Atari spinoff PC with Custom Graphics Chips?

[Steve Mynott]

On one of the Antic podcasts I remember hearing about a PC clone launched by ex Atari people with similar custom graphics chips.

 

It wasn't too successful because it wasn't fully PC compatible but it had better graphics than the PCs of the time.

 

Can anyone remember what it's called?

[danwinslow]

All I've very heard of is the PCx line, and that was nothing but a clone.

[jaybird3rd]

I believe you're thinking of the Mindset computer. Very interesting machine:

 

The Mindset was designed by ex-Atari engineers (as was the Amiga) and is in some ways an extension of that design philosophy. However, the design added a new custom-designed VLSI vector processor that could handle many of the common drawing tasks, like drawing lines or filling areas. (...) There are a number of parallels between the Mindset and the Amiga 1000, another computer designed by ex-Atari engineers that offered advanced graphics.

 

[...]

 

Before its release, in early 1984 Jack Tramiel is rumored to have tried to buy Mindset's technology. He would also do the same with Amiga, before ultimately buying Atari and designing a new machine from off-the-shelf parts, the Atari ST.

[MrFish]

It is interesting, if fated for doom...

 

But, oh noes... not another joystick with side-mounted buttons: Mindset Joystick

Edited June 8, 2016 by MrFish

[Steve Mynott]

Yes that's the one Mindset! Quite a bit of interesting information scattered around about it. One of the problems was it had a 80186 which was a bit odd and didn't actually have the usual PC text modes, although some of the standard software could run (I assume they emulated the text modes graphically).

 

It had two VLSI graphics chips designed by ex Atari engineers and a lot of colours.

 

It was quite closely associated for a while with Microsoft who planned to use it for Windows (in an alternative universe it could have been as popular as its cousin the Amiga!).

 

Synapse software had a prototype and wrote a 3D game called Vyper for it. It's visible in

 

https://rhodblog.wordpress.com/2013/05/16/lot-mindset/

 

An example of graphics from 1985 is at

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kilIyXfHg0

 

Very little information online about technical details of the chips and I don't think there is an emulator.

Edited June 8, 2016 by Steve Mynott

[sanny]

Was it ever sold?

[doctor_x]

Kinda "Feels" like a mix between an amiga and a pc jr to me.. I think in my travels I have seen some stuff about this relatively recently (maybe another thread here or english amiga board maybe) ... Sounded like the project didn't get very far.. If its the one I'm thinking of there were only engineering mockups and lab systems produced.. I could be wrong.

[Steve Mynott]

It was clearly sold. See links above for pictures of packaging. How many were sold is a different matter and I imagine it's quite rare!

[tschak909]

Yes, the Mindset did actually go into production. Very few of them were actually made, and fewer still actually survive, but if you watch closely enough, you'll see one pop up on eeeek-bay, or Craig'sColdSoreList.

 

The machine itself was an 80186 based PC, that ran its own MS-DOS flavor (if you bought the expansion chassis with the two disk drives and 128K of extra RAM, which fit on top of the unit and snapped into place via a special edge connector), the base machine came with 128K of RAM, and two cartridge slots, the only cartridge I ever saw for it, was the BASIC cartridge, which, as mentioned before, was a custom Microsoft Basic with lots of enhanced drawing commands to handle not only bitmap graphics, but sprite (more like blitter object) manipulation.

 

-Thom

[Clint Thompson]

Sounds like an interesting machine! I want to say I remember seeing pictures of it before in the past but never knew it was produced by ex-Atari employees.

[+Larry]

Brings back memories of how bad the CGA (crappy graphics adapter) was. EGA was such a welcome relief!

 

-Larry