This PC was almost an Atari

[@TechTimeTraveller]

Sorry for the long delay on this one - between unusually long summer heat and my do-overs in an effort to improve things like sound, lighting, etc, it took a few months and about 60+ hours of filming and editing time to get 'er done. I was initially reluctant to do this video at all, as I've had a mental rule about not covering things that others have already covered, but I eventually got over that and decided I wanted to give one of my favourite computers of all time the best documentary I could give it. Enjoy and thanks for your patience! If you have anything to add to the Mindset 'knowledge base' please share in the comment section below!

[@unbiased1]

What do you mean sorry? Try to be more careful 😝

[@aaronbrandenburg2441]

It's okay and all but I love the backdrop for this and what sounds like in the peanuts cartoons about whenever adults would be talking that sort of effect it brings back memories yearly peanuts specials! Also most people may not be aware but there are many other specials that we never saw in the United States at least originally since they were all over the world apparently so there some that most people have never seen and at least they used to be here on KZbin so if you're a fan of Charlie Brown it's worth looking around on KZbin for this! I found a couple of specials that I had recorded on VHS originally don't worry this would be for my own use only but I would digitize this for the future for the holidays primarily. Also has anyone ever seen the Blondie special that one was just over the edge for any one that's a real geek trust me worth looking at if you haven't seen it! Thinking of this mind set computer got me thinking about the old bee box! What everyone said that if you wanted to hook the coffee maker up to the computer this is the computer you would use essentially! It did have the ultimate user port including power out and yes fused! Analog Da and AD converters!. Digital inputs and outputs. AKA gpio! This even happened in the option for up to four IBM compatible type joysticks. And built-in midi interface. This is all Native. Not to mention the joystick ports were not just a quad 555 timer! But an actual analog to digital converter! This is probably the first real computer that was all set to do any home automation DYI project I'd say. Unfortunately almost everything I believe was proprietary in terms of operating system and so on not sure if there was ever a Linux derivative for this machine! I think we should bring back the user port Commodore Business Systems had this for the longest! Even having some sort of USB interface that will open up this possibility and easily be able to access it through any operating system or even a dedicated Linux device yes I know Raspberry Pi can do this. But something that we allow you to just basically plug in a large connector and be able to do whatever you want with the capabilities are there! Not to mention having a Serial ports and parallel ports available! These are not dead ports by any means. This would need to be running Linux since support has really been dropped for direct access at least into the parallel port via Microsoft Windows! I don't know if running the Linux side of things in Windows could be workaround either! Parallel port is actually desirable sometimes since it's so easy to interface with and it's not just eight bits of data out! You could use all control lines and all pins further versatility! Which sometimes there's more available there and then some dedicated interfaces just a bit of isolation and Signal conditioning and possibly inverting a few lines you got yourself a general purpose interface. And just bit banging the parallel port can be more useful than most things that are out there. There were so many things back in the day that use the parallel port for control even robotics kid accessories just literally plug straight into the parallel port essentially. And depending on what Hardware support you can get a lot more than a single port by just losing one data bit! Not to mention two-way communication and much more! And orange 232 is very much alive but not as much general purpose anymore but more niche! Nowadays you could even use it in entertainment center such as to control the television if it's equipped. There are even some CD/DVD and so on players that are full on media players that can even be fully controlled as well as receive data from on rs232. Interior even if you wanted to have now playing sorry to display you could extract the data from the player and also run the unit from there even can tell all status and do much more than even the remote can! Some cases all you need is three wires for basic cereal Port even if you only need one way data in some cases it's still pertinent! There were even more modern machines that actually had still at least one rs232 serial Port even if there was not a actual Port it was on the motherboard. There was even certain machines that actually did include this even externally for Niche applications. There is Hardware still available that even something like an adult pair of Lego that's also interested in computers could easily use parallel ports and serial ports and even USB at the same time and do some pretty spectacular stuff. Courtesy of the original we do robotics kit USB interfaces. Lego interface a which was parallel port even though only using six data lines up to six outputs non-versible and up to three reversible or any combination thereof. This was for the 4.5 volt system! And also the interface B which is rs232 serial! This was up to eight inputs and eight outputs! For the 9 volt system! This was even before LEGO Mindstorms this was with the Lego education even back in the Apple 2 era! By the way the interface a was originally designed for operation from the parallel printer port! The only logic was the actual switching essentially it's a dumb interface and all it was was literally an interface between the parallel port and the outputs. Literally using to control lines as inputs six data lines as outputs. Even the IBM pcxt had a dedicated IO card for this! Don't know why they did not just use a parallel port cable on this one! Unless of course figured the parallel port might already been in use? On the Commodore 64 it connected to the user port! There was dedicated system cables available along with the software used a ribbon cable oftentimes the same cable for each system other than specific ones that would need a different type of connection. There is a DYI parallel port cable schematic available!

[@brendn]

More than worth the wait. These videos are so cool.

[@TrashfordKent]

Never knew of this Personal Computer series, I’d have been blown away by graphics capabilities back in the day. The sprite scaling in the space game was awesome. Many thanks for bringing this to life.

