complex topic. We need more 
people using this stuff, and hopefully Gene's demo will help users 
to understand just what they can do and how to do it.

After supper on Saturday, Dale Wick presented sessions on a Beta 
version of his newly written TDOS compiler. I want to call this a 
BASIC compiler, but right at the moment it most certainly is 
anything but. It involves elements of PASCAL, C, DBASE, and BASIC 
language syntax, and yet its sheer simplicity makes it quite 
attractive even for the newest of users. The compiler provides an 
elementary set of tools for writing compiled Z80 code under TDOS, 
and even in its present format performs much faster than current 
forms of interpreted basic. Using simple english-like syntax 
statements, you can actually produce a COM file that ADAM will run 
under TDOS.

Dale says that future incarnations of this product will be for 
sale commercially, and will offer an implementation of the BASIC 
language for use with ADAM. For purposes of his ADAMCON 09 
session, Dale provided two excellent sessions introducing the BETA 
version of the compiler and leading the group through programming 
exercises with it. It was interesting stuff. Just as a side note, 
I also bought from Dale his latest game called PlayUtah. Some 
sample scenes from this game were included in the compiler 
exercises, enought to whet my appetite toward purchase of the 
whole game. Review to follow.

Later Saturday evening, there were two online conferences, one via 
YAHOO chat and the other via Compuserve. We were able to link up 
with Dave Cobley from Vancouver Island, Rich Cossaboon in 
Delaware, and Bob Sebelist in Maine via the Yahoo chat, and with 
Rob Friedman in Long Island via Compuserve. The balance of the 
evening was spent doing that, as well as a goodly amount of 
socializing in the hospitality suite. Gene Welch and I finished 
the evening (much later) re-acquainting ourselves with Sid 
Carter's Dynomite Sound Digitizer in preparation for my 
presentation first up Sunday morning.

Sunday August 17, 1997

The last day began with sinful sticky buns and a cold fruit plate. 
With brunch slated for after 11am, there was a light breakfast 
followed by my second session on MIDI and sound for the ADAM. In 
my own humble view, this one did not go well. It was way too 
short, and somehow I missed the main point of the whole exercise 
which was to demonstrate the production of MIDI files on the ADAM. 
I had prepared a disk of songs for presentation at this session, 
but when I heard the content being played in public for the first 
time, I couldn't stand the sound of it. So I let that part of it 
go, resulting in my being about an hour short of content.

You win some, you lose some. Next time hopefully, I'll be better 
prepared.

A presentation by Rich Drushel, following brunch, dealt with the 
conversion of colour PowerPaint screens into the IBM environment. 
This work has been the subject of articles recently part of Rich's 
TWWMCA series. Rich explained the process he uses to convert 
pictures developed on ADAM into colour GIFs, JPEGs, BMP's or 
whatever picture format in the IBM world. I will not attempt to 
re-create those explanations here, except to say that using the 
process, Rich was able to port the existing PowerPaint screen from 
the ADAM environment to his IBM where he made changes with his 
graphics drawing program of choice (CANVASS) and then return them 
to the ADAM for use with a Server implementation of PowerPaint. If 
you missed the TWWMCA articles on this topic, you can pick them up 
along with the companion programs on Rich's FTP site. Impressive 
stuff.

Dale Wick's second compiler presentation followed Rich Drushel's 
session. By then we'd progressed passed the placement of simple 
character strings on the screen and were playing around with While 
/Wend constructions and For/Next loops. The results of some timing 
tests on this compiler highlighted the improvements in processing 
speed that are possible  with compiled code versus interpreted 
code. A compiler converts English like program statements into 
machine code only once. It converts the entire program which is 
then run. There is no further reference to the original source 
code. An interpreter, on the other hand, tokenizes the original 
source code, and runs it one line at a time. The result is slower 
running time. Dale's compiler ran code 10 to 15 times faster than 
an interpreted program written to do a similar job. In this case, 
we simply asked the computer to count to 10,000 and inform us when 
it was done. There was a noticeable difference in processing 
speed.

