#The KIM-1
20 messages in this thread
(Yeah, it's trivia, really)…
The KIM-1 was developed by MOS Technology Inc., as a development
board for the 6502 microprocessor. The original designers of the
6502 needed something to show it on.
Byte magazine sneered at the KIM-1: " .. it might be satisfactory
for people who are not able to build their own computers .. ", but in
fact the first fully-assembled microcomputer (not including power
supply) created something that hadn't existed before: a user group
whose members all had the same machine. (Hey, if you built a MITS
Altair, you put on whatever RAM you could dredge up, whatever I/O
device you could find, and whatever operating system you could hack).
Over a year later, MOS Technology Inc. was taken over by Commodore,
who wanted the company for their chip-manufacturing facilities. It
was said that Jack Tramiel was astonished when an MOS Technology
employee suggested building a thing called a personal computer.
You can't quite call the KIM-1 a "desktop" computer. It was a
single circuit board, about 8-1/2 by 11. You could put rubber feet
on it and plunk it on a desk, I suppose; but with a 20-key hex pad
and a 6-digit LED display, and a power supply hanging off the side,
it wasn't the handiest desk accessory.
Hi Jim. I was just wondering when the Commodore Pet came out?
I think it came out in 1977. I bought mine August of 1978.
Don't have exact dates .. but I think it was announced in 1977 (at a Dallas
Joint Conputer Conference) and actually shipped in 1978.
–Jim
Seems like a long time ago, doesn't it? 🙂
I actually bought the Kim ROM and docs without the board, and built my
own version on a Vero wirewrap board. I used two 6502s, twice as
good <g>.
Good going! And since the KIM operating system was listed for all
to read, you could do that bit, too!
I suspect MOS Technology wouldn't mind a bit. The whole point of
the KIM-1 was to show how easy it was to put a 6502 to work.
I had tons of fun. It was my senior project in college.
DJ
Autopilot 1.80 by Steve Ahlstrom
From Queens, Center of the Looniverse …
Did the KIM-1 predate the SWTPC 6800? I don't recall the timing, but
they were pretty close…
Of course, the SWTPC was a kit, but when you were done, unlike the
Altair, you *did* have a machine consistant with the other SWTPCs out
there, and they *all* had the same monitor in ROM… (an OS, if you
will… <grin>)
Steve,
FYI, I have a complete emulation of a FLEX system for the Amiga. Multi disk
drives, file transfer utilities, terminal emulation…
It's 6809 Flex, but it's certainly a very close relative of those SWTPC
machines you're talking about. 🙂
It's really fun to play with. Plus it's got a great 6809 assembler… I still
like to use 6809's for various boneheaded projects. 🙂
–Ben
…via AutoPilot
> FYI, I have a complete emulation of a FLEX system for the Amiga.
> Multi disk drives, file transfer utilities, terminal emulation…
Wow… I remember FLEX. Barely. For it's time, it was a pretty good OS. I
even remember the 6809… I was a member of a small 6800 users group at the
time it came out, and Motorola was kind enough to send someone over to tell us
about it. (Okay, so they wanted to sell us on it – most of us were hardware
people and the "pure" programmers like myself were vastly outnumbered — At
that time, you sold the hardware guys or nobody…)
I even have some old copies of 68 Micro Journal in a box somewhere. <g>
So… Where did you manage to get a FLEX emulation from?
–>Steve Bennett
Steve,
> So… Where did you manage to get a FLEX emulation from?
I wrote it, that's where. 🙂
First I wrote the 6809 emulator, because I like to make hardware
things with 6809's. Train set controllers, rock saw controllers, ham
radio repeater controllers, SSTV demodulators… I like the chip,
there isn't a more elegant 8-bitter made to this day, though many
have tried. The emulator makes for many fewer mistakes in these
one-off projects… it gets expensive when you screw up on one of
these little gems which have no inherent value anyway to justify
mistakes (or even their existance, but that's another argument :-).