[@thecorruptedbit5585]

The intro was awesome! Jokes were all on-point, and really sets up all the problems this machine had while still being an excellent humor segment. Interesting how almost everything the mindset did was eventually taken up by the Amiga though. And how they kind of befell the same fate - nobody really knew what to make of the computers when they came out

[@TheSulross]

well, relatively speaking Amiga was much more "successful" - one thing it had going was that it was an excellent 2D gaming system - hah, and it could run MacOS better than Mac hardware

[@stevethepocket]

One thing Mindset did have going for them was the suite of graphics tools available on day one. I imagine the Amiga would be an easier sell if they had done that!

[@madigorfkgoogle9349]

@@TheSulross actually Amiga was pretty much a same failure which almost drove Commodore into bankruptcy in summer of 1986. It was later A500 and A2000 models that got kind a successful. But the first Amiga (A1000) was about same failure as the Mindset, and even found its "killer app" at same audience as Mindset, video titling...

[@ugencz8364]

@@madigorfkgoogle9349 Yeah, in post-Tramiel Commodore fashion, they didn't know how to market it and get it ready for the market. When they finally got that ability, they fucked up the R&D.

[@ClausB252]

Thanks for the great demo! I had to wait 37 years for it because the sales people at the NYC dealer were not interested in showing it to potential customers like me. I was looking to step up from my beloved Atari 800. But they just wanted to play with it and ignored my questions. No wonder they didn't sell.

[@TechTimeTraveller]

I did extensive reading of old newspaper articles and it does seem like they really didn't have a strong team to guide retailers. I think they would have been better off to choose one market or the other and throw all their efforts into that. They were spread thin as it was.

[@GeneralKenobiSIYE]

Wow. I really like this channel. The things you speak of are far more obscure than most.

[@JohnyPaprikas]

Hell yeah,we've been waiting for this one! This video will get you a lot of attention id like to think!

[@BigCar2]

Fascinating - thank you so much!

[@QuintusCunctator]

Thanks for this very in-depth tour of the Mindset, the little computer that almost could! Don't worry about putting your spin on material that other "bigs" in the KZbin retro scene already covered, especially if you add something new or more to it like you usually do. Your efforts in combining narration, humor and technical details are very much appreciated - it's a quite unique blend, and I think that many other people would agree, if only KZbin graciously decided to give you a little more exposure. All in all, congrats, and see you on your next video!

[@noneofyourbusiness4616]

My dad took me along when he looked at one at a computer store when I was a kid. I couldn't remember the name, just that it had advanced graphics and I never saw one again in person or in the media.

[@Starrigger]

Thank you for the in-depth look. I truly miss the one I had. I got it when the company was liquidated for $300 included the drives, and the mouse and joystick (which, seeing the prices they are going for now I wish I still had...) . It is the computer that got me into programming. I learned Turbo Pascal, MASM, Basic (actually created a debugger in basic to disassemble the bios and see what was going on with the special chips and the interrupt calls they used. For things like drawing lines you would set up an array of lines in memory then pass the starting address to the special chip using an EF interrupt call) . I was able to use generic MSDOS 3.x in it. Sadly it was the power supply that did it in around 1991, so I got about 5 years use out of it, and a love for computing that has never been at the same level as it was with this machine... sorry for the repost, just went back and saw I posted almost the exact same thing on your original Unfridging 😁 You are very fortunate to have these machines, take good care of them for the rest of us!

[@TechTimeTraveller]

They've *really* shot up lately. Like even until a year ago you could get a complete system for $1000 or so. Now a cpu unit by itself sold for that much. They're finally getting their due I guess!

[@thebiggerbyte5991]

A great video of a great machine - looking forward to the next!

[@Em_The_Wandering]

I really appreciate your unique delivery and style. Others had talked about the mindset but going into variants and other details set you apart. You delivered something unique and interesting and I'm thankful to have gotten to learn about it from you.

[@conquercode]

This is my favorite video you’ve made. I’ve easily watched it a dozen times!

[@ms_enj]

These are very cool bits of gear for the time. That brushed fan motor noise though…

[@zsewqthewolf1194]

i hope someone can get this on a FPGA set up because I would love to see the homebrew devs get there hands on this system specs

[@pauledwards2817]

They are all about arcade machines now, very talented young people doing FPGA but they are from the nintendo generation and understandably have little interest in machines such as this from a preservation perspective and giving people a chance to experience them. The usual argument is no software for them to make the effort but the Lisa had almost none yet was such an important point in home pc development. It's a shame but understandable.

[@zsewqthewolf1194]

@@pauledwards2817 it was steve job failing to understand software drive hardware sells and woz understand that very well if you look at his last thing he made with apple with the iigs, apple could have been our PC what IBM did but woz didn't understand this logical thinking.

[@another3997]

@@pauledwards2817 I'm not sure it's fair to lump them in to the "Nintendo generation". There are lots of FPGA cores for old platforms. The problem is simply the general obscurity of machines like this. They didn't become mainstream, so most people involved in recreating old hardware have no personal connection to them. Nostalgia is usually what drives these people, or at least curiosity. Hopefully videos like this will grab someone's imagination and inspire them. 🙂

[@kaitlyn__L]

@@pauledwards2817 MiSTer has plenty of 8 and 16 bit computers, both popular and obscure. It doesn't get as much publicity as the games consoles, but to declare there's no one making them is just untrue.

[@hellbreakfast1590]

I'm an artist by trade, and really enjoyed the demos of the art programs. If you choose to do more on vintage art utilities, I would be really pleased to watch!

