Hi gang,

I'm going to try to write a weekly capsule summary of what I've done with my ADAM, no matter how small. The purposes of this are:

Anybody who likes is free to join in with his own periodic activity reports. Anybody who likes is free to redistribute my reports anywhere he thinks they will be seen by ADAMites.

This Week With My Coleco ADAM 9609.22

by Richard F. Drushel (drushel@apk.net)

I. Making Space For ADAM.

For the last few years, our users group, Cleveland B.A.S.I.C., has had its monthly meetings in my basement. As I have added computers, tools, and children to my collection, the basement has gotten more and more crowded, and more and more disorganized. This summer it finally reached the point that it was too hard to clean it up in time for a meeting, and I asked for some temporary changes of venue. The task of packing everything up for ADAMcon VIII was the last straw--the clutter was intolerable. When I returned from ADAMcon VIII, I left everything packed up in the boxes in preparation for a major cleanup.

One difficulty we've had with our B.A.S.I.C. meetings has been having working ADAMs set up for easy use. I have 4 complete ADAM systems, but usually the only one up and running was the one I was debugging ADAMserve on, and it was frequently in pieces or surrounded by printouts and other junk. A major objective of my basement cleanup was to create a space for user ADAMs that could be permanently set up and left alone, independent of my ADAM development system.

Another consideration is that my two oldest daughters, Christina (age 9.5) and Elanor (age 6.5) now have nightly homework assignments, and the dining room table isn't big enough for both of them to do their homework at the same time. I wanted to put some school desks in the basement so they could do their homework undisturbed. As for desks, I managed to get 2 complete study carrel sets (table, bookshelf, and chair) from the Sears Library here at Case Western Reserve University. CWRU has just built a new, centralized Kelvin Smith Library, and is demolishing two old peripheral libraries, the aforementioned Sears Library (on the old Case Institute of Technology campus) and the Freiberger Library (on the old Western Reserve College campus). All the furniture, bookshelves, etc. from these two libraries was free for the taking; what wasn't taken was to be junked. Naturally, there was great interest in all the free desks and chairs...I don't know about Freiberger, but Sears was stripped bare in about 4 hours. The two study carrels I got are not your modern-day sawdust-and-glue construction, but are all solid hardwood, and should survive anything short of a direct nuclear strike. These have now been installed, along with some new indoor/outdoor carpet and fluorescent lights; they are also available as workspaces during B.A.S.I.C. meetings.

I'm only about half-done with the cleaning/reorganization, but I've managed to get one complete ADAM system set up on its own table, with its own surge-protected powerstrip and overhead fluorescent lights. It's a basic R80 system, 2 tape drives, 1 1.44MB floppy drive, and a color TV set. I still have to set up my ADAMserve development system. I also have to move one of those assemble-it-yourself computer desk/hutch combinations from upstairs to the basement. I'll set up another ADAM user system on that.

II. An ADAM Printer Problem And Its Solution.

While setting up the first R80 system (to be Christina's computer), I found a problem with the ADAM printer. The ribbon wasn't advancing when characters were typed, so the printing was bad. Remembering what Rich Clee had said during his Q&A session at ADAMcon VIII, I (for the first time) ventured to open up a Coleco printer ribbon. I didn't find anything unusual or which seemed to be jammed, so I put it back together and tried it again. Still no advance. I tried some brand-new Coleco ribbons; still no advance. Other ADAM printers didn't have any trouble advancing these ribbons. Hmmmm.

Upon close inspection, I noticed that the cross-headed ribbon advance pin did not fit snugly into the ribbon cartridge in this particular printer. Indeed, it seemed to me that the advance pin didn't really stick up far enough to catch. I tried taking off the cartridge plate and reseating it, but still that pin didn't stick up far enough to engage the cartridge, unless I held it down with my finger while it was typing. Unfortunately, there isn't any way to pull that pin up higher. What to do?

Staring at the cross-headed pin, something looked familiar. Where have I seen something like that before? Some of you may have heard that I teach a robotics course which uses LEGOs as the robot skeletons. *That* was it--a LEGO axle! I was sure that the crossed end of a black LEGO axle was the same as the crossed end of that ribbon advance pin. So, I made a quick trip to the robot lab and returned with a length of axle. I was right, it would fit, but it was just a tad larger than the original advance pin, so instead of easily fitting into the cartridge, it fit rather snugly. But it was very close.

My solution:

I have no real experience with printer problems. Is it possible that this is the source of difficulties with Coleco ribbon cartridges that are past half-used? Since the ribbon advance pin is so short, and since the front clamp doesn't really hold the cartridge down onto the plate very well, is it possible that, when the ribbon tension gets higher, the pin just slips out of the cartridge? If so, this modification might be of more general interest.

As for different types of glue...I used the standard Super Glue which is a runny liquid and sets very fast. I have never liked the Super Glue Gels and have no idea how they'd work here. Five-minute epoxies might be worth a try, but in my experience, they gradually absorb moisture from the air and, in about a year, get soft and break loose. Two-ton epoxies don't have this permanency problem, but they take several hours just to set. Your mileage may vary.

Well, that's it for this week. See you next week!

*Rich*

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