The emulator was specifically written so that you could emulate any
imaginable 6809-based hardware. So one day I decided that one of the
emulations would be a flex machine – add a serial port and disk
controller emulation (1771) thought I, and it should run flex just
fine. I dragged out a copy of flex from my master disk files (similar
to the library of congress, I sometimes think) and dissasembled it to
see what was what, you know… a 6.5k operating system… and we
brag about AmigaDOS! …anyway, and found that the disk I/O routines
were VERY well modularized. Turns out that TSC, the people who made
flex, made it so that any manufacturer of a disk controller could
just plop in disk routines and it should work. Well, thought I… why
emulate the 1771… heck, I'll just emulate the disk routines instead
and replace them wholesale with AmigaDOS disk routines. That's what I
did, and it's way faster than the hardware emulation (of course). 🙂
For console I/o, I wrote a Soroc IQ140 emulator, since that is what my
editors were customized to use (everything was customized back then,
because noone ever had the same setup).
Flex had a "p" command you prefixed a command with in order to print
things… this called something named print.sys, by resetting the
I/o vectors to it's contents, would redirect the system output to the
printer. I wrote a print.sys that would get the thing into the
Amiga's printer output.
The I wrote the needed set of file transfer utilities flex->AmigaDOS
and reverse, disk list and delete commands, disk create commands…
and there you go. On an 4000/'040, it runs about as fast as a 2 mhz
6809, which is really not too bad at all.
Bingo – 100% emulation. I have yet to find anything that will not
work. Even crudware that hits the "serial hardware" directly works
because the port is completely emulated. Runs on it's own Amiga
screen, just way cool.
What I want to do now is get an OS9 emulation up and running. But I
can't locate a 6809 copy of OS9. The OS9 forum is between dead and
unresponsive, and the one guy I think could help, I can't seem to
find (Kevin Darling). It's one of those projects that gets a beating
on weekends. I'll figure it out. Hobbies – can't live with em,
can't… you know.
There – more than you ever wanted to know about the project, I'll
bet.
>> .. but I can't locate a 6809 copy of OS9.
Many many years back, TPUG had a licensed implementation of OS9 that
ran on modified SuperPETs (which had a 6809 processor). Chances are
good that they still have it in their files .. but the licensing
question may be difficult to resolve now, and the system is
undoubtedly on an 8050-style disk (77-track GCR) which will be very
hard to read without the right drive…
But if you're interested in tracking this one further, I'll be glad
to give you TPUG's current address.
JIm,
Thanks, but what I'm looking for is specifically a 6809 OS9 that was compiled
for an SWTPC frame – there is a fair amount of hardware compliance among these
machines. The disk drivers would be modular, as they are in flex, and that'll
make it much easier to get it going.
Microware – the authors of OS9 – are still around so that's one thing that's
positive, and the other is that I am perfectly willing to purchase the OS9
system in question, and the intended use is not for distribution, just my
personal use and satisfaction, IE, just what the license would have wanted. In
contrast, the authors of flex are nowhere to be found, and I know for a fact
that TSC is out of business _and_ the source code to flex was lost to a disk
event before that happened.
Appreciate the thought, though!
–Ben
…via AutoPilot
Where do you get the time to tinker with a Flex emulator? 🙂 As for the 8050
disks, I've still got PETs in the basement with the dual disk drives… is
that the right format, Jim? MicroWare is still around for the OS/9, except
they're heavy into set-top stuff these days.
John,
Are your PET drives 8050 or 4040? Or did you, like most of us, have one of
each?
—Betty
Time? You remember this line, perhaps?
>>> Sleep? We don't need no steenking sleep!
<grinning>
Hey, I view it as a sacred task. Without this emulator, Flex might never run
again. Now it's got a new lease on life in the Amiga, and I'll probably port
the sucker to Windows too, if I ever get another two-three days free in a row
in this life. 🙂
–Ben
…via AutoPilot
Perhaps one of those folks with a Radio Shack CoCo has a copy of OS/9
floating around.
At one time they were pretty common.
I *own* the OS9 for the CoCo. But the CoCo is really very, very different,
hardware wise, from an SS-50 design. What I'd have to do is write a complete
CoCo emulation, every strange graphics mode and so on… then it'd get up and
running easy.
But the CoCo emulation is not a trivial undertaking at all. We're talking maybe
80-100 hours of work, and I just don't have the time.
There is another issue, too. The OS9 for the SS50 frames worked a lot better
than the OS9 for the CoCo. They never really got the roaches out of it.
–Ben
…via AutoPilot
Don't know the timing on the SWTPC 6800. The only ready-to-go
computer I spotted around the time of the KIM-1 was a thing called
the SOL; by all reports, this one didn't do much.
I have the vague impression that SWTP (South West Technical
Products) and OSI (Ohio Scientific) appeared around the same time,
about six months after the KIM-1. But that's not hard history.