Usurpator Chess for the 6800 and 6502, a book by H.G. Muller
A small but capable chess playing program. Source published in the book for AIM 65.
Typed in again in march 2025 and adapted for the KIM-1.
About small SBC systems
Usurpator Chess for the 6800 and 6502, a book by H.G. Muller
A small but capable chess playing program. Source published in the book for AIM 65.
Typed in again in march 2025 and adapted for the KIM-1.
Q-Chess 1.0 is a chess program for the KIM-1, from around 1980. The programs requiresa a memory expansion of 8K at $2000.
The chess board is displayed at a TVT-6 (Don Lancaster) video display alongside the KIM LED Display and Keypad.
In 1981 Fer Weber, a member of the Dutch KIM User Club published an adaptation to use the program with a (video)terminal attached to the KIM TTY interface in the Dutch magazine the KIM Kenner Issue 17.
Binaries on tape and the documentation of Q-Chess were acquired in 1981 from Fer.
In March 2025 Hans Otten translated the source of the adaptations from Dutch to English in TASM format.
This makes Q-Chess playable again!
COMAL is an interpreted structured language. A version for the KIM-1, Junior and DIS65 is available, distributed by the KIM Gebruikers Club Nederland as KGN COMAL in the 80ties.
KIM-1 version March 2025 by Hans Otten.
KGN COMAL V1 for the KIM-1 and clones, Elektor Junior and DOS65.
A product distributed and adapted to the Junior by the KIM Gebruikers Club The Netherlands in 1985-1987.
KGN COMAL V1.0 is for the enhanced Elektor Junior.
KGN COMAL V2.1 is for the DOS65 system.
In 2015 I saved KGN COMAL 1.0 and 2.1 binaries from Junior tapes and DOS65 disks.
With DOS65 came a very compact COMAL user manual.
In the Club Magazine KIM Kenner a Amazing Maze program is found.
Based upon these binaries and documents KGN COMAL is adapted to the KIM-1.
A recently acquired KIM-1, of the first generation (that means, No Revision, the first series!) came with a stash of documents from MOS Technology from 1976.
I have scanned those documents and they are available on this website now.
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KIM-1 User Manual First Edition, January 1976 |
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KIM User Manual errata letters for First Edition |
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MOS Technology Floating point BCD routines MOS Technology January 1976, Rev 0. Numbers of six digits BCD Mantissa, a two digit BCD Exponent and the signs for the mantissa |
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MCS6532 Design Specification Published before the first 6532 datasheet |
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MCS6500 Microprocessor Software Support Guide for using the MOS Technology Support Software on United Computing Systems timesharing service Describes the MCS6500 Cross Assembler, Simulator and DMP to ROM programs. |
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MCS6500 datasheet May 1976 |
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MDT 650 product description |
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MOS Technology newsletters |
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Simplifying Conversion from 6800 to 6502 |
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TIM Software development Aid Product description |
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KIM 2-3-4-5 product descriptions |
Warranty card that came with this KIM-1
Imagine a true 6530-002 and 6530-003 replacement , the RRIOTs of the KIM-1
Now with modern FPGAs you van do that: a 40 pin PDIP replacement: the reDIP RIOT is made for that purpose.
Here is the code for the reDIP to make it a 6530-002 or 6530-003:
Github with gateware for Commodore MOS 6530 RRIOT
Since the 6532 is in fact a subset of the 6530 (no ROM, more RAM), it seems not too difficult to make a 6532 replacement this way.
The reDIP RIOT is an open source FPGA board which combines the following in a DIP-40 size package:
Lattice iCE40UP5K FPGA
1Mbit FLASH
5V tolerant I/O
The reDIP RIOT provides an open source hardware platform for 6530 RRIOT / MOS 6532 RIOT replacements.
See here the github for this project
https://github.com/daglem/redip-riot
The longawaited successor of the PAL-1, the PAL-2 is on sale now.
https://www.tindie.com/products/kim1/pal-2-a-mos-6502-powered-computer-kit/
My first look at the PAL-2 is here.
Here the first video by my friend Nils of a working PAL-2:
My PAL-2 #1:
MOS Technology, part of Commodore in 1977, not only sold the KIM-1 SBC but added hardware and software as KIM System Products.
Not only hardware, a Motherboard (KIM-4), RAM memory expansions (KIM2, -3, -3B) and a prototype board (KIM-6) but also software, like KIM Math subroutines (KIMath), TIM (RRIOT + document).
This has been documented for quite some time now on this website with photos and manuals.
I have been looking for years for the KIM-5 Resident Assembler/Editor. Manuals on Assembler and Editor are already known. The software, delivered in 3 ROMs of type 6540, on a KIM-5 ROM board was never dumped before, and the existence, besides the pricelist shown here and some advertisements, doubted by many, including old Commodore employees.
Many years I searched on the internet on fora, websites and friends in the retro world, it did not lead to a dump of the KIM-5 ROMs.
A couple of years ago I saw a listing on ebay.de of a lot with a a KIM-5 with ROMs and a KIM-3B board. I was too late to bid. I could not contact the seller or buyer afterwards. But now I knew the KIM-5 did exist, and had some photos as proof.
A year later Stefan Hamann approached me to ask for information on KIM-1 material he bought from ebay. He was the buyer of the lot!
Stefan was so nice to lent me the KIM-5 (and KIM-3B) and the EPROMs he obtained. I have finally a KIM-5 in my hands with ROMs!
The ROMS have been dumped, tested in the (updated KIM-1 Simulator to 1.5.1) and source recreated. The KIM-5 Resident Assembler/Editor is preserved!
Read all about this on the newly organized and enhanced KIM System Products pages.
Resident Assembler/Editor at 9000-A7FF
MOS Technology 6502, 9 DIGIT BASIC by Microsoft, Copyright 1977. often nicknamed KB9, is an early version of Microsoft Basic adapted for the KIM-1. With 9 digit precision and the Microsoft version of Basic a very usable high-level language for a KIM-1 with 16K extra RAM and a videoterminal or teletype.
I bought my version in 1979, serial number 2167. Tape ID #01, 2000-4260. Start 4067.
It is a version that works around the missing ROR instruction on early 6502 CPU’s.
All versions of KB9 on the internet are from the cassette dump I made in 2006, including the brilliant source version on pagetable. Still have a lot of fun with it as well as all the KIM clone users.
I found a photo of MOS TECH 9 DIGIT BASIC FOR KIM, COPYRIGHT BY MICROSOFT 1977 2000-437D ID #101 ST. 4065 S/N 217 cassette of a much lower serial number.
What is interesting is the higher End address, 437D versus 4260.
Alas no dump of this cassette is known, so this stays a mystery. as is the illegal tape ID 101.
My MSBasic for the KIM-1 cassette
Another MOS TECH BASIC for KIM-1
Thanks to Eric Dennison I can show photos of the RNB Enterprises VAK-1 motherboard.
The large motherboard and the huge case with homebuilt 16K static RAM memory card are representative for the KIM-1 systems then!
Photo by Eric Dennison
Photo by Eric Dennison
A new development! A minimal 65(C)02 system, called Sorbus designed by Sven Oliver Moll (SvOlli).
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