Given the sticker, model and serial number situation, my guess is that the mindset II was a retrofitted original Mindset. Owners could probably send them in to be upgraded.
Now that could explain why the serials are mixed up! I haven't found anything in literature about this.. but I might reread First Mindset Users Group on bitsavers again.. that would make a lot of sense.
That's the rule of thumb for sure. Though the last few years have seen an uptick of genuinely-untested computer parts (because people don't have the right equipment to test them anymore), and now even sometimes some tape decks!
The expansion cartridges having obviously been pilfered and no peripherals other than the keyboard are what immediately turned me off, and I imagine that's true for most anyone else that doesn't need it for spare parts. Very much an eBay hopeful price.
RE the confusing card edge connector on the side of the motherboard -- unpopulated and awkward connectors are sometimes there for automated production testing, or programming microcontrollers or ROMs on the board. A boring potential answer, but one that should be considered...
Perhaps ask the seller if those expansion bay covers are included or if anything goes into them? Perhaps check those serial number queries. Maybe something did get mixed up with these parts? 🙂🤷♂️
It's a great computer to add to the collection (especially if you have the three other Mindsets), but it doesn't differ much from the others, nor it has some unique software that we know of. But I'd still buy it.
Wow - I had no idea that Mindsets were going for this much. I bought one back in the late 80s when they were being blown out by a surplus dealer and I had some fun reverse-engineering the audio system and "cracking" the copy protection on their custom version of GW-BASIC. The one I got came with only a single floppy drive, so I added a second one but couldn't match the plastic knob and just hacked something out of wood, but it works. I haven't powered it up in decades, but it's still in the original box(es) out in the garage. Probably ought to think about selling it to someone who'd appreciate it more...
Ouch! A very interesting machine. Only found out about them via some TH-cam retrocomputing channel in the past year or so. Reminds me of the Sam Coupé in terms how rare and interesting it is. I would expect the Sam is more sought after but on the rare occasion you do see one come up for sale they don't seem to be this expensive.
If it were me. I'd make an offer of what I think is reasonable and if it's rejected I move on. I'd also put in the comments of the offer, something to remind them this is a want and not a need... nobody NEEDS this thing nobody will die without it. That's how you have to handle these people and trust me it will be there in 3 months at this price and then offer what you think it's worth again. That is how I keep my costs down... and yes there are some places... most of them in California. That will not budge on price and I take that as a sign of a nasty seller. They usually have a 89% positive feedback those guys... and hey... sorry 89%er sellers... you don't get to request top dollar.
A good example of a comment to encourage the seller I use often is. For X price no matter how I get it, no matter how it turns out I will not start a return. Is that risky... yes, but he is in Canada so how bad could he really send it.
While I would have much prefered you had one in hand, I understand that its extremely rare and it wasn't worth it. So it was still interesting from what you could see. Given that the machine is rare, fascinating and powerful for its time, it was still interesting to see. I love to see machines in action still. Thanks for the video, still enjoyable.
As it turns out, another complete one showed up on ebay yesterday night for way less, and I had a successful best offer that took it down further. So we will see it up close soon!
True. However this was run as an auction at $1500 and had no bidders, and if you watch the vid you'll see why I'm hesitating a bit as a collector.. I think it may be missing something. Not to say it's worth peanuts but it may not be usable as is, so there may be a penalty there.
@@TechTimeTraveller ask the seller if he could ID the RAM on the board. Should be simple to find out how much RAM the machine currently have. But the RAM next to the video chips are RAM for the video, correct? The rest should be bottom right of the board? I need coffee, brain can't quite process information right now. 😅
@@TechTimeTravellerIMHO people who start auctions for more than $1.00 are doing it wrong. The lower the starting price the more people place a “silly bid” and then come back to upbid later. If it started for $1, it may well have sold for a good price everyone. I’ve always started auctions at 1 dollar no reserve and things would sell well.
@kubaober5750 That's my philosophy too. There's a weird psychology with ebay. Like you'll see an Atari Falcon sell for $1800 all day long via auction when the bidding starts at a low amount. But if you post one with a higher opening bid or at the typical selling price.. nada. I kind of understand why some sellers dig in.. many have been rewarded by simply waiting for someone who wants the item bad enough. Ebay doesn't exactly charge them either for keeping something up for months or years. But for most things values are pretty consistent and you might as well just let water find its own level, so to speak.
