
This  is  a  transcript of Ron Mitchell's address  on  the  first morning of ADAMCON 09.   In it he brings out some good ideas  AND gives  the entire ADAM community some food for thought,  such as: being a positive force to be heard,  communication with others on this  planet  who seem to have a similar  interest  in  "classic" systems.  Read it thoroughly and give ti some long thoughts! 





 Keynote Speech - Friday, August 15, 1997

by Ron Mitchell



My good friends:

A few years back,  my good buddy and fellow keynote player,  Rich Clee,  ended  his address by expressing the hope he would see  us all at ADAMCON 0E. For those of you who don't know it, that's the hex value for 14.  At the time,  I can remember thinking,  yeah - right. 

Now,  here we are at NINE,  and I'm beginning to believe we might just  make  it.  If  we can hornswoggle a few  more  unsuspecting ADAMites using the same advanced railroad technology that  worked so well on Bob and Judy Slopsema last year, it might just happen. I must say that I've never seen anyone look quite so surprised as Bob  when suddenly realized that he'd inherited maximum power  in the  ADAM  world.  He certainly deserves credit for the fine  job he's done as ADAMCON organizer and ANN editor.  Let's give him  a hand. 

Right  off  the top,  I want to add that these conferences  don't just  happen.  They  happen because people like Bob and Judy  are willing to do the work to make them happen.  There are others  in this room who have also done that work in other years,  some more than once. We all know who they are. 



When  Bob asked me to speak to you once more,  I spent some  time wondering what I would speak to you about.  We've already covered the future of ADAM,  the past of ADAM, and a variety of debatable topics about ADAM. So it is indeed difficult to know what to add. This  year's "State of ADAM" address might possibly include  some new  factors  such as the arrival on scene of the ADAM  emulator, which can make a pentium or a 486 perform well beyond Bill Gates' wildest dreams.  I suppose we could talk about the perennial lack of  communication between ADAMites and how it continues to  cause us  problems.  We might once again deal with new formats for  the ANN  disk to see if we can come up with something that  might  be more  appealing to ADAMites.  That's not to say that we don't now have a good product.  Bob Slopsema,  in his spare time this  past year has succeeded in re-tracking that whole operation and making it credible again. He's done a superb job.

In  our  "State of the ADAM" address,  we might also  talk  about issues  of  sustainability and consider whether or not,  for  how long,  and in what manner we are going to carry on with our  ADAM activity.  Some  could quite conceivably argue that,  hey,  we've made it this far,  why stop now. Others might counter with 'quit- while-we're-ahead' arguements in favour of quietly drifting  into the  sunset.  We might deal with some magic way of coming up with some new activity,  new software and hardware, new projects aimed at keeping us somewhere on the map. 

There is certainly no shortage of things to talk about.  

But  I'd like  to take a few minutes here to go beyond that just a little. Because  right  at  the moment on a  personal  level,  I've  been spending  some time wondering just what the heck I'm  doing  with all  the equipment I've acquired.  I have to answer the  question for  mother  occasionally,  and it's becoming  increasingly  more difficult  for  me to answer it for myself.  Believe it  or  not, there  are  nights where I actually hate computers as much  as  I hate deadlines, priorities and golf clubs.

Sometimes it's difficult to keep things in perspective,  relating the  computing activity to the meaning of life,  the universe and everything.  There has to be some sense of direction,  which  can frequently get lost in the shuffle.

Lately, I've been acquiring a lot of software and hardware. Thank heaven's  for tax refunds.  I've got Visual BASIC 5,  I've  Turbo Pascal  6,  I've got Microsoft Works 4.  I've got Quicken 4 and 5 with and without Windows. There's a assorted variety of browsers, some  with  HTML editors,  some without.  I've got  video  cards, mother boards,  serial ports, empty cases, and 50000 unread books ....that's about all of it.

I  can  now store 50 times what I could store when  I  bought  my first  hard drive.   My latest processor does it's thing 30 times faster  that ADAM can do.  I can transfer E-mail to you and  surf the  net  112 times faster than I could when I  bought  my  first modem.  My  current MIDI setup can process 5 times as many tracks as  the  first one I bought from Chris  Braymen.  I  can  process pixels  at  such  a rate that my Windows 95 wall  paper  features pictures of Zonker and Herman Mason. Imagine that.

I could go on and on,  but the point is this:  while the hardware and software have changed,  what I'm doing with all this  'stuff' has not.  I am still, essentially, learning about computing. I am still,  essentially,  doing what I can in some small way to share what I learn with anyone who will listen, and sometimes a few who don't  care  to.  I am still,  essentially,  using  my  computing equipment  to  maintain contact with some wonderful friends  whom I've known for years.  Some are here right now,  and that's  what really makes it  worthwhile.

When  you come to the essence of what we're doing here,  it's not the widgets that are important, it's the people.

