Video 80 Column Board Kit

The Coleco's ADAM Video 80 Column Board Kit distributed by ADAM's House (later known online as eColeco) is a classic, highly specialized aftermarket internal expansion upgrade designed to overcome one of the Coleco ADAM’s greatest software-development hurdles: its lack of a native high-resolution 80-column display.

The Problem It Solved

Out of the box, the Coleco ADAM was limited by its original Texas Instruments TMS9928A video display processor, which could only output 32 or 40 columns of text to a standard television or composite monitor.

While 32-column text was fine for video games and rudimentary word processing, it was a major obstacle for business applications and advanced programming. Most professional software of the 1980s—particularly software running on the CP/M operating system—was strictly engineered around a universal standard of 80 columns by 24 lines. Running CP/M on a stock ADAM forced the machine to use awkward horizontal screen scrolling just to let the user see the edges of a standard document or block of code.

The 80-Column Board Fix

To transform the ADAM into a serious productivity computer, Terry Fowler of ADAM's House cataloged and distributed 80-column video card kits (often sourcing or mirroring architectures pioneered by developers like Eve Computer Systems, Micro Innovations, or Orphanware).

• The Interface: The board plugged directly into one of the ADAM console's internal expansion slots (typically Slot 2, which handled general video, serial, and peripheral expansion).
• Independent Hardware: Because the ADAM's native video chip couldn't build 80-character grids, these expansion boards functioned essentially as an independent video card terminal engine. They featured their own independent memory buffer, font ROM character set, and specialized controller circuitry.
• Dual-Monitor Output: The board added a secondary, dedicated monochrome composite video jack to the system. Users would route their normal games and SmartWriter software through the ADAM’s factory TV hookup, but use the 80-column board’s separate jack plugged into a high-quality green or amber monochrome monitor for serious text work.
• Software Compatibility: Once installed, the hardware unlocked seamless, native execution of professional CP/M software bundles, including spreadsheet calculators, Turbo Pascal compiling, and terminal communication utilities without the blind horizontal scrolling.

Modern Collector Status

Original 80-column expansion board kits from the ADAM's House era are extraordinarily rare and expensive on the secondary market today, as they were low-run boutique items sold to niche power users after Coleco abandoned the machine.

Modern retro-hobbyists looking for similar functionality frequently look to modern open-source reproductions like Eric Pearson's GitHub blueprints or pre-assembled runs of the MIB238 multifunction card built by independent creators