In those years the II badging and branding were basically marketing without sensible lineage. It seemed to imply "improved" even if a previous model didn't exist. For example, the Kaypro II was released first, well before the Kaypro 1. The much later Kaypro 2x was inspired by the 10 and not to be confused with II that preceded it. The TRS80 model II wasn't a successor to the model I at all but the Model III was and the model IV was the successor to the model III. The 12 was the successor to the Model II. There was no 13, 14, or 15, but two versions of the 16 (16 and 16b) which were successors to the model 12. And the Color Computer 2 wasn't a Model II but you could get a Modem II which worked with both. So just accept it. Probably someone in marketing found a batch of II stickers and then 💡.
@TechTimeTraveller Hello, I was wondering if I could get a copy of those scan files for the Mark-8 Mini Computer you said you have, so I can get a set of bare boards printed up & build it myself! Also, you wouldn't know where I could find similar scans of the MSC8 (SDK) SIM8-01 & MCB8-10, both from April of '72? An Intel 8008 Computer with 1k ram & 2k rom, was supposed to be the 1st 8 bit Computer, at an expense of about $1200!!! Love your TH-cam Channel too! It's the best of the Vintage Computer Channels! Thanks!
The Atari 400/800 had an edge connector on the rear of the board behind the plastic too that was used for debugging at the factory, maybe the one in the Mindset is used similarly?
9:00 well if you add some bankswitch logic, you can put 128k, both cpu and vram. Then add two pages to get 256k each in two 128k chunks, that can be further subdivided Might need to dump roms
So in theory it looks like you could take a mindset and convert to a mindset II just like I converted my 800xl pretty much to an atari xe, running different roms, only difference with xe is ram and newer roms and cost reduction
Depends what others are going for. Usually the price is determined based on the market is it not? If it's a market with only 1 device then it begs any price so long as someone wants it but if there are a bunch like in this case then it's not able to go for anything especially if it's something only a few people want. It's basic supply and demand ya know what I mean
The link to that auction is in the description for the video. It's weird.. every now and then ebay 'hides' stuff. I couldn't find it with regular search either.
Is the expansion module the same as the original Mindset? If so, buy it and just keep the base console -- recoup some/much of the cost by re-selling the expansion module and the keyboard.
Thought about that. I haven't seen an expansion unit sell for a while.. I think maybe one went for $400 a while back. The keyboard I'd be reluctant because keyboard guys would be in the mix for that.
It's possible that the mystery edge connector on the side of these later Mindset machines was only intended by whoever manufacturered the board for quick testing during production, but that's just a wild guess on my behalf.. I suspect that if was intended for expansion in the future, they probably would have modified the case at the same time and at least had the traces connected to the rest of the pins. Looking at the video, it looks like just power and ground were connected so I suspect the connector was just for production purposes, with the option for system expansion sometime in the future.
Most collectors are American, so it makes sense to price it in $US. Many years ago, I briefly ran an online research business (coincidentally also from Nova Scotia). Because the vast majority of my clients were American, I priced everything in that currency. It was easier for them.
you get to access it from basic(and via interrupts i think). it's stuff like sprites and if i remember right some primitives like circles and the sprites can be set to move without extra work being done(there's vids that cover that stuff on youtube) there's 1 game that uses the acceleration(at least, i don't know of other games), so for modern sensibilities it's more of a curio.
@@scottlarson1548 it's some bespoke version of GW-BASIC. the game is called vyper, bespoke made for the machine. this(tech time traveler) channel demos both of them in the video "This PC was almost an Atari". checking it again there's a chess game there too but that's not that interesting. it's a good video to get a pretty good look at what the machine was about. I do wonder though if one could have made a pretty spiffy middle 1980s version of elite for it. the base ram is really low though, it is a perplexing computer from between times, compared to amiga or a base ibm pc...
I would suggest passing on this as a whole because there are just too many unanswered questions, and you have no way of knowing if what you would be buying is actually worth anything or even functional.
I mean it's worth *something*.. the expansion unit alone is a few hundred. And someone with deeper pockets may not care about a difference of hundreds of dollars and buy it for asking. But personally if it's just a modified PVGS and it might be missing parts I'll never find.. I might want to conserve resources and hope a complete one comes along.
Not , the SHARP MZ series have seperate videoram too ( 1982 - 1986 ). My MZ800 has 32k videoram in add to the 64k mainram. I can use it at the same , as the ega/VGA with framebuffer. And it was possible , to drive two monocrom displays at one RGB videooutput.
It's always mystified me. You're trying to sell something online. Take good photos! Take LOTS of photos. If you're selling to collectors there's no detail that doesn't matter! But yeah.. sometimes they just can't be bothered.