[@Solaceon]

YES! There is a deep, missing niche for reviews of old art programs and peripherals. When my living situation improves, I'll be the one to do it if no one else does.

[@dbhansen]

Awesome overview! Given that Atari had been using cartridges in the 400/800 for several years before the Mindset, I suppose it makes sense that this, um, mindset migrated from Atari.

[@juliedunken1150]

How punny, …. Nerds are losers.. look in the mirror

[@another3997]

The Atari VCS console used cartridges several years earlier than the amazing 400/800 computers. I'm not sure who first came up with the cartridge idea, it probably wasn't Atari, but they certainly made it mainstream. I miss the days of lots of competing 8 and 16 bit computer platforms, before the IBM PC became THE standard.

[@DougDingus]

The guy who engineered the Fairchild Channel F gets credit for the carts. They were ROMS running on a system with a CPU and a small amount of RAM.

[@maxxdahl6062]

@@another3997 Definitely wasn't atari, think there might have been 1 or 2 consoles that used it before them but they did make it popular.

[@markusjuenemann]

Your efforts are so appreciated!!!

[@adriansdigitalbasement]

A new video?! I can't wait to watch!

[@TechTimeTraveller]

I am genuinely excited about you watching my stuff! I will be enjoying the rest of your 4P fix this aft during my workout!

[@AlexEvans1]

Some machines at the time made a distinction between MS-DOS and PC-compatible. This would not have been considered PC compatible by most.

[@CarlosPerezChavez]

What a beautiful machine, and what a wonderful video! Thank you!!

[@MichaelRBrown-lh6kn]

I read about the Mindset when it came out, but never saw one. I later learned of the Atari connection. I am familiar with the 80186, but never knew it was more intended as a microcontroller, as the '286 became the next main processor for PCs. Good doc. I didn't know about the other models, and the Wiki article doesn't mention them, only the Mindset II. I had seen the 8bit guys video as well

[@penfold7800]

Well, Lumina knocks the pants off of what I had at the time, which was Paintbox on the 48k Sinclair Spectrum. Its a shame they didnt think of dual processor for this machine, give it the CPU it has for onboard control with an intel 8086 for processing and it would have been awsome.

[@paullee107]

The styling reminds me of the x68000 - both are pretty flashy machines for their era's. Big thanks for the video, I love how in-depth you take us... I wouldn't have known about the Mindset, so it's really nice to have been able to see it spread its wings. (Even if the devs wished that happened 30 years ago!!)

[@Waccoon]

From the start of the corny intro I had a goofy grin on my face and it never went away. As an Amiga guy back in the day, Mindset always had a special place in my heart, but it was only until recently when I saw how the system worked. It's a shame the design and build quality, as well as the audio capabilities, weren't that good. There's a lot of innovative stuff going on here, and I appreciate the very in-depth look at the machine. A full hour -- wow, you've spoiled us!

[@10p6]

Great Video. For its price though, it should have had a 286, and at least half a MB ram.

[@TechTimeTraveller]

I wonder what the price differential was. I remember hardware being fiendishly expensive back then.

[@10p6]

​@@TechTimeTraveller I am not sure of cost, but Byte Magazine in Jan 1984 lists a 68000 for $49, and Z80A for less than $5, both retail costs. I cant see the 286 costing more than $200. Actually if you can believe Wikipedia, it shows in July 1985 a 10 Mhz 286 costing $155 in batches of 100

[@TechTimeTraveller]

Yeah. I think the fully kitted out Mindset topped out around $3k, so discounting the cost of the 186 to put in a 286 it doesn't *seem* like a big deal. The 286 would have just been coming out when they were doing the initial design in 82, maybe they were too committed already to redesign it again.

[@smartyhall]

The odd color behaviour is probably due to the bits responsible for color-burst timing going out of whack. Once you have an external reference, in this case the VCR, it makes it possible for the combined signal to sync.

[@UK_Cobra]

Looks like a nice computer, never heard of it though, so probably not released in the UK. Always nice to find video's on rare tech from back in the day. 36:37 Sounds just like the Amiga disk drive.

[@50shadesofbeige88]

You've done fantastic work here. It was well worth the wait!

[@mickholling6819]

Thank you for this excellent in depth video. I enjoyed watching.

[@foogod4237]

Despite having lived through this era, I had never actually heard of the Mindset before. Thanks a lot for highlighting this very ...interesting corner of the retro PC space. The reason everything was black and white until you turned on the VCR is almost certainly that when you have it hooked up to overlay on another video source, if both the input source and the Mindset were generating their own composite colorburst signal, they would be out of phase with each other and just screw up everything in the output, so it likely switches to a "passive color" mode where it expects the base colorburst to come from the input video source, and just syncs its own color output to match that. If there is no active input source, there is no colorburst to pass through to the output signal, and it just all comes out black-and-white instead.

[@IntoTheVerticalBlank]

Great work! The fact that the they to go to the "name lab" for a name says a lot about the marketing and other failures. Pretty design though. Maybe a little forward looking in hardware (modularity, blitter, solid state, etc) , but not in other places. The specs could have made a really nice ST alternative.

[@10p6]

Looks like a cool computer, and I like the design. As for a company, I think they would have done much better if they had just made a ISA card with all the Graphics and audio capabilities.

