News – Page 11 – Retro Computing

The Chessmate is a 6530 – KIM-1 like computer. Keyboard, LED display are used as in the KIM-1. Peter Jennings, who designed this chess computer with Commodore, build upon his Microchess 1. from the KIM-1, and used the extra ROM space to enhance it to Microchess 1.5: more chess features, a chess clock, sounds, dedicated keys, status LEDs.

The 6530-024 delivers the I/O and timer and RAM used by the Chessmate, the RRIOT ROM is not used by the main ROM. The dumped ROM of the 6530 (see below) contains no recognizable data or program,

It will not be that difficult to ‘clone’ this chess computer with the information here. A 6532 can easily take the role of the 6530. A 6502 instead of a 6504, same SRAM< a 2732 or similar ROM. The ROMs are dumped, both for an Chessmate and a Novag Chess Champion MK I

Schematic, user manual, dumped ROMs here.

My Chessmate

Focal-65 V3D for TIM and KIM-1

Focal on the 6502, a page on this small language, originating for Digital Equipment. A small interpreter (about 5K) for...

John Bell Engineering catalogs

Thanks to Dallas Shell I have added the 1984 and 1988 catalog to the John Bell Engineering pages. Also a hand drawn and...

New KIM-1 info and more

Added again some KIM-1 information! MDT 650 photos (John Feagans) Scans from the Commodore International Historica...

KIM-1 Simulator simple demo

To test my new HDMI 4K USB Video Capture I made two videos. Simulator running on one notebook, the other notebook with t...

Update 24 march 2022: added KIM-1 Re v photos from HomeComputerMuseum (thanks Bart!)

The KIM-1 went trough several revisions without any change to the specifications. The first revisions appeared as MOS Technology products, the label MOS in in the front top right corner. When Commodore took over MOS late 1976 the label changed to Commodore C MOS.

MOS did three versions, the unnamed first one, a Revision A and a Rev B. I have never seen a Rev C.
Commodore MOS did Rev D to G, starting in 1977 and well into the 80ties. Many KIM-1s were sold, first to industry and later to education and hobbyists. Nowadays KIM-1s are not rare but have become quite expensive, collectors value especially the early ones with a white 6502 IC. The KIM-1 was an OEM product by Rockwell, with its Rockwell branded documentation and a Rockwell sticker at the right top part covering the Commodore MOS label. I know of at least two versions by Rockwell, a Rev D and my Rev F.

See this page for images of the revisions known to me.