Despite the high price, the missing chips and the questionable sticker the biggest red flag for me would me the "untested" because that means "broken", and if it is one of those two graphics chips, you're screwed.
Ok apparently i am not allowed to say this on youtube it has no swear words or could be considered rude or controversial in any way i am going to try it in spanish 1800 $ probablemente sea mucho más barato que cuando era nuevo cuando se consideraba la inflación. Es demasiado caro para mí, pero las personas más afortunadas pueden obtenerlo. Por lo tanto, no es un mal negocio para un sistema tan raro.
![[ TEASER ] เงาะป่า - วงL.กฮ. | TMG RECORD](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/M4ObdFfcPww/mqdefault.jpg)
Given the sticker, model and serial number situation, my guess is that the mindset II was a retrofitted original Mindset. Owners could probably send them in to be upgraded.
Now that could explain why the serials are mixed up! I haven't found anything in literature about this.. but I might reread First Mindset Users Group on bitsavers again.. that would make a lot of sense.
It's such a uniquely attractive and modern-looking system for the era.
It really is a work of art.
"Used - Untested" equals "I tested it and it doesn't work but you have no way of knowing that so I am just going to act like I didn't."
It’s not the best idea to turn those things on without looking inside carefully. I doubt they bother to do that though.
That's the rule of thumb for sure. Though the last few years have seen an uptick of genuinely-untested computer parts (because people don't have the right equipment to test them anymore), and now even sometimes some tape decks!
On the Atari 800 , the unused edge connector on the motherboard was used for factory testing.
The expansion cartridges having obviously been pilfered and no peripherals other than the keyboard are what immediately turned me off, and I imagine that's true for most anyone else that doesn't need it for spare parts. Very much an eBay hopeful price.
I’ve been thinking about this. I wonder if the base it from another machine. Something does feel off about the whole thing.
Everything about this computer from design to custom chips reminds me a whole lot of the old Amiga computers.
Really miss Amiga.
Alternate universe Amiga
RE the confusing card edge connector on the side of the motherboard -- unpopulated and awkward connectors are sometimes there for automated production testing, or programming microcontrollers or ROMs on the board. A boring potential answer, but one that should be considered...
I always look forward to your dislike inserts.
Perhaps ask the seller if those expansion bay covers are included or if anything goes into them? Perhaps check those serial number queries. Maybe something did get mixed up with these parts? 🙂🤷♂️
It's a great computer to add to the collection (especially if you have the three other Mindsets), but it doesn't differ much from the others, nor it has some unique software that we know of. But I'd still buy it.
Wow - I had no idea that Mindsets were going for this much. I bought one back in the late 80s when they were being blown out by a surplus dealer and I had some fun reverse-engineering the audio system and "cracking" the copy protection on their custom version of GW-BASIC. The one I got came with only a single floppy drive, so I added a second one but couldn't match the plastic knob and just hacked something out of wood, but it works. I haven't powered it up in decades, but it's still in the original box(es) out in the garage. Probably ought to think about selling it to someone who'd appreciate it more...
Ouch! A very interesting machine. Only found out about them via some TH-cam retrocomputing channel in the past year or so.
Reminds me of the Sam Coupé in terms how rare and interesting it is. I would expect the Sam is more sought after but on the rare occasion you do see one come up for sale they don't seem to be this expensive.
I'd definitely sign up for ebay listing exploration series. You might make some enemies though 😂
If it were me. I'd make an offer of what I think is reasonable and if it's rejected I move on. I'd also put in the comments of the offer, something to remind them this is a want and not a need... nobody NEEDS this thing nobody will die without it. That's how you have to handle these people and trust me it will be there in 3 months at this price and then offer what you think it's worth again. That is how I keep my costs down... and yes there are some places... most of them in California. That will not budge on price and I take that as a sign of a nasty seller. They usually have a 89% positive feedback those guys... and hey... sorry 89%er sellers... you don't get to request top dollar.
Ya know and BTW... he's welcome for the advertising.
A good example of a comment to encourage the seller I use often is. For X price no matter how I get it, no matter how it turns out I will not start a return. Is that risky... yes, but he is in Canada so how bad could he really send it.
TTT is in Canada
While I would have much prefered you had one in hand, I understand that its extremely rare and it wasn't worth it. So it was still interesting from what you could see. Given that the machine is rare, fascinating and powerful for its time, it was still interesting to see. I love to see machines in action still. Thanks for the video, still enjoyable.
As it turns out, another complete one showed up on ebay yesterday night for way less, and I had a successful best offer that took it down further. So we will see it up close soon!
@@TechTimeTravellerSuper cool!!!