Bearing that in mind,

  I'd like to spend a few minutes this morn ing not only contemplating the meaning of life,  the universe and everything,  but  also trying to relate it to some areas we as  a community need further work on.  I'm speaking,  of course, from a user's  point of view because in this game I have  no  other.  So from  a user's perspective,  I'd like to ask some questions about where we are going, and then to propose some answers, not necess arily the right answers,  or even serious answers,  but  possible answers.  If  you can stay awake long enough for that,  I'll then finish  and  be quiet,  leaving you with my own  version  of  the annual  'top ten list',  this year entitled "Wouldn't it be  nice if....".

How many of you have logged onto Bob Sebelist's home page? 

The man is really quite incredible, is he not? The music takes me back  to  ADAMCON  IV,  the graphics are all things that  he  has produced  for our world,  and yet it also appears  quite  obvious that Bob has mastered HTML,  JAVA and everything else it takes to produce a pretty slick looking home page for all of us to enjoy. 

I found one rather telling comment on  Bob's page.  It was from a young person in Alaska,  who said (roughly paraphrased) that he'd think  about coming to ADAMCON if it weren't for the  pesssimists there.  He'd been reading some of the keynote speeches,  and men tioned no names,  but did offer the suggestion that we leave ADAM to  the younger people who are beginning to take a renewed  inte rest in our old computer.  

It's an interesting point, which leads me to my first question:

1) Is there life on other planets?

For  the  past year or so during my Internet travels,  I've  been reading  some  material about ADAM provided by  people  who  have never  set  foot near an ADAMCON.  I say that not in  a  critical sense,  but  only  out  of a sense of curiosity of  a  sort.  I'm talking  about  the  people who are  currently  tracking  classic computer games, including ADAM games. I'm talking also about some of  those who helped to develop the ADAM  Emulator  package.  I'm talking  about a group in Winnipeg who just held their 5th annual picnic  and who still persist in attracting more than 100  people every year.  And believe me,  no offence to Keystone's President, Paul Elshoff, but some would consider Winnipeg as part of another planet! I've been there, I know....

What I'd really like to know, is  - why aren't they here?

While  some  of these people,  such as Paul,   are aware  of  our presence,  it seems that the vast majority have little  knowledge of the work and effort that went into running the user groups and producing the newsletters that we are all so familiar with.  It's much  like waking up one morning and reading your own obituary in the newspaper,  knowing full well that rumours of your death  are greatly exaggerated. 



Writes one gent from Williamsburg VA, "There seems to be a Coleco ADAM cult."

I  guess that's one thing you can do after you're dead;  you  can form a cult and get away with it.

1a) Sub question:

Who  are James Carter,  Joe Huber and Jeff Frohwein?  If you  log onto  some of the Coleco home pages,  you're going to see some of these  names mentioned,  and mentioned in a way that creates  the impression  they  have taken some sort of lead role  in  tracking Colecovision  games and documentation.  Why do we not  hear  from them with articles for the ANN disks? 

What  does this have to do with the meaning of life,  the meaning of ADAM life? Only this: given our dwindling numbers, wouldn't it be better if we all worked together?

I  don't have much in the way of answers to this first  question. 

About  the only thing I can offer is something of  an  experiment that I've been trying over the past few months. When something is written  for  Compuserve,  I put it up on FIDO,  and Dale  Wick's Waterloo  broadcast address,  and anywhere else I can  stick  it. Some ADAMites don't have access to Compuserve, some don't have an Internet account. Some live only on FIDO, or on Compuserve. 

2) Is there life after death?

Some would argue that we're already dead. We might have gone from talk about the evil Bill Gates empire to being unwittingly sucked into the evil Bill Gates empire.   Ok,  so let's accept that, but only  with the proviso that some of us retain the right to go  on living  long  after the corpse has been  buried because we  don't know what else to do.

Again, I have  no answers, except to say that it's quite possible I've already reached this phase without realizing it.  There seem to  be degrees of death,  and it's only just occured to me  on  a personal  level  that rigor mortis is beginning to  set  in.  

For example,  I  recently  decided to reduce the number  of  personal computing  devices set up in my basement bedroom  workshop/living area  place  (My  mother made me do it.).  As a result  4  living breathing computers have been banished to the adjacent work  room where  things  tend either to get broken if they aren't  already, shoved  into storage cupboards,  or packed away in boxes  covered with scotch tape. 

One  of  those computing devices is my  original  ADAM,  with  an original  Minnie Winnie hard drive..  It now sits there untouched on a mobile work table while my attentions are drawn  increasing ly, day by day, to Windows 95. 

Now if this isn't life after death, I don't know what is. 

3) Why are we here?

