Coleco Adam
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| Developer | Coleco |
|---|---|
| Release date | October 1983 |
| Introductory price | 725 US$ (today $1743.34) |
| Discontinued | January 1985 |
| CPU | Zilog Z80A @ 3.58MHz |
| Related articles | ColecoVision |
The Coleco Adam is a home computer, and expansion for the ColecoVision (port 3), released in 1983 by American toy manufacturer Coleco. It was an attempt to follow on the success of the company's ColecoVision video game console. The Adam was not very successful, partly because of early production problems, and was orphaned in early 1985.
Coleco announced the Adam at the Summer Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in June 1983, and executives predicted sales of 500,000 by Christmas 1983. From the time of the computer's introduction to the time of its shipment, the price increased, from USD $525 to $725.
The Adam announcement received favorable press coverage. Competitors such as Commodore and Atari almost immediately announced similar computer-printer bundles. The company announced an extensive marketing campaign, with television commercials for "boys age 8 to 16 and their fathers ... the two groups that really fuel computer purchases", and print advertisements in nontechnical publications like Time and People.
The Boston Phoenix, observing that Adam's $600 price was comparable to the lowest price for a letter-quality printer alone, stated "a nice trick if they can do it!" It was a trick; the computers were shown behind tinted glass that hid the fact that they were hand-made and had non-working tape drives. In June Coleco promised to ship the computer by August. In August it promised to ship a half million Adams by Christmas, but missed shipping dates of 1 September, 15 September, 1 October, and 15 October. Ahoy! reported that Coleco had not shipped by early October because of various problems. Each month of delay could mean losing the opportunity to sell 100,000 units, the magazine reported, adding that missing the Christmas season would result in "inestimable losses", CEO Arnold Greenberg promised in late September to ship by "mid-October", but claimed that Adam was "not, primarily, a Christmas item". The printer was the main cause of the delays; after it failed to function properly at demonstrations, by November InfoWorld reported on "growing skepticism" about its reliability, speed, and noise.
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