I heard about this back in the 80's but never seen even a picture. wow
Its not like you can get one at the vcf consignment sale. Considering how rare mindset anything is $1799 isnt bad
True. However this was run as an auction at $1500 and had no bidders, and if you watch the vid you'll see why I'm hesitating a bit as a collector.. I think it may be missing something. Not to say it's worth peanuts but it may not be usable as is, so there may be a penalty there.
@@TechTimeTraveller ask the seller if he could ID the RAM on the board. Should be simple to find out how much RAM the machine currently have. But the RAM next to the video chips are RAM for the video, correct? The rest should be bottom right of the board? I need coffee, brain can't quite process information right now. 😅
@@TechTimeTravellerIMHO people who start auctions for more than $1.00 are doing it wrong. The lower the starting price the more people place a “silly bid” and then come back to upbid later. If it started for $1, it may well have sold for a good price everyone. I’ve always started auctions at 1 dollar no reserve and things would sell well.
@kubaober5750 That's my philosophy too. There's a weird psychology with ebay. Like you'll see an Atari Falcon sell for $1800 all day long via auction when the bidding starts at a low amount. But if you post one with a higher opening bid or at the typical selling price.. nada. I kind of understand why some sellers dig in.. many have been rewarded by simply waiting for someone who wants the item bad enough. Ebay doesn't exactly charge them either for keeping something up for months or years. But for most things values are pretty consistent and you might as well just let water find its own level, so to speak.
In those years the II badging and branding were basically marketing without sensible lineage. It seemed to imply "improved" even if a previous model didn't exist.
For example, the Kaypro II was released first, well before the Kaypro 1. The much later Kaypro 2x was inspired by the 10 and not to be confused with II that preceded it.
The TRS80 model II wasn't a successor to the model I at all but the Model III was and the model IV was the successor to the model III. The 12 was the successor to the Model II. There was no 13, 14, or 15, but two versions of the 16 (16 and 16b) which were successors to the model 12. And the Color Computer 2 wasn't a Model II but you could get a Modem II which worked with both.
So just accept it. Probably someone in marketing found a batch of II stickers and then 💡.
They would not be popping out windows, they run CPM.😅
@TechTimeTraveller
Hello, I was wondering if I could get a copy of those scan files for the Mark-8 Mini Computer you said you have, so I can get a set of bare boards printed up & build it myself! Also, you wouldn't know where I could find similar scans of the MSC8 (SDK) SIM8-01 & MCB8-10, both from April of '72? An Intel 8008 Computer with 1k ram & 2k rom, was supposed to be the 1st 8 bit Computer, at an expense of about $1200!!! Love your TH-cam Channel too! It's the best of the Vintage Computer Channels! Thanks!
The Atari 400/800 had an edge connector on the rear of the board behind the plastic too that was used for debugging at the factory, maybe the one in the Mindset is used similarly?
Quite possibly. I don't see anything topside that it's connected to electrically on the board but maybe..
14:48 It's typical of sellers to sneeze when taking the listing photos because it's a disease
9:00 well if you add some bankswitch logic, you can put 128k, both cpu and vram. Then add two pages to get 256k each in two 128k chunks, that can be further subdivided
Might need to dump roms
17:22 yeah looks like higher density ram, and an asic/cpld to map it to cpu or a pal or gal glue logic
So in theory it looks like you could take a mindset and convert to a mindset II
just like I converted my 800xl pretty much to an atari xe, running different roms, only difference with xe is ram and newer roms and cost reduction
Can you make out the part numbers for the RAM? I couldn't.
The keyboard is very nice. It has Alps SKCL Green.
They're even nicer when the computer they attach to works.
Depends what others are going for. Usually the price is determined based on the market is it not? If it's a market with only 1 device then it begs any price so long as someone wants it but if there are a bunch like in this case then it's not able to go for anything especially if it's something only a few people want. It's basic supply and demand ya know what I mean
I found the listing - shipping to Europe is surprisingly reasonable at around 70 EUR. I'm not after it, but some fellow European may be tempted.
I figure someone will pay it eventually.
24:49 - Maybe you have to be in the right _mindset_ to buy that _Mindset (II)._
Seeing the unchanged model number and the stick-on badge, it reminds me of how people could upgrade their Apple //e's to an Apple 2GS with a kit.
you would probably make some portion back making a video exploring it
So, did this unit end up getting taken down off of eBay? I don't see it listed anymore, and it's not in the "SOLD" listings, either.
The link to that auction is in the description for the video. It's weird.. every now and then ebay 'hides' stuff. I couldn't find it with regular search either.
