One of the micro world's most famous shooting stars has burnt up. Coleco has abandoned its Adam, and what remains of the orphaned machine is in the hands of a US retail outlet.

Coleco announced last week that it had sold-off its inventory of Adam systems and spares, and that it intends to return to full-time toymaking. Its UK distributor has followed suit, and the machine launched in a blaze of publicity in 1983 is now something of an embarrassment to all concerned.

The Adam was never officially launched in the UK and according to a spokesman for its distributor, CBS Toys, very few people bought an Adam here. "I don't think they'll find it a major problem to obtain logistical support from other suppliers," he said.

"We never put any muscle behind it," the spokesman admitted. "It was very low profile as far as we were concerned because the company felt that it should watch the market before it made any commitment."

The reason for its caution was that the Adam was virtually out on its feet by the time it came to this country. After the first flush of enthusiasm based on its spec and Coleco's production promises, the project ran into snags.

Perhaps an 80K machine with daisywheel printer, high-speed tape drives, and 'professional' software for $600 was too good to be true. Certainly it didn't take long for the price to go up - to $700. But the production targets began to look over-ambitious, and the quality of both hardware and software was called into question at early demonstrations.

Reports from the US said that hundreds of early production models were returned as faulty, but Coleco itself claimed that the rate of complaints was less than ten per cent. Early in 1984 it received a pair of much-needed boosts - Honeywell took over responsibility for maintenance, and Digital Research implemented Personal CP/M on the machine. But as the year progressed, the machine wandered lost in the Commodore-dominated home micro market.

Coleco lost $35 million in the fourth quarter of 1983. Its figures for 1984 have not yet been published, but a loss for the year is expected, despite the continuing success of the Cabbage Patch dolls.