There is almost no information available about this M2000 minicomputer.
ADDS (Applied Digital Data Systems) was a subsidiary of NCR Corp.
The ADDS Mentor 2000 is a serious multi-user business machine the size of a small refrigerator. This system runs the "PICK" operating system. If you ask knowlegable people what "PICK" is, some will say "Operating System" (OS), and the others will say "Database Management System" (DBMS). Both are correct, the PICK operating system is designed around a powerful database file structure.
The Mentor M2000 was one of the rare Z8000 based-system, and was able to manage 16 or 32 video terminals simultaneously.
About the pictured system, Neil Boulton, its current owner says:
Believe me, there is nothing mini about this computer!
Sometime when you turn it on after long periods
because of the fans and the tape drive you can feel
the floor shaking...
Thanks to Dave Dunfield for some info
_______________________
Further information from Richard Jowitt:
EDP was the European Distributor & service maintainer for and of the ADDS Mentor products.
EDP shipped over 5,000 Mentor units. We have all the Mentor manuals in our library together with masses of Mentors and Mentor parts, going back to 1981/2.
When NCR sold ADDS, EDP brought to market its own C++ Object based UniVision Multi Value DBMS in 1994, ported to all flavours of Unix. 5.6 million lines of Pick assembler code re-implemented from scratch in just 120K lines of optimised C++. (Object delivers all that was promised!)
UniVision permits any Mentor user to take a FILE-SAVE of its Mentor system, perform an ADD- ACCOUNTS on a UniVision system, re-compile the application, logon and execute the application. That simple.
However, instead of running at a tiny 16x, as the first Mentor 3000's did, UniVision 9.0.1 runs at a massive 5,000x on a Dell 1900 with Linux ES 4.0, or if you run the 64 bit UniVision implementation, which we have not released, an even more massive 8,400x.
We need more info about this computer ! If you designed, used, or have more info about this system,
please send us pictures or anything you might find useful.
In 1980, I was the principle software engineer at ADDS responsible for the porting project that became MENTOR - the prototypes were called Epsilon, I have 1 of 6 that were made with all the original engineering documents and source code (hasn''t seen power for about 20 years) - the Mentor was soon numbered the 4000 as smaller and larger configurations were offered (3000, 5000, 6000). I had left for Altos before they did the later Mentors. Sorry to hear Neil''s has died (and what a way to go).
Wednesday 22nd December 2010
Jeff Nisler (Long Island,NY / USA)
I found lots of these computers in an abandoned house basment, it was really weired to see! I took one home plugged it in and the powersuppliy blow lol, still kept it though.
Sunday 15th August 2010
Daniel
Just found this site again, forgot I had sent these pictures in a while ago!
Well the M2000 has finally gone to heaven. About a year ago there was a significant fire in the garage where it lived (it didnt cause it though!) and everything including the garage was gutted.
It had stopped working a while beforehand, but I couldnt permit myself to throw it out because it couldnt have been fixed.
Glad to see its still alive on here though. Thanks, and keep up the good work!
Kind Regards, Neil Boulton.
Tuesday 1st June 2010
Neil Boulton (Lichfield, United Kingdom)
NAME
Mentor 2000
MANUFACTURER
ADDS
TYPE
Professional Computer
ORIGIN
U.S.A.
YEAR
1986
BUILT IN LANGUAGE
Pick BASIC
KEYBOARD
Depending of video terminal used
CPU
Zilog Z8000
SPEED
5 MHz
RAM
640 KB
ROM
Unknown
TEXT MODES
80 chars. x 25 lines
COLOrsc
Monochrome
SOUND
Unknown
SIZE / WEIGHT
Large and heavy!
I/O PORTS
2 Tape Drive slots, 16 x Serial Ports can be expanded to 32, 2 x Diagnostic Ports, 1 x Parallel Port
BUILT IN MEDIA
1 x 60 MB full size Hard Disk, 1 Tape Drive (large type)
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