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Wanted: Mindware MW100

Posted: Mon Nov 02, 2009 3:22 am
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.

Re: Wanted: Mindware MW100

Posted: Tue Nov 16, 2010 1:06 pm
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

Re: Wanted: Mindware MW100

Posted: Sun Dec 12, 2010 9:49 am
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!

Re: Wanted: Mindware MW100

Posted: Sun Dec 12, 2010 12:20 pm
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

Re: Wanted: Mindware MW100

Posted: Sat Nov 26, 2016 1:32 am
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)

Re: Wanted: Mindware MW100

Posted: Fri Feb 17, 2017 4:06 pm
by siggi

Re: Wanted: Mindware MW100

Posted: Sun Jan 13, 2019 9:36 am
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?

Re: Wanted: Mindware MW100

Posted: Sun Jan 13, 2019 10:31 am
by mrtinb
The K1 site has a picture:
Image

Re: Wanted: Mindware MW100

Posted: Sun Jan 13, 2019 10:39 am
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

Re: Wanted: Mindware MW100

Posted: Thu Jul 01, 2021 3:34 am
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