[@Andre-fj4xx]

The into by itself already was well worth a like. 👍🤣

[@epremeaux]

28:50 (maybe you'll answer this later in the video..) There is also that expansion board edge connector on the left side. Any idea whats going on there? Theres no provision on the case plastics to support anything plugged in there.

[@TechTimeTraveller]

I noticed this after finishing the video myself. I was so focused on the daughterboards for genlocking that I missed it. My best guess is that it was put there for future expansion use. The Mindset II was to have 512k instead of 32, and I figure maybe they put it up on a daughterboard above the motherboard connecting to that new connector on the left. Sadly there are no photos of the inside of the Mindset II case, so I can't confirm. Another possibility is that it saw use in even later machines like the M3000, which did not use the original Mindset case and had various controls added.

[@movax20h]

Thank you for very informative video. I never heard of this company, or the product. Quite unique. Also loved detailed overview of hardware, including keyboard.

[@chironbramberger]

Great video! FYI - There's some other audio that bleeds through around 44:00. It sound like maybe there was some music playing in the background in the next room or something maybe when you were filming or doing the voice over. It's not a big deal, but I'm pointing it out for the future. Also, a notch filter around 15k should take care of that CRT sound without affecting the rest of the high end. Hey, when I was a kid I heard the 15k sound of a TV or monitor and it was just normal... so these kids today are too spoiled if they complain about 15k in a vintage computer youtube channel... get off my lawn... Anyway, great video!

[@TechTimeTraveller]

Yes I wouldn't be surprised if there was some sound bleedthrough unfortunately. I've caught a couple of them with my earphones on where I accidentally bang the desk where my mic is setup or whatnot. Not too noticeable but present. I had probably about 8 hours of footage that got edited down to that 1 hour. I actually reshot the entire operation of the machine 3 times before I got the look I wanted on camera. I'll have to get into a habit of listening to the raw footage right there and then and reshoot if it pops into an important area. I think the low pass filter did its job this time around.. I didn't hear any degradation from the original. I did try messing with the notch filter but I kept getting this weird 'telephone' effect. I need to study that a bit more. Really appreciate the feedback and glad you enjoyed the end product! Always want to improve and the tips really help.

[@Solaceon]

Sorry on behalf of my generation. We suck.

[@chironbramberger]

@@Solaceon I don’t understand this comment in this context. What generation sucks, and how does this relate to these comments?

[@XalphYT]

@@Solaceon I remember my first paid gig sitting among six giant, CAD monitors in an engineering department. I asked the old timers sitting around how they dealt with the constant high-pitched whine of their monitors. In reply, they just looked at me funny and asked "What whine?" 😢

[@michaelcox436]

I'll never forget being at COMDEX and seeing an ST trying to do the Amiga bouncing ball demo, using 100% of its processor power to do what the Amiga did ENTIRELY within its custom graphic chips.

[@KarlHamilton]

If Commodore had used the original Boing Ball demo with the text, then the ST would've had no chance to copy it. But, alas.

[@Sl1pstreams]

Yep the Amiga was great for color graphics, but its flickering interlaced screen made it unusable for productivity apps. Using it for more than 15 minutes for word processing, DTP, etc gave the average person a headache.

[@KarlHamilton]

@@Sl1pstreams that's why people used a Scandoubler / Flickerfixer

[@slaapliedje]

Amusingly though, the Atari 8bits could do the boing ball quite nicely. (Not the boing ball demo, but it also exists, I just think this one is cooler) m.kzbin.info/www/bejne/pqvbcpl9ibRrpKc Besides, the Amiga wasn't impressive because of the boing ball... it was impressive because you could pull down the screen and use workbench while it ran in the background. Back when multitasking wasn't really a thing. A whole lot of the awesomeness of the Amiga was in the OS. The STe (if doing gaming) was very much capable of doing the same as the Amiga, Atari just took way too long to release it, and then the short lived Falcon line finally started to be better than the Amiga, and Atari killed it.

[@blast4722]

are you aware that amiga Boing demo was pure color cycled animation? so simple that even 1MHz C64 could handle it - "Boing Ball on C64". And remember that Atari was faster than Amiga by 11% or more.

[@matchrocket1702]

It was a joy to listen to the floppy drives grunting away as they were reading sectors on the disks.

[@TechTimeTraveller]

I sort of had a mental debate about how granular to get with this video. I really wanted to show the Mindset operating in real time so people could get a sense of how long things take and sounds and such. I may do that in the followup. But for this video I needed to edit a bit. I almost didn't include the drive noises at all, but am glad I did.

[@EgonOlsen71]

What a beautiful machine!

[@thecorruptedbit5585]

30:15 what about the random edge connector on the bottom left? I wonder what that was for

[@TechTimeTraveller]

I have a theory it was put there to allow the massive ram expansion for the upcoming Mindset II. I wish I could find a picture of the innards of that machine, but my guess is they put some stuff on a daughterboard that would have been suspended over the motherboard, and the interface between the two boards would have been that edge connector.

[@bobfromsoireegames4309]

Great video, my man. Interesting computer this.

[@GeoNeilUK]

Lumena kind of reminds me of the Quantel Paintbox interface. Getting one of those probably will set you back in time and money, especially as I think they were way more popular in the UK (especially the BBC) than in America but I could be wrong.