@@TechTimeTraveller Thank you!
$1800 ? Unless the RAM can be verified, no way.
Wonder if old NCR PC's are super rare. I got a 1987 NCR 3390 workstation ... the ram expansion board is basically non existent on ebay...
Are you going to get that Apple prototype currently there for $1.5m?
Is the expansion module the same as the original Mindset? If so, buy it and just keep the base console -- recoup some/much of the cost by re-selling the expansion module and the keyboard.
Thought about that. I haven't seen an expansion unit sell for a while.. I think maybe one went for $400 a while back. The keyboard I'd be reluctant because keyboard guys would be in the mix for that.
Are the RAM chips standard, e.g. 4116? Could they have been pulled for repurposing after the system was retired?
It's possible that the mystery edge connector on the side of these later Mindset machines was only intended by whoever manufacturered the board for quick testing during production, but that's just a wild guess on my behalf.. I suspect that if was intended for expansion in the future, they probably would have modified the case at the same time and at least had the traces connected to the rest of the pins. Looking at the video, it looks like just power and ground were connected so I suspect the connector was just for production purposes, with the option for system expansion sometime in the future.
Neat!
Nova Scotia and the price is in USD? sorta surprising...
Most collectors are American, so it makes sense to price it in $US.
Many years ago, I briefly ran an online research business (coincidentally also from Nova Scotia). Because the vast majority of my clients were American, I priced everything in that currency. It was easier for them.
What is the difference between Mindset 1 and 2?
Maybe enough people wonder that to make a few videos pay off?
Why buy it if it's only collecting dust?
- But now it's collecting *my* dust! :-D
LOL
As always, "untested" means... totally tested and didn't work.
Would the price for non-working be significantly lower than for untested?
could be buying up local stuff and reselling.
I wonder what API it used for the video acceleration. Acceleration is useless if software doesn't know about it.
you get to access it from basic(and via interrupts i think). it's stuff like sprites and if i remember right some primitives like circles and the sprites can be set to move without extra work being done(there's vids that cover that stuff on youtube)
there's 1 game that uses the acceleration(at least, i don't know of other games), so for modern sensibilities it's more of a curio.
@@lasskinn474 Which BASIC? Which game?
@@scottlarson1548 it's some bespoke version of GW-BASIC.
the game is called vyper, bespoke made for the machine. this(tech time traveler) channel demos both of them in the video "This PC was almost an Atari". checking it again there's a chess game there too but that's not that interesting. it's a good video to get a pretty good look at what the machine was about.
I do wonder though if one could have made a pretty spiffy middle 1980s version of elite for it. the base ram is really low though, it is a perplexing computer from between times, compared to amiga or a base ibm pc...
I would suggest passing on this as a whole because there are just too many unanswered questions, and you have no way of knowing if what you would be buying is actually worth anything or even functional.
I mean it's worth *something*.. the expansion unit alone is a few hundred. And someone with deeper pockets may not care about a difference of hundreds of dollars and buy it for asking. But personally if it's just a modified PVGS and it might be missing parts I'll never find.. I might want to conserve resources and hope a complete one comes along.
You might want to show Adrian Black (Adrians Digital Basement!) that Sanyo 16!
Looks like it was pilfered for parts
Well I know if you do get one that you can make a video about it.
Video ram ? Interesting. I thought only the Amiga had separate video ram back then.
Not , the SHARP MZ series have seperate videoram too ( 1982 - 1986 ). My MZ800 has 32k videoram in add to the 64k mainram.
I can use it at the same , as the ega/VGA with framebuffer. And it was possible , to drive two monocrom displays at one RGB videooutput.
why do people take crappy photos given what a smartphone can do today
It's always mystified me. You're trying to sell something online. Take good photos! Take LOTS of photos. If you're selling to collectors there's no detail that doesn't matter! But yeah.. sometimes they just can't be bothered.
@@TechTimeTraveller you are so right
Despite the high price, the missing chips and the questionable sticker the biggest red flag for me would me the "untested" because that means "broken", and if it is one of those two graphics chips, you're screwed.
Fast answer: Absolutely not, it's a collectors item at best
Ok apparently i am not allowed to say this on youtube it has no swear words or could be considered rude or controversial in any way i am going to try it in spanish
1800 $ probablemente sea mucho más barato que cuando era nuevo cuando se consideraba la inflación. Es demasiado caro para mí, pero las personas más afortunadas pueden obtenerlo. Por lo tanto, no es un mal negocio para un sistema tan raro.
When you find out, post more.