ADAMCON 01 
October 7 - 11, 1989 
Sponsored by MOAUG 
 
ADAMCON 01 was an absolute success!!!  The fine work by Monte Neese and MOAUG made for a wonderful convention.  So much information was presented that it could be months before all of it is understood.  Some of the people we expected to see were unable to attend; Sol Swift was with us in spirit only, Big John Lingrel was also unable to be there.  BUT, there was no lack of ADAM experts, Tony Morhan, Ron Collins, Tony Patterson, and others too numerous to mention. 
Many old freindships were strenghtened, many new friendships were made.  All who attended will not forget the feeling of camaraderie.  The ADAM wars were, for the most part, forgotten.  The true spirit of sharing that marked the early days of the personal computer was clearly evident.  There was something for every ADAM owner.  Advanced ideas for the experts, and basic information for the novice.  It was interesting to see a 16 year old ADAMite talking to a 60 year old.  Both talked the same language, ADAM, and each was able to learn from the other. 
Following is an overview of the events at ADAMCON 01.  It may not give you the true feeling of excitement of being there but will pass along some of the information presented. 
 
ADAMCON 01 
Saturday, October 7, 1989 
The meeting room was decorated with blue and white balloons tied to chairs and set up in an arch over the front table and podium.  An ADAM was set up with three moniters displaying a welcome.  Two original ADAM boxes were behind the speaker. 
 
ADAMCON 01 Chairman, Monte Neese introduced John Terry, President of MOAUG. John opened with a definition of the word 'obsolete' and why our ADAM did not fit this definition.  The main reason is "It works!!" The ADAM keeps on working for three primary reasons: 1. ADAM is a good computer.  2. There is good 3rd party support.  3. Hardware developers keep making more periphials to make ADAM more useful.  The spirit the keeps ADAM from becoming obsolete is "We believe in ADAM!!" 
 
Jay Foreman, President of MW Ruth, then made the opening remarks.  The news flash he started out with was the Hewlett-Packard wrote the operating system for the ADAM.  They wanted to beak IBM to the small computer market without using their name, which was associated with mainframes.  Jay presented an overview of the history of the ADAM.  The machines that were rushed into stores (95,000 of the 500,000 that were promised) were not ready.  90% of these were not working properly.  This was in 1983.  By the time in 1984 when the bugs were worked out, Coleco had problems too numerous to overcome.  They took advice from the wrong people, had problems with the banks, and did not allow hardware add-ons to surface. 
Some of the early newsletters began to surface.  Expandable Computer News only lasted 3 issues. Alan Gerson started AUGment.  Jay started the #1 Sprite Chaser. 
By early 1985, Coleco was passing the warranty cards recieved from ADAM owners to AUGment and #1 Sprite Chaser.  Jay compiled a list of 40,000 ADAM owners.  Coleco never had a list of owners! 
Jay determined the Coleco produced 1,000,000 parts worth of ADAMs, and assembled 250,000 complete.  With some ADAMs sold as parts and assembled by the owner, Jay estimated that there are 250,000 to 500,000 complete ADAMs in existence. 
In 1985 Coleco had a speech synthesizer developed, but it was too late to market by that time. 
Then in January of 1985, Coleco dropped our ADAM. 
Jay felt that the future of ADAM would be in compatibility with MS-DOS. 

A reception followed, with people looking at name tags to see if it was someone they knew thru a BBS, correspondence, or by telephone. 

A busy first day and it was only for a few hours in the evening.

          Dean Roades
          463 ADAM 
 began to surface.  Expandable Computer News only l
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