Doug_B_Erdely@cup.portal.com (08/07/88)
Hi gang... Did not know where to really put this message so figured since I
knew Comp.Sys.Amiga I would post it here.....
I was talking to a person I know who was telling me about his Mindset
computer. How Great it was and all... He said that there where MANY things
the Mindset could do that the Amiga could not even touch. Now if I am not
mistaken.. The Mindset is not even made anymore correct?? He said that it
could multi-task, Stereo sound etc...
I find this ALL VERY UNLIKELY!!! Can anyone tell me exactly just what the
Mindset specs are.. what features it has etc... Is the company still making
them.... I am extremely interested...... I think he is full of BULL!! :> :>
- Doug -
Doug_B_Erdely@Portal.Cup.ComChad_The-Walrus_Netzer@cup.portal.com (08/08/88)
In a previous article <Doug Erdely> writes:
)I was talking to a person I know who was telling me about his Mindset
)computer. How Great it was and all... He said that there where MANY things
)the Mindset could do that the Amiga could not even touch. Now if I am not
)mistaken.. The Mindset is not even made anymore correct?? He said that it
)could multi-task, Stereo sound etc...
There is indeed a Mindset computer, and it does indeed do "alot" of the
things the Amiga does... In fact, the Amiga designers most likely 'borrowed'
some of the ideas that the Mindset first pioneered. (RJ Mical mentioned this
a while ago.) It was/is also a neat computer and is still around, although
Mindset the company is not... In fact, Mindset used to be located just down
the road from HT Electronics, in Sunnyvale, on Maude Ave. At least this was
the case until about 3-4 months ago, when a new company finally moved into the
building (I believe the company was 'Adobe', but it may be 'Focus'...) Anyway,
that was about 5 minutes away from me (assuming I catch all the greens :-) And
about 4 months ago (or less) I saw a Mindset computer on display (and for sale
at a GOOD price) at either Haltek (or Halted, I always mix them up), which is
an electronics store in SunnyVale, right off highway 101. I could inquire
about it if you are interested. (Just E-Mail me).
)I find this ALL VERY UNLIKELY!!! Can anyone tell me exactly just what the
)Mindset specs are.. what features it has etc... Is the company still making
)them.... I am extremely interested...... I think he is full of BULL!! :> :>
It is indeed true, and I would suggest you get your friend to show you
the Mindset... You will be impressed, although the Amiga is seperior overall.
(Multitasking, etc. besides the fact that they are still being made...)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Chad 'The_Walrus' Netzer -> AmigaManiac++
"Now that the writer's strike is over, the TV viewers strike can continue."nsw@cord.UUCP (N Weinstock) (08/08/88)
In article <7958@cup.portal.com> Doug_B_Erdely@cup.portal.com.UUCP writes: > [munch munch] >I was talking to a person I know who was telling me about his Mindset >computer. How Great it was and all... He said that there where MANY things >the Mindset could do that the Amiga could not even touch. Now if I am not >mistaken.. The Mindset is not even made anymore correct?? He said that it >could multi-task, Stereo sound etc... > >I find this ALL VERY UNLIKELY!!! Can anyone tell me exactly just what the >Mindset specs are.. what features it has etc... Is the company still making >them.... I am extremely interested...... I think he is full of BULL!! :> :> Hit 'n' if you could care less about the Mindset, otherwise read on... Ahh, the good ol' Mindset. In my own mind this machine was the true precursor to the Amiga. I almost bought one, though when the Amiga came out I was glad I had waited! Here's what I know (based on having shopped them and played with one when it came out, in 1984 I believe). If anyone sees glaring mistakes here, feel free to correct (or ignore) me, some of this is hearsay. The processor was an 80186, and the system was semi PC-compatible. It featured outstanding color graphics, including a blitter. It came with a 2 button mouse. Stereo sound was not standard but could be added as a relatively inexpensive option. The system was arranged much like the Atari Mega STs, with a main system unit and expansion units which stacked. Many things about the Mindset may seem familiar to the average Amigoid. First, it was built by a former Atari person. Next, it was aimed at the artist market; the first program available was called Lumen, and was a fancy mouse driven color paint program (sound familiar?). It had a blitter and stereo sound capability. It was far ahead of it's contemporaries technology-wise. It died a slow death because of a lack of publicity and software (of course this didn't happen to the Amiga, but it seemed like it might for a while). After failing in the general market, Mindset Corporation went after the video market (never heard much after that). I saw a demo of game called Vyper, and the 3D graphics were quite impressive, and very fast. I don't know if the game was ever actually released. Miscellaneous: I wasn't aware that the Mindset multitasked, but it's possible. There is a Mindset in the Museum of Modern Art in NY (it was quite attractively designed.) Last I saw, Mindsets were being liquidated for $299. I very much doubt the company is still in business. They really had the right idea. "Missed it by *that* much." This rambling digression courtesy of... .- -- .. --. .- .-. ..- .-.. . ... .- -- .. --. .- .-. ..- .-.. . ... | Neil Weinstock | ihnp4!cord!nsw | "I think my cerebellum just | | AT&T Bell Labs | nsw@cord.att.com | fused." - Calvin | .- -- .. --. .- .-. ..- .-.. . ... .- -- .. --. .- .-. ..- .-.. . ...