[@XalphYT]

30:29 Was the 192KB of expansion RAM directly accessible in BASIC, or was it only accessible via bank-switching in assembly code?

[@ridiculous_gaming]

Your 'getting a working' mindset is somewhat similar to my Commodore SX64 journey. I finally ended up with a working' machine, but this ended up failing shortly after, for many custom, Commodore chips are not very hardy and get really hot.

[@XalphYT]

I doubt anyone in 1985 would have imagined you trying to run this machine in 2022. You have to cut those MOS chip developers a little bit more slack, please.

[@paulweiss3818]

You can easily see where Atari got a lot of inspiration for the look of their Mega ST line.

[@XalphYT]

To me, this computer looks like the Commodore 128D. Please take that as a compliment it's meant to be.

[@Chordonblue]

My best friend got one of these and yes, Vyper was ahead of its time and AMAZING! He travelled long distance to see me, carrying this on his back in that backpack. Also amazing? Having that much memory in a computer. When you came from the Atari 400, 8-bit computers, something like this was like alien tech. I had written a c-like program to do anti-aliasing on pictures (something I translated to Action! from a Byte Magazine pseudo-code article). On my 600xl, it took over 30 seconds to draw a 80X192 greyscale picture. He re-wrote it on 80186 assembly and it did a 320X192 resolution pic in less than a second. Years later, he gave it to me. I still have the analog joystick and mouse for it. 😀😀

[@Lemon_Inspector]

What do you mean "C-like"?

[@zh84]

48:36 Whitney Caughlan, who is credited for the image of the glass with ice and ?whisky in it, is I would guess the same one who worked on graphics for various computer games, such as Genesis and O'Riley's Mine for the Apple II, Spiderman Vs. the Kingpin on Sega, and Lost Tomb for the Commodore 64.

[@TechTimeTraveller]

Very likely. Too small of a pool of people with that skillset probably in 1984 to be a coincidence.

[@gwyllymsuter4551]

In 1974 Electronics Australia released a computer kit called the EDUC8 microcomputer. For a brief moment it was believed this was the first home computer kit in the world. It was only later did they learn it was pipped at the post by the Mark8. If Jim Rowe hadn't held back releasing the article to expand it from 32 bytes to 256, history would be different. Anyway, I have Re engineered new modern pcbs with everything in exactly the same place and I want to send you a kit. Look it up

[@TechTimeTraveller]

I am very much interested in building an EDUC8. There was a fellow who built one recently.. I can't remember if he made his own boards or ordered them from the original supplier. Might be thinking of the DREAM for that one. But he definitely built an EDUC8 and I was pretty intrigued by it. Will def check out your stuff!

[@Arivia1]

I saw that intro and had to comment right away. It's your best one yet!

[@TechTimeTraveller]

Much obliged!

[@Arivia1]

@@TechTimeTraveller watched the whole video, absolutely worth the wait. this was great, thank you for all your time and effort. looking forward to whatever's next, as always.

[@jaut-76]

So glad that this got released. I definitely share your love for the computers design but been in the uk it is nearly impossible to get one and I don’t think it would fit in with my data general novas, eclipses and other 70s minis and micros

[@TechTimeTraveller]

Yeah I'm not sure it was ever released there.. im not sure the power supply was set up for 220v, which leads me to believe it wasn't offered there. I should check that out.

[@StormsparkPegasus]

I watched the 8-bit Guy review this thing too. It was really fascinating for the time. It was almost like a sneak peak of what it might look like, if an EGA machine had a 3D accelerator. Unfortunately it languished in obscurity, almost noone ever even heard of it, and it had almost zero software made for it. It would've been interesting if it had caught on. It was almost like the Voodoo2 of EGA.

[@loganjorgensen]

33:30 I just don't understand that complaint, when I could hear that sound it never grabbed my attention bitd, and to take it out is a bit like getting rid of texture from the era. Increased headphone use I guess, to hear background noise that intimately.🤔

[@gwyllymsuter4551]

I've watched some of your videos and you have a few machines from Australia like the dream 6800. There's one important one you're missing. The EDUC8! It was briefly the world's first home computer kit but after an advanced copy of thr magazine, it torned out it was pipped at the post by the Mark8. I have an educ8 computer 😁

[@SuperHammaren]

The voice in the beginning reminds me of the adult voice in snoopy. A great episode to listen to.

[@stevec00ps]

Great video thank you! I knew nothing about this computer so enjoyed every minute :)

[@edgeeffect]

I once had a big bundle of 186 processors and often wondered why you didn't really see them in PCs... now I know. :)

[@TechTimeTraveller]

I've been surprised by how many machines have them. I keep thinking I've found the last one and a other pops up. Just bought a Slicer which is a 80186 kit computer.

[@redleader7988]

I see a quite a few similarities with the Atari 800. The Display Processor and Graphics Processor seem perfectly analogous to the GTIA and ANTIC on the Atari 800. Not to mention the left and right cartridge slots. and the close grouping of the sound module and keyboard control and timers, like with the Atari POKEY. A lot of Jay Miner DNA in that design.

[@pdrg]

Lovely time capsule video :)

[@10MARC]

Pretty clever machine really. But honestly looking at the software and graphics enhancements I think the Commodore 64 could really duplicate everything except the enhanced colors. The SID chip would eat the audio on this for lunch. Sure was better than a PC of the era, though!