Later Sunday afternoon, it was time for the ADAM store. This year 
we had MTAG, Howard Pines, GMK/HLM, Gene Welch's L&G enterprises, 
and Faye Deere (ECAUG) all with goods to sell. Rich Clee's ADAM 
Services had put out the word in advance of the Convention that 
goods could be orderd prior to ADAMCON 09 and would be delivered 
there. All of that was impressive enough, but when Bob Slopsema 
started putting price tags on all his ADAMCON 09 equipment, it 
became quite clear we were winding down. It is certainly to be 
hoped that people in attendance bought something from our 
suppliers. My wallet was somewhat lighter when I left the store, 
and I managed to pick up a number of items I'd been looking for. 
It was good to see the ADAM store back again after a year's 
absence. Hopefully it will once again become a permanent fixture 
at ADAMCON's.

Sunday evening traditionally is banquet time, and a time to wrap 
it all up. This year there was a good meal, somewhat slowly 
served, but it's to be assumed that the hotel staff did the best 
they could with the people they had. The food was great and worth 
waiting for. The prize awards following were conducted in such a 
way as to ensure that everyone came away with something. My haul 
included a spare ADAM keyboard, and an updated edition of Jason 
Brown's Hypercard for the ADAM.

It was then time for Gallery of Honour presentations. Our 
congratulations go to this year's 4 new inductees:

Eric Danz
Ed Jenkins
Bob Slopsema
Gene Welch

All of these individuals are deserving of our recognition. They 
have each contributed in their own way to the ADAM community. And 
thanks must also go to Jerry and Kathy Vrancks who did yeoman 
service in getting the vote in and tabulated.

Finally, the banner for next year ended up with Patricia and Bob 
Herrington for transport to Orlando. And so it is that I get one 
more chance to attend an ADAMCON in Florida, having blown 2 so 
far.

I don't intend to blow the third.

Random impressions:

To conclude, there were some things quite evident at ADAMCON 09 
that perhaps hadn't jumped out at me before.

1) The Stones were conspicuous by their absence. Jean has just had 
 hi replacemen an jus couldn' mak it W kno sh wante 
to be there, and we missed them both.

2) The kids are growing up. Case in point, Doug and Mandi Slopsema 
this year provided invaluable support to their mom and dad. Doug 
served well as equipment manager for the entire 4 days, and Mandi 
got to run all over everywhere driving people (me and others) 
delivering this, picking up that. Our thanks to be sure goes to 
you guys.

3) It was great to see Faye Deere back again. We all know that the 
last couple of years have been tough ones for Faye. She's come 
though them, and she's back with us. I know that she enjoyed the 
conference, and she made quite a contribution by setting to work 
and producing a detailed attendees' list which will no doubt 
appear on this ANN disk. It comes complete with snail mail and E- 
mail addresses for everyone and will be an effective tool as we 
all try to maintain contact with one another.

4) We have people developing expertise that is nothing short of 
delightful to see.

I have to give Dale Wick full credit for actually teaching me 
something this year. Last year he did too, but this year's 
handouts were neatly typed, and the compiler session was 
particularly interesting in that I didn't realize that compiler 
syntax could be drawn from so many places. No, I'm not being 
sarcastic. Dale undertook to write a compiler, and he's done it 
using a rather unique blend of borrowing from various high level 
languages. Some didn't like the result, but I thought it was cool. 
I feel like I've had a complete review of high level language 
syntax as a result. Pascal, C, BASIC, you name it; it's there.

This young man has presented ADAMCON sessions before. It's now 
quite evident that he's had instructional methods training and is 
putting it to good use. We are going to benefit strongly for as 
long as Dale is around.

5) And then we have the Bair. Robert Bair. Robert serves not only 
to keep the ANN financial scene orderly, but now it seems has 
assumed another primary role as resident expert for ADAM Bomb 2. 
During the 4 days of ADAMCON 09, Bob provided all comers with 
detail about how to survive in Steve Pitman's world of alien 
invasions. It became quickly obvious that Robert has acquired 
considerable expertise as a mapper of screens and a survivor of 
the game.

ADAM Bomb 2 got you beat? Who ya gonna call?  The Bair?

6) And last but not least, I've said it before, and I'll say it 
again. Bob and Judy Slopsema deserve our heartfelt praise. Not 
only did they give a wandering stranger refuge from one of 
Kentwood's bumbling hoteliers, they put together an ADAMcon that 
was well run and memorable. Their status in the ADAM world has 
gone up to a new level. And I say well done.

28th St would have been a terrible place to spend the night. I 
just know it!

Ron Mitchell

 







 

















  







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