Another  philosophical chestnut to be sure,  but this one has  an answer.  We love each others' company,  and from what I see going on  right here,  right now,  I think that's an absolute  in  this universe. At this point, it's pure speculation, but perhaps, just perhaps,  by  letting the universe unfold as it should,  we might just get to ADAMCON 0E.  

If nothing else, our coming here to this place will result in renewed friendships,  a more common sense of purpose,  and a whole lot of fun that might just be sufficient to keep  momentum going for another 12 months.  Who knows,  PJ  just might  get me to try her home made Salsa,  and that would  indeed add to the meaning of life.

Or at least so she says.

Actually, it's a private joke... you had to be there.

4) Where are we going?

This is indeed the ultimate question.  We've been asking it since 1986 or thereabouts.  Like so many ultimate questions, its answer depends on each one of us as individuals.  It's going to depend a lot on our willingness to keep in touch with one another.  Now we have  Rich and Frances Clee on E-mail,  and that was  indeed  the final  frontier,  so  what  we have to do from here on in  in  my humble  estimation is to use the facilities  available,  whatever they might be,  to circulate as much information about ADAM as we can  to wherever it falls in this universe.  You never  know  who might be listening.

5)  And  the final philosophical 'meaning of life' type  question is, quite bluntly, 

Does anyone really care?

It is indeed a tough question to answer.  

I'm associated now as a volunteer with 2 separate community information services  operat ing in the area where I live.  For one I write news articles, and for  the  other I Secretary of the Board of  Directors.  In  both cases,  we're  using leading edge technology to provide  internet access to people who wouldn't otherwise be able to afford it, and to  non-pofit  organizations.  The  service for  whom  I'm  doing community  news  input boasts 1500 paid up members,  and  yet.... after  three years of operation,  when they canvass the  business community  for  information,  four out of five  people  contacted don't  even know about their own Information Network.  In my  own area,  only 7% of 40,000 residents know enough about the Internet to feel comfortable with any kind of activity there,  and by  any kind  of activity,  I'm talking about turning on a home  computer and  using  a  modem to make contact in some basic way  with  the Information Highway. 

Most  people  that I know - present company  excepted  - consider computers  to  be an area of human activity intended  for  geeks, adicts, and people with no other life to speak of. 

Maybe they're right.

So much for the meaning of life, the universe and everything. 

You know, why we're here really isn't a big thing with me any more. I stopped  seeking approval from my IBM friends long ago.  Most  of them have now come to accept that there's a part of my life  that they  don't even ask about any more.  When I have visitors in  my snake  pit,  they pay little attention to the 16 other  computers that are there. Occasionally I'll get the question, does all this stuff work?  And that will be about it. They leave me along, I do the Windows thing when they're there. And that's that.

Finally,  the  top  ten list - or my  somewhat  'tongue-in-cheek' perception of the way things really should be in the ADAM World. 

Entitled - "Wouldn't It be Nice If.
"

10)     Would it be nice if Rich and Frances Clee really  enjoyed E-Mail,  or better yet,  wouldn't it be nice of Ron Mitchell rep lied  to  snail  mail within a reasonable  period  following  its arrival  on his doorstep?  It's communications my friends,  and I suppose I'm somewhat typical.  I simply don't reply.  Each time I don't reply, communication suffers.


9)      Wouldn't it be nice if we could find a workable  way  of supporting the few suppliers we have left? 


8)      Wouldn't  it would be nice if those of us who were  left writing things in the ADAM world could focus their output on ADAM products  that some newcomers might not know anything  about?  To elaborate just a little,  there are people online,  not many  but some,   who  have  no idea what's available for  ADAM,  and  who regularly  ask  questions.  If they don't get  answers  to their questions, they don't come back.


7)      Wouldn't  it be nice if the computer community at  large recognized that there are still people in the world using 8 bit computers,  and that you can indeed use the Internet with a Coleco ADAM? 


6)      Wouldn't  it be nice if ADAMites found  one  channel  of communication and used it?  Seriously folks, we do really need to find an more effective a way of keeping in touch with one another.



5)      Wouldn't it be nice if the ADAM community recognized that paper  is  a  diminishing resource and made a greater  effort  to survive electronically, online? That's everyone...shy, fearful or otherwise.


4)      Wouldn't it be nice if we could find a way of making our activities more relevant to more ADAM users? I'm thinking of our young friends who see more pessemists than optimists in our ranks. How can we bring them on board?


3)      Wouldn't  it be nice if we could  get  more  programmers working on our behalf, writing more new software? 


2)      Wouldn't it be nice if if Jerry Vrancks went on producing 463  ADAM forever.  Alas,  even Jerry is running out of things to print. 


1)      And finally, the number 1 "Wouldn't it be Nice". Wouldn't it be nice if we really could make it to ADAMCON 0E?

Thank you all.  I wish you a good and productive conference.  May our friendships be renewed and strengthened so that we can conti nue to be who we are for another 12 months, and longer.

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