hrlaser@pnet02.cts.com (Harv Laser) (08/09/88)
Back in '84 a lovely little magazine called "Whole Earth Software Review"
was published by POINT in Sausalito, CA. It was a quarterly and I don't
think it even made it through a whole year's worth of issues before it
folded as a separate entity and then merged with "CoEvolution Quarterly"
to become a computer section in a larger-format mag called "Whole Earth
Review." (Yes, all of these were published by Stewart Brand and company
who previously put out the highly memorable "Whole Earth Catalog"
series. If you've a decent public library nearby you might check the
periodicals section for back issues of Whole Earth Software Review as
they waxed ecstatic about the Mindset computer and a couple of their covers
were produced with the "Lumena" software from Time Arts.
An author friend of mine has a 128K Mindset languising under his sofa,
collecting dust. It was a review-sample-loaner from them and when they
went belly-up he was never asked to send it back. He tells me it's
"sort of" MS Dos compatible, won't run a lot of "normal" PC software and
with only 128K it's rather useless anyway, but it is beautifully
designed, a piece of modern engineering "sculpture" if you will and
rather stealth looking since it's all black.
Harv Laser, Sysop, The People/Link AmigaZone. Plink: CBM*HARV
UUCP: {anybackbone}!gryphon!pnet02!hrlaser
INET: hrlaser@pnet02.cts.comdaveh@cbmvax.UUCP (Dave Haynie) (08/09/88)
in article <7958@cup.portal.com>, Doug_B_Erdely@cup.portal.com says: > XPortal-User-Id: 1.1001.2946 > I was talking to a person I know who was telling me about his Mindset > computer. How Great it was and all... He said that there where MANY things > the Mindset could do that the Amiga could not even touch. Now if I am not > mistaken.. The Mindset is not even made anymore correct?? He said that it > could multi-task, Stereo sound etc... The MindSet is surely out of business. It was most noted for it's graphic capabilities. And that it was really cool looking, too. I think a fair portion of what your friend is talking about is a case of something growing sweeter with age, but it's not entirely off base. MindSet was Intel based, and it could run MS-DOS, but not PC-DOS, so it wasn't PC compatible. In the days of CPM, that wouldn't have been a problem, but MS-DOS isn't really what you need for compatibility; you've got to conform to the PC hardware standard was well to run much of that software. To an extent, every machine dating back to 8088, 8086, 80186, etc. could be called "multitasking", since when running something like Concurrent CP/M, it would multitask. Given the right OS, even a C64 could multitask, so can a Radio Shack Color Computer. However, you really need a sufficiently powerful machine/OS combination (implying memory >> sizeof(average program)) to EFFECTIVELY multitask, and I don't believe any Intel chip before the 80286 in it's native mode could even come close to the Amiga in that respect, much less surpass it. I don't recall much on the Mindset's display or sound. Aagain, the display was something truely amazing for the time, though it wasn't IBM compatible and that helped kill it. Never seen a comparison between MindSet's video and Amiga's, though it would be interesting. In any case, it's true that the MindSet was truely superior to the IBM and Clones of it's time in many ways, and it's unfortunate it couldn't survive against them. > - Doug - -- Dave Haynie "The 32 Bit Guy" Commodore-Amiga "The Crew That Never Rests" {ihnp4|uunet|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh PLINK: D-DAVE H BIX: hazy "I can't relax, 'cause I'm a Boinger!"
