K-1008 Visable Memory Replica by Eduardo Casino
Eduardo Casino, see also his other work on KIM-1 projects, he is working on what aims to be a faithful replica of MTU’s K-1008 Visable Memory card for the KIM-1. He is following basically the same procedure as he did for the KIM-1 Rev. D replica: reproducing the schematics from the existing documentation and using photos of the original card to correct it and to replicate the PCB, and doing all of it just with open source tools.

As always, everything is available on his GitHub page.

The first tests are good!

KIM-1 Expansion Board for MTU cards repository.

This board follows the MTU standard for the KIM-1 expansion bus and enables to connect up to five cards, like the K-1008 replica.
Additionally, all signals of the KIM-1 are replicated on an edge connector to allow further expansions and also on a pin header for easy breadboarding.

The MTU bus connects 1 to 1 to the KIM-1 expansion connector with the exception of pins 2,3, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 and X, because MTU boards use some of these pins for power and expanded 18 bit address bus. See page 33 of the MTU Fall 1980 6502 Peripherals and Software catalog. Two pin connectors have to be wired to pins J (K7) and K (DECODE ENABLE) of the KIM-1 application connector.

Like in the original MTU’s bus motherboard, a five screw terminal block provides power connections for both the KIM-1 (GND, +5V and +12V regulated) and the expansion boards (+7.5V and +16V unregulated). Also, as in the original, the +12V terminal is not really connected to anything.

Everything is available on his GitHub page.

The KIM_1 Simulator and the MTU K-1008 Visible Memory

Dave Plummer asked me to add a K-1008 emulation to the KIM-1 Simulator. So I did in the spring of
2023, you can see the screenshots and video on this page made with the Simulator.

In August 2023 Eduardo Casino, who is making a K-108 replica (see below), asked me to enhance the emulator with loading binary images with images for the K-1008. That is added, load a file to memory and if that is K-1008 memory, the video display is shown.

There are several ways an image can be loaded to the K-1008 video display:

• Load a K-1008 formatted binary file into memory. It will show on the K-1008 display if enabled via Settings.
• The Refresh button in the debugger will also refresh the K-10008 display from memory
• With a C header file. see below

How to make a C Header image file with threshold

1. Choose a high contrast image
2. Load the image in GIMP (a freeware image processing app for Windows, Linux etc)
3. Scale the image to 320×200 exactly(have the ties between the dimension windows untied)
4. Use the Treshold tool to convert to black and white, play with the settings until it looks good
5. Export to, choose the C header file format, a file
6. This file can be loaded with the File menu entries of the KIM- Simulator main window and Debugger
7. The file is converted if you load in it into memory
8. If you have the K-1008 display on (see Settings) it will display it too
9. Now you can save the image if you wish with the ‘Memory to file’ menu entries

Make a C Header image file with dithered images

1. Open image in GIMP
2. Crop the image to 320×200 or a multiple like 960×600
3. Image – Scale the image to 320×200
4. Image – Mode – Indexed to black white palette Floyd-Steinberg (normal)
5. Image – Mode – RGB
6. File -Export As Select file type – C source header
7. Export

Note there is a command line program in the folder K-1008 load C Header , called LoadK1008 that converts a C header image file to a K-1008 formatted binary.

D:\k1008\LoadK1008.exe h
LoadK1008 is a program to convert a 320x200 C header file from GIMP to
MTU Visable memory K-1008 image
LoadK1008 <C header filename> <K-1008 binary filename>

Prepare the C header file in GIMP as follows:

1. Load an image in GIMP
2. Scale to 320×200 (detach the link between the sizes)
3. Threshold or dither to black and white, play to get a nice result
4. Export as C header file
5. Feed the C header file to this program
6. Convert the result, a binary file into a program like my Convert 8 bit hex formats (included with the KIM-1 Simulator) to a papertape format with the start address of the K-1008 (2000-C000)
7. Load the papertape into the KIM-1 or KIM-1 Simulator

Screenshots of images imported:

Images done by Eduardo Casino with dithering.

Dave Plummer has a K-1008

Dave Plummer bought a KIM-1 in a cage with many MTU cards. See his videos on youtube.

Memory test on a K-1008 by The Glitchworks

In the last video Dave shows the little disaster that made his KIM-1 not so happy. Dave asked the help of The Glitchworks to repair and the KIM-1 system was restored. One of the victims was the K-1008 card, Glitchwrks made a memory test program to test it.

