Hi Folks,

Does anyone have current contact info for Neil? The email on the MaxThink website bounces back and the phone seems unresponsive. I need an updated registration code for MaxThink 2.55. thanks.

Peace,

Bego Gerber

I got a copy of my registration code from Neil in January. He replied using this e-mail address:

Neil Larson

Good luck.

Steve

Whoops, the e-mail address didn't come through even though I pasted it with Neil's name. Here it is:

maxthink1@yahoo.com

Steve

Thanks Steve,

That bounced back yesterday. I've tried it again - so far so good.

Peace,

Bego

Well, it did bounce back again today. Any other thoughts for reaching Neil? Thanks.

Peace,

Bego

Bego wrote:

Well, it did bounce back again today. Any other thoughts for reaching
Neil? Thanks.

You could try

Telephone: 15105405508
Email: nlarson@pacbell.net

Thanks for your help. Unfortunately, neither of these is in service, too. If someone does successfully contact Neil, I'd certainly welcome the details.

Peace,

Bego

...this is exactly why I'm so reluctant to enter my credit card # on sites selling software that haven't been updated since 2008...

Quite. My Visa card is from Bank of America. They have a service called ShopSafe (not the same as shopsafe.com) that allows one to generate a unique credit card number for each purchase, and to set a limit on that card for the amount of the purchase and a short expiration date. If anyone steals the number, it has of no future value because it's maxed out. ShopSafe originated with MBNA which was then bought by BofA. I've been using it successfully for over 20 years, starting when I had an MBNA account.

Peace,

Bego

Another number and (snail mail) address you might want to try:

(949) 439-9811
413 Ocean View
Berkeley
California 94707

These are for Maxthink Inc according to
http://www.zoominfo.com/c/MaxThink-Inc/351317324

and with a Zoominfo account you may be able to find more at
http://www.zoominfo.com/p/Neil-Larson/24831398

(I know that the approach is rather long winded)

The same address as above plus the packbell email turn out doing a whois for the maxthink website
http://whois.domaintools.com/maxthink.org

along with phone no +1.5105251916

I went back to my registrations info and found that the codes for Maxthink had arrived from the packbell email, so no other options there.

By the way, while googling the above I found this interesting article linking Neil's Maxthink for DOS to Brainstorm in terms of concept:
https://awarewriter.wordpress.com/2012/01/29/monday-musings-maxthink-the-only-idea-processor/














Bego wrote:

Quite. My Visa card is from Bank of America. They have a service called
ShopSafe (not the same as shopsafe.com) that allows one to generate a
unique credit card number for each purchase, and to set a limit on that
card for the amount of the purchase and a short expiration date. If
anyone steals the number, it has of no future value because it's maxed
out. ShopSafe originated with MBNA which was then bought by BofA. I've
been using it successfully for over 20 years, starting when I had an
MBNA account.

Peace,

Bego

Thanks for all your assistance. So far, nothing active. I await responses from a couple of the leads and will post any positive results. "It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma." Peace, Bego

This is embarrassing. I had mistyped Neil's email address in my database! Yahoo seems fussy about how many o's it has in its name - picky, picky, picky. maxthink1@yahoo.com works fine after all. Sorry to inconvenience everyone. The upside is that I got this response from Neil:

Thanks for your note.
Maxthink is ok ... this problem has been reported before with norton and their tech support can solve it. [Norton reported new download of v 2.55 had a virus.]
As I get closer to moving on, I'll post the program on my site with the lock system removed.
Neil

Thank you all for your support. It's gratifying to know one is not alone.

Peace,

Bego

Oh man. That is embarrassing, though I think most of us have run into that situation at one time or another.

Meanwhile...that blog post Alexander linked to inspired me to give Maxthink a try. I toyed with it for a few minutes, thought it was somewhat interesting then shut it down.

Went to load it again a few hours later only to find my 30-day trial somehow expired in those hours....

Sorry to hear that. How time flies when one's having fun.

Peace,

Bego

Bego wrote:

This is embarrassing. I had mistyped Neil's email address in my
database! Yahoo seems fussy about how many o's it has in its name -

Perhaps you got the email address from his download page, where it indeed has 3 o's... yahooo!

http://maxthink.org/download.htm

Well, you did get the news out of Neil that he's planning on "moving on." That's too bad, but not surprising. MaxThink for Windows has lots of promise, but really isn't well designed for making the user feel comfortable with the interface. What it does is great, even genuinely unique; how it does it is not. It would be nice to know that Neil is working to make it better, but I don't imagine he's raking in much money and he must have better ways to spend his efforts.

Steve Z.

Been lurking and enjoying the posts. I discovered MaxThink way back in the 1980s and used it for years. I still have Max94 including the printed manual which is a good book on it's own. OK John, get to the point. According to the manual, Neil was in his mid-fifties in 1994. That means that Neil is in his mid seventies now.

johnmcde wrote:

Been lurking and enjoying the posts.

John, welcome to the forum.

I discovered MaxThink way back in

the 1980s and used it for years. I still have Max94 including the
printed manual which is a good book on it's own.

I keep hearing about this printed manual and would love to have a look. Is there a way to get hold of it as a PDF somewhere?

Dottore.

I keep hearing about this printed manual and would love to have a look.
Is there a way to get hold of it as a PDF somewhere?

The demo contains a help file in CHM format but no PDF.
What I find helpful is the 50 question list in the think.max file that you can open after installing Maxthink.

Franz

Ah, the 50 question list is part of the help file, too.
And the help file makes a pretty good read - now I know what to read on the weekend.

Thanks for asking, Dr. Andus. Otherwise, this treasure chest would have escaped me :-)

Franz

Franz Grieser wrote:

Ah, the 50 question list is part of the help file, too.
And the help file makes a pretty good read - now I know what to read on
the weekend.

Thanks Franz - my impression though was that the photocopied manual people keep talking about is something else still, something a lot more substantial (an actual book). It's a shame if it only exists in photocopied form in this day an age of scanners and PDFs, especially if it's really such a major contribution to this world of outlining and brainstorming...

The MaxThink manual is 8 1/2 x 11, spiral bound and printed (not poor photocopy). The manual is 1/2 inch thick. Neil numbered the pages as Chapter# - Page# so I can't tell you how many pages (one of these days I might count the pages). I forget where I read this but supposedly Neil doesn't have a copy of the manual (unconfirmed). Scanning and converting this manual to PDF would be a monumental task, not to mention that the manual carries Neil's copyright.

With all the things I've had and lost over the years, I'm amazed that I still have that manual. I've often wondered what would have happened had Neil collaborated with David Tebbutt (creator of BrainStorm). Alas, the windows version of MaxThink is terrible and David & Marck sold BrainStorm to someone who is sitting on it instead of developing it further.

John

johnmcde wrote:

The MaxThink manual is 8 1/2 x 11, spiral bound and printed (not poor
photocopy). The manual is 1/2 inch thick. Neil numbered the pages as
Chapter# - Page# so I can't tell you how many pages (one of these days I
might count the pages). I forget where I read this but supposedly Neil
doesn't have a copy of the manual (unconfirmed). Scanning and converting
this manual to PDF would be a monumental task, not to mention that the
manual carries Neil's copyright.

John, thanks for the clarification.

FWIW, the (apparent) maxthink website www.maxthink.org is flagged by Bitdefender as infected.