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MinIdent-Win - History in a Nutshell

Our flagship product is MinIdent-Win, a mineral database and software for mineral identification. MinIdent was the very first, comprehensive computer-based mineral database intended for use by professionals in the identification of minerals. Because it was at that time a new and exciting direction in determinative mineralogy, it was written up and published in the scientific literature (see Smith & Leibovitz (1986) The Canadian Mineralogist v.24, p.695-708).

It was developed initially in the late seventies and early eighties for a mainframe computer. A DOS-based version (MinIdent-PC) was then ported to desktops and then to laptops in the middle and late nineteen eighties. It proved to be very popular, particularly with laboratories engaged in the microanalysis of minerals.

As a millennium project, Micronex® took on the complete revamping of the software into a more modern format, with massive updates being made to the database. There have also been substantial upgrades to the program itself, including the addition of many new and powerful features. The result is "MinIdent-Win". The project took a little longer than we anticipated but it has undergone extensive beta-testing and is now extremely robust and reliable using any of the Windows™-based operating systems from Windows™ 95 onwards. It is not, however, compatible with Windows™ 3.1. This new product employs the power of Borland's Delphi™ professional database software.

MinIdent has gone from software aimed principally at those working in the area of microanalysis to a product that is now equally useful in teaching and research. Furthermore, extensive new features allow collectors to integrate their own specimens into MinIdent-Win via an easy-to-use, customized and personalized database of images and information. They can also use hand specimen characteristics as an aid to the recognition of some 600 of the more common minerals.

Windows™ is a registered trademark of the Microsoft Corporation. Delphi™ is a registered trade mark of Borland International Inc.