Wanted: Mindware MW100

ZX80 / ZX81 hardware and software requested for either sale or swapping
User avatar
BrunoFlorindo
Posts: 290
Joined: Sat May 10, 2008 2:46 am
Location: Anaheim, CA, USA

Wanted: Mindware MW100

Post by BrunoFlorindo »

Please send me a PM if you have one in good working order. If the manual and any other items that came with the printer are included, the value increases.
TheCoolBrit
Posts: 2
Joined: Tue Nov 16, 2010 3:06 am

Re: Wanted: Mindware MW100

Post by TheCoolBrit »

I took a trip down memory lane when I found this post for the MW100 after all these years.
In 1982 I designed the electronics and wrote the firmware for the MW100 using the Epsom printer head to interface to the ZX81 and Timex1000
I was selling a range of game cartridges for the ZX81, I demonstrated one of our game cartridges to Mindware who then asked my company Mendora Electronics Ltd to develop the prototype MW100 printer as the original Sinclair ZX81 printer gave off cadmium fumes stopping it being accepted for sale in the USA.

I was very pleased in the way I got the printer to work directly with the same instructions set used by the ZX81/Timex1000, The software in the printer worked by electronically swapping out the firmware every time a printer command function was called, then re-enabling the ZX81 firmware when the print function I had written was completed.

I hope you find one

All the best
Timothy Webb
User avatar
BrunoFlorindo
Posts: 290
Joined: Sat May 10, 2008 2:46 am
Location: Anaheim, CA, USA

Re: Wanted: Mindware MW100

Post by BrunoFlorindo »

Hi Timothy!! Glad to see you here!

Back in March a gentleman by the name of Walter Banks made the following posts in reply to a topic created by me on comp.sys.sinclair:
We developed a printer for the ZX81 for Mindware. I ran
into the prototypes a few days go
I have two or three bankers boxes of prototypes and documents
for add on's for the ZX-81 based products. I also have the masters for
all of the software that Mindware published. I still have periodic contact
with the folks that owned mindware and after I sort out the material's
status we may be able to release it.

It is not going to get destroyed.

If anyone wants pictures of the printers contact me off line
and I will email them to you. Otherwise I will post them when
I get a chance.

Walter..
Do you know this gentleman?

He did email me a couple times but he's hard to reach by email. I find it very important to preserve and document anything related to this printer and study the printer itself (pictures of the outside and inside, schematic creation after studying the board, etc.)

Do you have one of those printers for sale? Do you still have any material related to it?

Please tell us more. Tell us some stories from back in the day!
Bill H
Posts: 163
Joined: Sat Nov 27, 2010 6:05 pm

Re: Wanted: Mindware MW100

Post by Bill H »

TheCoolBrit wrote:I took a trip down memory lane when I found this post for the MW100 after all these years.
In 1982 I designed the electronics and wrote the firmware for the MW100 using the Epsom printer head to interface to the ZX81 and Timex1000
I was selling a range of game cartridges for the ZX81, I demonstrated one of our game cartridges to Mindware who then asked my company Mendora Electronics Ltd to develop the prototype MW100 printer as the original Sinclair ZX81 printer gave off cadmium fumes stopping it being accepted for sale in the USA.
Game cartridges? Did I miss something or does he mean cassettes?

Bill H
TheCoolBrit
Posts: 2
Joined: Tue Nov 16, 2010 3:06 am

Re: Wanted: Mindware MW100

Post by TheCoolBrit »

What a nice supprise to just read the replys from 6 years ago (2010)
Unfortunatly I no longer have any hardware or software, I only had the original hand wired (by Chris Pittock from Watford) prototypes, we only ever got one preproduction MW100 in a prototype moulding from Michael Levy (Mindware) for testing in the UK, all the tooling, PCB and the case were completly done by Mindware Inc in the USA. I don't recall anyone named Walter Banks but I guess he was from the USA working with the production prototypes.

As Mendora Electronics we only made a few game cartridages, using 4k x 8bit 2732 EPROMS ecapsulated in black epoxy resin that pluged into the ZX81 RAM expasion port, but in those days 4k bytes was a lot, particually as we had decoded all the ZX81 firmwear.
I also wrote some software for the TimeX 1000 as you could do so much more with its 2k of memory, The ZX81 only had 1k but I did make a Startrek program work in just 1k using a 10x10 character grid, fun days.
If you would like to email me after all these years my email is timothy.webb2@gmail.com
What a bygone era, I do hope you can keep these memorys going.
All the best
Timothy Webb (TheCoolBrit)
User avatar
siggi
Posts: 988
Joined: Thu May 08, 2008 9:30 am
Location: Wetterau, Germany
Contact:

Re: Wanted: Mindware MW100

Post by siggi »

My ZX81 web-server: online since 2007, running since dec. 2020 using ZeddyNet hardware
http://zx81.ddns.net/ZxTeaM
virtualuk
Posts: 1
Joined: Sun Jan 13, 2019 12:53 am

Re: Wanted: Mindware MW100

Post by virtualuk »

I found that I have a Mindware MW100 printer as part of a job lot of things. It looks like it's missing parts like a spool and ribbon setup, but not sure what else because I haven't found a ton of information about the printer online. I'd really like to get it up and running though if possible, does anyone here have any pointers to information and possible parts?
User avatar
mrtinb
Posts: 1906
Joined: Fri Nov 06, 2015 5:44 pm
Location: Denmark
Contact:

Re: Wanted: Mindware MW100

Post by mrtinb »

The K1 site has a picture:
Image
Martin
https://zx.rtin.be
ZX81, Lambda 8300, Commodore 64, Mac G4 Cube
User avatar
mrtinb
Posts: 1906
Joined: Fri Nov 06, 2015 5:44 pm
Location: Denmark
Contact:

Re: Wanted: Mindware MW100

Post by mrtinb »

This Danish book store still has ribbons for it. But the picture of the ribbon is quite huge compared to the size of the printer.

https://www.williamdam.dk/printertilbeh ... d=Sinclair
Martin
https://zx.rtin.be
ZX81, Lambda 8300, Commodore 64, Mac G4 Cube
beanz
Posts: 21
Joined: Tue Feb 23, 2010 10:36 pm

Re: Wanted: Mindware MW100

Post by beanz »

Necro bump.

I just picked one of these up off Ebay for $30 (with the manual and power supply). Also found a source for the ribbons and ordered 3. I'll post some pics when it shows up.

Meanwhile here's the ebay photo

Image
Post Reply