The computer came with 64 KB of memory, a tape drive for a proprietary medium called Digital Data Packs, a daisy wheel printer, and productivity applications, along with two DDPs for SmartBASIC and Buck Rogers: Planet of Zoom Super Game.

Other design flaws were noted, such as the Digital Data Pack tapes being corrupted by the drives they are stored in and the peculiar decision to require users to plug the machine into a printer for power.

Many of the quality issues were resolved, but the Adam's reputation was permanently damaged and, in spite of price reductions, its sales negatively impacted, with Coleco reporting a loss of over $258 million.

Coleco announced the Adam at the Summer Consumer Electronics Show (CES)[1] in June 1983, and executives predicted sales of 500,000 by Christmas 1983.

[2] The company engaged in 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.

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".

[6][5] CEO Arnold Greenberg promised in late September to ship by "mid-October", but claimed that Adam was "not, primarily, a Christmas item".

[7] 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.

[9] The company did not ship review units to magazines planning to publish reviews before Christmas, stating that all were going to dealers,[10] but admitted that it would not meet the company's goal of shipping 400,000 computers by the end of the year; Kmart and JCPenney announced in November that it would not sell the Adam during the Christmas season because of lack of availability.

Its price gave a complete system: a computer with 64 KB of RAM, a tape drive for a proprietary medium called Digital Data Packs, a letter-quality daisy wheel printer, a typewriter application, and a word processor called SmartWriter, along with two DDPs for SmartBASIC and the Buck Rogers: Planet of Zoom Super Game.

An author of the computer's manual reported receiving "300 calls on Christmas week" from owners with problems, saying that some callers were on their fourth or fifth Adam.

[16] Problems included: ColecoVision software that was not built-in was mostly on ROM cartridges, with AdamCalc, Personal Checkbook, and SmartFiler programs also being on tape.

To showcase the machine at the 1983 Summer CES in Chicago,[20] Coleco decided to demonstrate a port of its ColecoVision conversion of Donkey Kong on the system.

Ultimately, it had no bearing on the Atari/Nintendo deal, as Atari's CEO Ray Kassar was fired the next month and the proposal went nowhere, with Nintendo deciding to market its system on its own.

Citing its $599 price, bundled hardware, and compatibility with ColecoVision and CP/M software, the magazine compared the Adam's potential impact on the home-computer industry to that of the Osborne 1.

While praising the keyboard and SmartWriter's ease of use, and calling the data pack "a reasonable compromise", he described the documentation as "wholly inadequate" and "generally inexcusable".

He concluded that "I'd dearly like to" recommend the Adam, but "for the time being, though, I'd advise you to proceed with caution", including confirming that the computer worked before leaving the store.

While citing flaws such as the "slow and very noisy printer", the magazine concluded that "Adam competes with and overpowers everything else in its class", inferior only to the IBM PC and Apple IIe.

's March 1984 review also approved of the Adam's prepackaged, all-in-one nature and called the keyboard "impressive", but cited widespread reports of hardware failures.

It called the tape-drive technology "impressive", and approved of the keyboard, but reported several cases of data errors and deletions when using the tape drives, a buggy word processor, and a BASIC manual that was "the worst I have ever seen".

However, when the January 3, 1985, edition of The New York Times reported that Coleco was abandoning the computer,[24] agency executives, who had no prior warning, were caught off-guard.

[27][28][29][30] Despite its critical and commercial failure, the Adam has attracted a group of enthusiasts who continue to develop hardware and software for the computer with the help of early dedicated newsletters.