TTY Serial

The KIM-1 Simulator comes with a ‘console’, a glass teletype 24×80 screen. It has a subset of ANSI/VT100 support.
Of course there are much better terminal emulators, like Teraterm, Putty, Coolterm, Minicom etcetera.

And a real VT100 type device is really fun! Or a real Teletype …
Now the KIM-1 Simulator can use either an external serial device, e.g a PC with Teraterm or Minicom, or a terminal emulator locally on the same PC.

Activate serial input/output local on your PC as follows:

Start your external terminal emulator, e,g, Teraterm or Minicom with serial port settings 9600 baud.
Choose the desired serial port, See below for Windows or Linux null modem setup
Start the KIM-1 Simulator
Activate TTY Console, the Console window appears
Choose Settings – Setup serial port
set for 9600 baud
Choose the desired serial port, the OTHER in the null modem setup
Press the Use serial button, the console window disappears
Start the Simulator from the main Window with Run/Stop
Now the serial terminal emulator shows the KIM prompt
Note the Simulator is not very forgiving if you make a mistake with serial ports in this first version, Close the Simulator application and start over.

Windows
Install the com0com null-modem emulator from here.
That delivers two COM ports that act as if they are connected via a null modem, anything entered at one is sent to the other and vice versa.See the device manager for the ports created.

Use a terminal emulator as Teraterm with a serial connection to the other COM port. With the same settings for serial as in the Simulator!
Then select in Settings – Use serial and start the emulator.
Note the KIM-1 only works with uppercase characters.

Linux

Use this commmand (install socat if not present).

socat -d -d pty pty

The code above returns (the pts numbers may be different).

2013/11/01 13:47:27 socat[2506] N PTY is /dev/pts/2
2013/11/01 13:47:27 socat[2506] N PTY is /dev/pts/3
2013/11/01 13:47:27 socat[2506] N starting data transfer loop with FDs [3,3] and [5,5]

Any character entered at one is sent to the other pts device as if a null modem cable is connected.

Use the device /dev/pts/2 in the KIM-1 Simulator Settings – Setup serial. Default is 9600.
Start a terminal emulator like minicom or Coolterm and select device /dev/pts/3 at 9600 baud.
Select in Settings – Use serial port /dev/pts/3 and start the terminal emulator.
Now you can control the TIM via minicom or any suitable VT100 like terminal emulator.
Select in Settings – Use serial and start the emulator

Minicom is easy to use. Just set the terminal serial port (the other than the emulator uses).

Coolterm is tested, but is a little bit troublesome to configure.
Force the serial port via Custom and ignore the warning messages.