davef@brspyr1.BRS.Com (Dave Fiske) (08/10/88)
In article <7979@cup.portal.com>, Chad_The-Walrus_Netzer@cup.portal.com writes: > In a previous article <Doug Erdely> writes: > )I was talking to a person I know who was telling me about his Mindset > )computer. How Great it was and all... He said that there where MANY things > )the Mindset could do that the Amiga could not even touch. Now if I am not > )mistaken.. The Mindset is not even made anymore correct?? He said that it > There is indeed a Mindset computer, and it does indeed do "alot" of the > things the Amiga does... In fact, the Amiga designers most likely 'borrowed' > some of the ideas that the Mindset first pioneered. (RJ Mical mentioned this > a while ago.) It was/is also a neat computer and is still around, although > Mindset the company is not... In fact, Mindset used to be located just down > the road from HT Electronics, in Sunnyvale, on Maude Ave. At least this was > the case until about 3-4 months ago, when a new company finally moved into the > ..... > It is indeed true, and I would suggest you get your friend to show you > the Mindset... You will be impressed, although the Amiga is seperior overall. > (Multitasking, etc. besides the fact that they are still being made...) Strangely enough, I was considering buying a Mindset recently, because there was an ad in the May issue of Byte--a place called American Design Components, 62 Joseph St., Moonachie, NJ 07074, is selling them for $299! I did a bit of research, and it seems to be true that the Mindset did some pretty zippy graphics stuff--one article even mentioned that some producers of TV commercials with computer graphics were using Mindsets. I decided against it because I could not find any recent articles about the thing--most of what I located were about the time the Mindset came out, and probably mostly based on manufacturer's press releases. There was some indication that the MS-DOS compatibility was not complete, and some references to mistakes in the documentation that comes with it, and I decided it would be wiser to save up and get an Amiga 2000, where there is more user-group and BBS support. If anyone is really interested, email me, and I can steer you to some articles, but most of them were rather vague on specifics and some were in magazines long since dead. -- "SURVIVORS OF 1917 UFO Dave Fiske (davef@brspyr1.BRS.COM) CRASH FOUND IN ANTARCTICA!" Home: David_A_Fiske@cup.portal.com Headline from Weekly World News CIS: 75415,163 GEnie: davef
limonce@pilot.njin.net (Tom Limoncelli) (08/10/88)
[ Dave Haynie mentions that even a C-64 could multitask ] Durring the ol' VIC-20 days my sister Mary was going to Yale and met a person named Chris Lane (I don't know if you are on the net, Chris, if you are... "Hello!") and he was a VIC-20 users also. Chris pushed that machine into doing things that nobody would believe if they weren't shown. We exchanged tapes (yes, remember tapes?) of programs we had written and one of the programs enabled the VIC-20 to multitask. Each program had to put a call in it's main loop to a m/l routine that would swap page 0, 1, and the stack (page 2), and the registers, etc. He also hacked out a split-screen that flickers horribly (the ol' VIC wasn't meant to split screen, eh?) but it all worked. I remember his demo programs included a program that printed primes while another program did a little animation (character based). So next time someone says that "even [list of computers] multitasks to some extent", please include the VIC-20. And Chris, if you read the net, please contact me. I would like to know where you are now. Tom -- Tom Limoncelli Currently using crutches and in great pain, but still available at: limonce@pilot.njin.net "Remember all the great times we had?" tlimonce@drew.bitnet "Yeah... was that *you*?" tlimonce%drew@cunyvm.cuny.edu "The opinions expressed above are mine... just mine." (Hey Eric! Remember when I was so proud to finally be on a net and your reply was, "Bitnet? Ok... tell me when you get on a real net"? Well, look at the new signature! A real net! Right on the internet! See! See! It's also reachable via limonce@njin.rutgers.edu. Ok Eric? )
mp1u+@andrew.cmu.edu (Michael Portuesi) (08/23/88)
> *Excerpts from ext.nn.comp.sys.amiga: 8-Aug-88 Re: Amiga & Mindset N* > *Weinstock@cord.UUCP (2935)* > The processor was an 80186, and the system was semi PC-compatible. It > featured > outstanding color graphics, including a blitter. It came with a 2 button > mouse. Stereo sound was not standard but could be added as a relatively > inexpensive option. The system was arranged much like the Atari Mega STs, > with a main system unit and expansion units which stacked. I, too, lusted after a Mindset until the Amiga came out. Basically it was the only MS-DOS machine I could consider buying without puking and wretching all over the place. The Mindset came on the market in early 1984, about the same time as the Macintosh. It offered 320x200 with 16 colors out of 512 and 640x400 (I think; it might have been 640x200) with four colors out of 512. It supported NTSC standard video and offered interlaced scan. The marketing strategy was that they wanted to have the fastest Windows machine on the market, and they wanted to target graphic artists, designers, and other people who had a need for PC compatiblity and fast graphics. Given the fact that Microsoft Windows didn't appear on the market until two years later, and that they had little advertising, marketing and distribution, the machine didn't have much of a chance. The system was compatible at the BIOS level, and included software emulation for the PC-character based display so that programs that wrote directly to video RAM would still work (sound familiar)? The system was at least 90% PC-compatible, though it did run its own version of MS-DOS. It had two cartridge ports, and had non-volatile RAM cartridges you could plug into the ports. The only glaring problem I saw with the system was that it was only expandable to 384K RAM with the expansion options Mindset offered, and its expansion bus did not seem PC compatible. It was a cool machine, but there isn't anything it had that the Amiga doesn't offer in some capacity. In many ways the Mindset was an Intel-based Amiga. --M Michael Portuesi / Information Technology Center / Carnegie Mellon University ARPA/UUCP: mp1u+@andrew.cmu.edu BITNET: rainwalker@drycas "if you ain't ill it'll fix your car"
jim@athsys.uucp (Jim Becker) (08/24/88)
The Mindset is still kicking around at Haltek in Mountain View; they bought the remainder of them and are selling them for around $300. I went by their old building about a week ago and it has been leased by Adobe. Has anyone leased the original Amiga building, like Apple ?? -Jim Becker recovering ex-amiga addict and developer. You will learn..