[@TechTimeTraveller]

For those of us condemned to 4 color h--l on a slow IBM 5170 with its beeper sound, the Mindset would have looked like Nirvana. 😀

[@10MARC]

@@TechTimeTraveller It's just my "Commodore Snobbery" showing up... I would not touch a PC until the 486 became popular. VIC-20 > C64> Amiga 500>Amiga 3000 for me. I still like them better than PC's, even though I sell and service them for a living and have since 1994! Great channel, BTW - looking forward to catching up on your content.

[@XalphYT]

@@10MARC The only Commodore I regretted buying was the Amiga 4000, which really felt buggy, like some R&D prototype. Especially when you compared the A4000 to the A3000, which was a dream machine. Like you, I only deigned to touch an IBM PC roughly around the 486 era. I remember being incredibly underwhelmed by the single-tasking ability of Windows 3.11.

[@magnustveten492]

30:15 what’s the connector just to the left of the cpu? It seems to not be on the “basic” unit….but the case does not seem to give access to it…

[@TechTimeTraveller]

You know what, I was reviewing the footage and I saw that too and regretted missing it. I'd never noticed it before and had no idea what it is. Since we know the board is pretty crammed and the Mindset II was going to have a lot more RAM, my best guess is maybe they accomplished the expansion by having a C connector, and maybe the expansion board with the additional RAM floats out over the mainboard. There's no opening in the case to go out. Really wish I had a photo of the Mindset II.

[@NJRoadfan]

The VHS VCR is putting out unstable sync (inherent to video tape) which is throwing off the Mindset's genlock. A video camera or DVD player output likely works fine. VCRs need full frame time-base correction in order to work in that application. What was the "preferred" monitor for this machine? Composite seems like it's selling the graphics short. Analog RGB output would have made sense to take advantage of that large color palette.

[@TechTimeTraveller]

Well it depends on application. The most commonly recommended was the Taxan RGBVision 420. I don't see anything remarkable about it though. They also suggested the Zenith ZVM-135, for ... I forget how they put it.. I think it was to sync to RGB. Apparently with the Professional Video Graphics model they switched to analog RGB instead of digital. It's a bit over my head to be honest, but those are the two monitors they explicitly recommended.

[@JimLeonard]

Fantastic overview of a truly rare system. I'd like to examine the software; where did you upload the diskette images?

[@TechTimeTraveller]

Thank you! It wasn't me that uploaded the images.. but they're up on bitsavers.org

[@SledgeFox]

Most interesting, thank you very much!

[@jack6091]

Easily the best tech KZbin channel imo

[@pikadroo]

Oh wow! I had always heard the 80186 was used in computers but never heard of an example of one. I also assume that maybe companies were developing systems with 80186 chips but then the 80286 came out and they just went for that. Wonder if anyone is building a home brew system with a 80186 out there. Also at 16:11 that sony TV in that black and white photo. That was the tv my family had growing up. For many years around Christmas i watched Rudolph the red nose reindeer on that TV. It broke down many times on my mom during soap operas, mostly from overheating and at one point my dad installed a cooling fan in it to squeeze a few more years out of it. Wish i knew the model, it was a very distinctive design. Great video!

[@bitwize]

The 186 was used in a small number of PC-like but PC-incompatible systems. Due to the on-chip peripherals mapped to the same I/O ports used by PC parts, it was impossible to produce a PC-compatible system with a genuine 186. The one I remember most was the Tandy 2000 which, unlike the Mindset apparently, could play Flight Simulator. Near as I can tell, Flight Simulator was the only graphical game released for the system.

[@andrewgale7731]

The '186 was also used on the RM Nimbus which was quite popular in UK schools (after the BBC Micro)

[@SuperHammaren]

@@andrewgale7731 It was also used in the Swedish school computer "Compis", which mean "friend" in Swedish. They selected CP/M 86 as operating system. MS/DOS ws possible but graphics etc not the same as in the IBM computer.

[@winstonsmith478]

I'm glad Tramiel went the way he did. I bought a 1040STf; wanted an Amiga 1000, but wasn't willing to pay for it. Atari 520ST Released: June 1985 Motorola 68000 @ 8+ MHz 512k memory 320 × 200 pixels, with 16 of 512 colors; and 640 × 200, with 4 of 512 colors; 640 × 400 (mono) No video overlay capabilities No IBM PC software compatibility $799.99 (with monochrome monitor) $999.99 (with color monitor) Mindset Released May 1984 Intel 80186 (clock freq - 6MHz?) 256k memory (max. model) 16 simultaneous colors (chosen from a 512-shade palette) Basic unit was priced at $1,798

[@AiOinc1]

Should look into the German Tank Problem. Gather all the serial numbers you can and you can get a pretty good estimate of how many were made

[@chasonlapointe]

Oh man, I have been waiting for this!

[@erichobbs4042]

The mouse ball is made of steel. Duke Nukem approves.

[@tschak909]

@tech Time traveller - sigh... I can tell you EXACTLY how the sound system worked, as I've written code for it, and then some.

