[Coladam] woot! Check this out!

[Rich Drushel]

On Wed, June 10, 2009 3:58 pm, geoffrey oltmans wrote:

> The DB connector is wider than what's typically used for a parallel port on a
> PC. It does look like it's got an ADAM Net connector where the normal 2600
> module buttons would go if you look at the pictures closely.

     I think the DB connector is a 36-pin.  Original Centronics parallel
was 36-pin.  I seem to remember that some external floppy drives for the
IBM-PC used a 36-pin DB connector.  Maybe it's a place to plug in an
external disk drive for some part of the test.

     Hard to guess what the unit does.  I suppose it depends on whether
the test ADAM's CPU is running the checkout program, or this unit takes
over the address and data busses and runs its own program.  I seem to
remember a cartridge ROM that was a System Final Checkout...sigh, all that
stuff of mine is packed away.  If the test program runs on the ADAM, then
maybe this unit is just a set of logic gates and I/O ports set to give
certain responses when certain data are written to them -- a fancy dongle,
if you will.  Since the Expansion Module #1 totally takes over the busses
from the Z80 (and runs Atari cartridges with a 6502 CPU, totally different)
but uses the ADAM video, then I can imagine this unit doing something
similar (i.e., autonomous software on the unit, putting the Z80 to sleep
as it were).

     I would say that it's worth having at almost any price, and poor man
that I am, I would be willing to front some $$$ toward its purchase.  I
have, however, never used eBay, so I am the wrong person to ask to bid
on it.  Rin would kill me, but I would be willing to part with a bit more
than the current $25ish US bid on it.

     *Rich*

-- 
Richard F. Drushel, Ph.D.            | "They fell:  for Heaven to them no hope
Department of Biology                |  imparts / Who hear not for the beating
Case Western Reserve University      |  of their hearts."
Cleveland, Ohio  44106-7080  U.S.A.  |         -- Edgar Allan Poe, "Al-Aaraaf"