The last book of KIM

On his blog Nils has posted for download ‘The last book of KIM’:

Ich habe in letzter Zeit Energie in dieses kleine (auf Deutsch geschriebene) Heftchen gelegt.

Es ist allen Enthusiasten gewidmet, denen, die es werden wollen, und denjenigen, die es waren. Es soll einen in der Computerhistorie bislang unterrepräsentierten Mikrocomputer ins rechte Licht rücken und seine Rolle bei der Entwicklung hin zum modernen Heimcomputer beschreiben.

Viel Spass

Webdoktor

Funkschau 1979 KIM-1 AIM 65 6502 articles

Funkschau 1979 KIM-1, AIM 5 and 6502 articles. German, scanned by Matthias, SBC at VzEkC e. V. forum

Original KIM-1 ROMs reproduced

I have two sets of KIM-1 ROMs. One set is the original KIM-1 dump by Dwight Elvey, in which the filler bytes (unused locations in the ROM) are filled with $00.
Alas the dumps by Dwight have a couple of bit errors and the NMI vector is wrong.

The other set is the result of assembling the source in which the assembler used $FF for the filler bytes. It makes sense to use $FF, since EPROMs can be programmed byte for byte ‘1’ later to ‘0’s.
Functionally the filler byte is irrelevant, so I present here the ROMs with filler byte 00 (corrected Dwight original KIM-1 dumps) and filler byte FF (assembly result).

6530-002 $1C00-$1FFF, filler bytes $FF 6530-002 ROM
6530-003 $1800-$1BFF, filler bytes $FF 6530-003 ROM

6530-002 $1C00-$1FFF, filler bytes $00 6530-002 ROM
6530-003 $1800-$1BFF, filler bytes $00 6530-003 ROM

Small update to KB-9 V1.2 and KB-6 V1.2

Small update to KB-9 V1.2 and KB-6 V1.2: the NULL command is back, to ensure binary compatible tokenized saved Basic programs.
Now the USR location is the same in KB-9 V1.1 and V1.2, 2040 and 2041 (see Nils’ blog KIM-1 Basic and the use of assembler subroutines – netzherpes).

In KB-6 V1.2 it is 8254, 8255.

If you downloaded these , please do it again

AIM65-CPLD-3V3 for sale

Labu Asabu made 5 units of the AIM65-CPLD-3V3 for sale.
The price is 55,000 yen for a full set + accessories.
Shipping costs will be charged. Overseas customers will be charged customs duties for imports.
Email to info@labo-asabu.com

More info here!

aim65_quartus, an FPGA clone

Filippo (shinymetal6) published an alpha version of aim65_quartus, an FPGA clone on his github resource.

Forum discussion on the MisTer forum here.

Here the readme of aim65_quartus by Filippo:

This is an alpha release of a verilog Rockwell AIM65 in an Intel FPGA using the SocKIT board.
The Arrow SocKIT board is a nearly compatible TerASIC DE0 board where MiSTer runs.
This is a MiSTer port on the Arrow SocKIT, and as I have a SocKIT board I used their templates from MiSTer SocKIT FPGA page.

Behind the templates, the structures seem to me very similar, so probably a port on the MiSTer board should be relatively easy, but I don’t have such board.

Basically the aim65_quartus runs like an AIM65 at 1 MHz, has 32KBytes of ram ( who had so much ram ? not me for sure ! ) and excluding printer and tape all the peripherals are in place and runs.

The ROMs come from Hans Hotten funtastic pages, like all the other information I found there.
The 6502 core is the Arlet one, or the Hoglet67 65C02 version based on the Arlet core. This can be selected recompiling the code

The 20 AIM65 alphanumeric displays are routed to a simple video output, some ( quite bad I know ) pictures below.

The MiSTer menu can be used to have the expansion rom with basic, forth and pl/65, again some pictures below

Still with the MiSTer menu the serial port can be enabled, the characters color can be changed and the video can run at full screen

Still to do:

  • find a way to load and store programs, i’m still studying the MiSTer framework
  • fix an annoying behaviour on the serial port, tricky enough
  • find why sometimes the screen jumps
  • fix the keyboard as for now works only with US keyboard
  • a lot of more bugs I have not yet found …
  • As an additional and in my opinion useful add on, I have implemented a clear screen pressing F4, currently not used on real AIM65.
    This too needs a bit of fixing here and there, but when time will leave me to work on it again I will try to fix it

    aim65_quartus in action



    Just booted, R command in action


    Some memory dump


    Basic started


    The board where AIM65 runs …

    Scan of book Microprocessor Systems Engineering

    NEW: Scan of book Microprocessor Systems Engineering, by R.C. Camp, T.A. Smay, C.J. Triska
    Only the AIM 65 System 65 parts

    TIM-1 SBC

    Christian Ortner (mister-freeze at the VzEkC e. V. forum build a SBC with expansion around a TIM IC.
    Here is his projects description of the TIM-1 SBC. TIM-1 OverviewSchematic, images, hex listing of Lunar Lander!

    AIM 65 reproduction AIM65-CPLD-3v3 manual

    The page on the AIM 65 reproduction AIM65-CPLD-3v3 by Yasushi Nagano (Labo Asabu) has now a manual. Quite a large detailed 180+ pages one!

    Working with Mr Nagano, I have translated his manual for the AIM 65 reproduction, the AIM65-CPLD-3v3, from Japanese to English. The manual is now downloadable from this page.

    AH5050 floppy disk system for AIM 65

    In 1983 the company ABM sold a floppy disk system, Commodore IEC 1541 based, for the AIM 65. It also offered a serial interface for the AIM 65 TTY connection and a parallel port.
    The system consists of a PCB with the interfaces, a manual and the AH5050 ROM. The user has to add the Commodore diskdrive and IEC cable.

    The 1541 Commodore drive was quite popular in the 80ties for SBCs, since it was affordable, the serial IEC connection simple (one 7406 TTL IC and a couple of I/O lines) and the drive itself intelligent, the host did not have to implement a DOS with low level drivers and file system. It is slow, and has a low capacity, small SBCs like the AIM 65 are more than happy with that
    Nowadays floppy drives like the 1541 are like dinosaurs. But the SD2IEC 1541 replacement devices are cheap!

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