[@tschak909]

The sound system was an early example of fixed wavetable output. The whole thing is implemented on a 8042 microcontroller, and in its memory is a fixed table of several sine waves, at different phases. The stereo option is literally another 8042 at another I/O port, with the same exact firmware. You could program how these tables were scanned, and while you could get some other waveforms out of them that approximated things like sawtooths, getting square waves, or other complex waveforms was very difficult using the two built in methods (MODE 1 and MODE 2). There's a reason why EVERYTHING sounds like a symphony of sines, because it was way too painful to get anything else. Depending on the audio mode, you can get either 3 or 4 voices out (with different outputs of very badly implemented random noise). I was able to get something approximating a sawtooth wave by quickly scanning the upward slope of sine table 1. You COULD, if you wanted to burn CPU cycles, put the 8042 in direct output mode, and feed it 8-bit data from code, to produce sampled output. Nobody actually did this though.

[@tschak909]

The color palette register on the Mindset was 16 bits wide. This allowed composite and RGBI colors to be specified at the same time. It was split into two sections, the top 4 bits were for the RGBI color space, and the bottom 10 bits were used for the composite color space, with 9 bits for the color, 3 bits per red, green, and blue color element, for 512 possible colors, and the 10th bit being the GENLOCK bit for overlay use. Mindset's ROM BIOS provided full access to the graphics subsystem. It was designed in such a way that given a graphics operation (e.g. filled rectangle), you could provide a linked list of items to render with the given function. This had the effect of completely mitigating the set up and tear down times normally associated with ROM BIOS interrupt calls, and made it possible to write even arcade games entirely with nothing but the BIOS calls, and not needing to handle the hardware directly, at all. The Mindset ISV programming manual (which you can get on Bitsavers) explains all of this in detail. There were BIOS calls for everything from text rendering to complex filled polylines, all accelerated by the GDP. The various filled operations operated at the word level, and you could specify colors for both composite and RGBI (even going so far as to specify two side by side colors for stippling to alleviate the color congestion). To further elaborate on the BIOS, there were two sets of BIOS calls, the compatibility layer, which put calls at the usual locations (INT 10H, 13H, 14H, etc.) to simulate what was needed for the IBM PC, but Mindset also put all the supercharged BIOS calls at traps EEH and EFH. E.g. the enhanced serial port calls provided FIFO buffering, for higher serial port performance, than INT 14H could allow.

[@TechTimeTraveller]

Thank you! I didn't mean to bypass you - I forgot you knew all the internal details. Was a bit too focused on what you know about video. But this all useful info I can add as an addendum in my followup video. I really appreciate this! Do you know of any other software that was produced that really took advantage of the sound?

[@tschak909]

@@TechTimeTraveller There is a music and sound editor that was part of the ISV package (which you can get on bitsavers) which was intended for game developers to write sound and music data.

[@anatolbaskak]

boing boom tschak!

[@standroid2406]

"I see, did you ask Dwayne in Accounts Receivable? oh, out that day, I see." 😂😂😂

[@teslainvestah5003]

43:17 There are three voices at some parts. Slow it down and you can make them out.

[@esra_erimez]

Awesome video! Thanks!!

[@rambo8wradio]

Very interesting video about computer i had no idea about. Thank you.

[@lasskinn474]

The page turning seems like it uses the gradient effect thats masked to some color?

[@misterskippy2u]

35:47 Shows where the architect intends to fry the huge slices of bologna. IYKYK 37:22 Every consecutive quarter in 1984, Mindset hired only taller employees.

[@TechTimeTraveller]

I'm guessing the 120 foot peoples' clearance requirements made space utterly unaffordable for Mindset. :)

[@TheDiner50]

That intro. This videos are just to well made for a channel this size. But honestly. The marketing guy with that resume knowing it is time to jump ship? I mean sure the working experience might have by repetition help out.. But I mean it is not quite sad how people in marketing got that kind of qualifications and resume? And still understands more then the big ups. Project Name - Find Jim's Trunks. Quick setting Jelle. XD Cited twice for .... Operate Microwave. But to be fair 1970's that was actually something new to the world. To bad it is 1980's James!

[@pardontillinghast4989]

This was a great episode. Loved the corny intro.

[@pedrocx486]

You didn’t even try with Vyper. Why?

[@TechTimeTraveller]

Didn't have a joystick. It requires it. But I do have one now and might revisit that.

[@808v1]

this video is approved for backpack use.

[@richarddeese1991]

Thanks. I prefer to think that *_manufacturers_* suck at cable management. Seeing these old systems always takes me back to my TRS-80 / C64 days. I agree that there's something powerfully nostalgic about the whole thing. But I also think that, when faced with severe limitations, those programmers actually had to make things *_fun_*. That got lost for a long time in the late 90s thru the aughts. tavi.

[@whiskeytuesday]

So strange (to my modern eye) to see C called a "rising language" in 1984 at 9:24 C, the language invented for UNIX to be rewritten in, having been very recently invented in a mix of pdp-7 assembler and a smattering of other primordial soup languages in... What? 1968 or so.

[@askhowiknow5527]

This seems like a case of scope creep They were trying to create another Mac and ended up making too many weird but tolerable changes

[@AthosJosue]

Atari in the 80s had a lot of creativity but not much common sense.

[@user-wj9xq7ig2v]

I think I know where the a1000 designers got their inspiration. This is a good looking machine.

