ADM3A 2993
William J. Leary Jr.
IIRC, it was a "joke newsgroup" to begin with (possibly contemporaneous with alt.tv.startrek.ensign.crusher.die.die.die era).
comp.terminals would certainly be appropriate, and in fact Rick Shuford's archive contains the suggestion "Awfully Dumb Monitor" along with reasons why it can't be that :-).
My personal idea, completely unsupported by any actual facts:
The" ? Which one is "The" ? I found a number of them, with contradictory statements, or comments that they didn't know, or...
Lear Siegler in my head was always a player in the military-industrial complex, with ties to manufacturing and aerospace and electronics. An odd behemoth to sell a really low-end terminal especially in kit form. I always figured that they had bought up a small tech company that had done the design legwork for the terminal and maybe, just maybe, the ADM initials came from that small bought-up company.
One vaguely related fact: Look at how Zenith (not exactly known for nimbleness other than putting TV's in genuine simulated wood cases) bought up part of Heathkit, in particular for their computer and low-end terminal products in about the same era.
Heat flowing against the temperature gradient? Where's the heat pump? The "greenhouse" isn't *that* good at preventing energy from leaving the troposphere. Not yet. Minimum is projected next year this year. Present activity...
Strangely enough, decades later the Home Depot up the road still sells Heath-Zenith doorbells. I was genuinely shocked to see that the trademark still lives on, especially in that place and form, although I can understand how it happened.
Tim.