[@amigachris]

@*UncleJoe* I take this is a joke. a1000 looked great

[@TheSulross]

this Mindset computer could be the poster child for why the 1980s is THE best retro computing decade - it exemplifies the Cambrian Explosion of computer design creativity that was the mid 70s to early 90s era Alas, the only run away sucessful trilobite species that emerged was the IBM PC and its evolutionary descendents - oh, and the Mac managed to stave off extinction (just barely) long enough to evolve into a Unixy computer

[@TechTimeTraveller]

I am sad that computers lost their verve once the PC-compatible situation took over. It's kind of like what happened with cars as safety standards tightened - they all became eggs. I don't know what it is with the Mindset - it just has this retro-futuristic thing going on. Looking at it in 84, you could have believed we'd in flying cars by now.

[@Zarkovision]

Very interesting, I don't think it was on the market ever here in Germany. But on the other hand I didn't see any market at all. It looks good, but in 1984 my trusty C64 did almost the same for much less money, and in 1985 the Amiga did a very much better job in the video business.

[@williamharris8367]

Were any other games released specifically for the system, other than Vyper? Obviously the hardware was way too expensive for use in a game console, but it was wildly better than anything else on the market in 1984!

[@TechTimeTraveller]

As far as I've found Vyper was it. And that Chess game which was more of a port than something done from the ground up. It's possible something else is out there but so far Vyper is the only from scratch one.

[@lelandclayton5462]

Great video!

[@tech34756]

It feels in some ways like a weird middle child, with the PC as the oldest and the Amiga as the youngest. Yes I know they’re unrelated (well unless you count links to Atari/Jack), but the Mindset in many ways feels like a very early Amiga.

[@unbiased1]

This video answered a question I've been asking for ages: 186 computers did exist 🙂

[@TechTimeTraveller]

Yup. I'm hoping to show off the MAD-1 one day.. even rarer than the Mindset.

[@unbiased1]

@@TechTimeTraveller Can't wait to see it! I loved the Mindset. Great design and awesome computer for its time.

[@dbranconnier1977]

Yes, there was a Tandy 1000 computer that also used an 80186 back in 1984.

[@JessHull]

23:03 No you don't, no true collector of anything would hate when that happens....But its ok I know you just have to say that to save face with the significant other. All us collectors have the same script of one liners we say to minimize our obsession, LOL.

[@TechTimeTraveller]

Just have to keep the divorce lawyers at bay. 😀

[@williamharris8367]

Or just prioritize the collecting, and do not waste any time or energy trying to maintain a relationship (so there is no need to justify the existence of the collection).

[@TechTimeTraveller]

@@williamharris8367 Computers are hard to cuddle with though..

[@JessHull]

@@TechTimeTraveller Pretty soon they won't be though, hahah. I really enjoy your videos especially this long form ones. Keep up the great work!

[@TheErador]

So...back here in blighty the 80186 also made a significant appearance (in schools) in the form of the RM Nimbus PC-186. Running a slightly modified MS-DOS 3.3, and boasting better than CGA/MDA graphics and the ability to address slightly more than 640kb in real mode. IBM compatible mode mostly worked for anything that addressed the hardware via the BIOS, but woe betide anything that tried to talk direct to hardware as that pesky 186 has a slightly altered address space and something related to interrupts in comparison to the x86 standard. Shame it wasn't quite such an iconically designed piece of hardware - although I'm quite fond of them, probably just nostalgia.

[@TheErador]

Also ran a modified version of windows 3.0 (over RM Net to boot!), not really sure why though, we never used any software under windows on those machines.

[@TechTimeTraveller]

There is a machine that is sort of the evil twin of the Mindset called the MAD-1. Also ran a 186. I have the cpu unit and monitor for one but unfortunately haven't found the drive unit with the power supply yet. There was also a company called Polo apparently I'm guessing all for same reason - more power more cheaply than offering a full on 286. But at a very steep price with consumers in the end.

[@TheErador]

@@TechTimeTraveller next thing they'll be putting the power supply in the monitor... #amstrad. Well I'd never heard of the MAD-1, so that was a fun but short trip down the rabbit hole. They must have been inspired by or had contact with mindset, they're too similar, right down to the disk drive choice - I'm pretty sure shugart weren't the only gig in town at that point.

[@AaronOfMpls]

"next thing they'll be putting the power supply in the monitor... #amstrad." Or the printer #ColecoAdam 🙃 And @TTT -- Glad to hear more about this cool and unusual system! It's like they tried to forestall the Amiga in some ways, even.

[@joshuamacdonald4913]

"Back fat, back fat. Back fat back fat..." I can thank my ex brother in law for putting that in my head forever.

[@funkydmunky1]

Good on ya!

[@wskinnyodden]

Yep, that sounded like the "G" spot alright 🤣

[@TimothyCollins]

You know we laugh at the idea of running and saving everything off cartridges but... I wrote this on a laptop using a SSD with no disk drives and only the ability to plug in USB sticks that might use SD cards. So not all that strange...

[@CarlosPerezChavez]

In the intro Mike sounds like the adults in Charlie Brown.

[@TechTimeTraveller]

That was kind of the idea. I like to borrow nostalgic references sometimes for my skits. Unfortunately it has served to remind me of my age.. a fair number of younger viewers apparently have never seen the Charlie Brown cartoons!

[@bitwize]

Ah, the Mindset -- what you get when you put a Tandy 2000 and an Amiga into SCP-914 and set the dial to "Fine"...