In the next video I show the memory test program at work in the KIM-1 Simulator in the video memory.
Here the archive with the test program I compiled for the video.

Dave Plummer test programs

Dave used the CC65 C compiler/assembler package to write programs to test the KIM and the K-1008.
Here the archive with sources and binaries (runs at $2000).

The Demo programs running in the KIM-1 Simulator:

Graphics Software package for the MTU K-1008 Visible: sources, binaries and demos

This package was distributed as a manual and a cassette with some binaries. The user is supposed to type in and adapt the sources himself.
In this package find the following printed, assembled, and commented program listings of

• SWIRL demonstration program
• LIFE demonstration program
• SDTXT Simplified text display subroutine, 22 lines 53 char.
• VMSUP Comprehensive graphics subroutine library containing point and line plotting routines, a character drawing routine and an ASCII text display routine.

	Graphics/Text Software Package manual
	The manual has been OCR’ed by Eduardo Casino

The original sources are typed in by Eduardo Casino. He also OCR’ed the manual.

He created a package with OCR’ed and type in listings and manual, assembler sources for 64tass, and binaries in Intel hex and MOS papertape format. He kindly allowed it to be published here.

TASM and binary versions of the Graphics Software package
Download here the TASM and binary version of the Graphics Software package
Hans Otten has taken the original typed in sources, and changed the assembler format to a more common assembler and assembled with TASM32.
The software has been tested with the K-1008 emulation in the KIM-1 Simulator and (very limited, Eduardo did a great job!) some more proofreading and corrections.

The demos SWIRL and LIFE only require a KIM-1 without expansions.

The text and graphic subroutines SDTXT and VMSUP require more RAM. To show that they are working, versions have been made that connect to MS Basic for the KIM-1 (KB9) as examples how to use.
Several versions are available in source and binary papertape format, instructions are in the folders readme.txt and memorymap.txt files:
– SDTXT original in TASM format
– SDTXT in low or high memory as display for KB9, character input via the standard KIM-1 TTY.
– SDTXT as display for KB9 with an more standard lowercase character set.
– SDTXT as display for KB9 with (incomplete) 8 bit extended character set.
– VMSUP in original in TASM format
– VMSUP in low or high memory as display for KB9 with an more standard lowercase character set.

Demo of SWRIL and Life in the KIM-1 Simulator, on Eduardo Casino’s K-1008 and Dave Plummer’s K-1008

	MTU K-1008 Visable Memory User Manual
	MTU K-1008 Visable Memory User Manual OCR’ed Thanks Eduardo Casino!
	MTU K-1008 user manual
	MTU K-1008 user manual (older version?)
	MTU K-1008 user manual Revised September 1979
	K-1008-1L Graphics/Text Software Package with listings of demo program listings, terminal text routines, drawing primitives like line etc. See this page for OCR’ed contents and typed in sources and binaries
	Letter from Chalufour to MTU with handwritten answers by Hal Chamberlin
	K-1008-2L Patches to Microsoft BASIC SDTXT and graphics subroutines integrated in Microsoft Basic for the KIM-1 V1.1 (KB-9) See this page for typed in sources and binaries
	MTU K-1008-3 Level 1 Graphic Software
	MTU K-1008-5C Visible Memory demos and AIM 65 Basic Interface
	MTU K-1008-6 Visible Memory for PET and CBM
	MTU K-1008-8 Keyword Graphic Package For PET and CBM
	MTU Mount for Commodore PET
	Visible Memory Print Dumps Two article from Compute, printing the contents of the Visible Memory (PET version) on a matrix printer – Visible Memory Printer Dump, Frank Covits, Issue 7 – A Fast Visible Memory Dump, Martin J. Cohen, Issue 12

From the Fall 1980 catalog of MTU:

Hires photos shown here with permission by Vernon Graner (www.kim1.com).

Micro Technology Unlimited MTU-130 specifications:

• CPU 6502 (8 Bit)/68000 (16 Bit)
• Operating System CODOS 2.0
• RAM 336 KB
• Storage Dual 8″ QumeTrak 842 Floppy Drives (1 MB each)
• Display Bit-mapped B&W graphics – 480×256
• Misc Peripherals Light Pen
• NEC PC-8023A-C Printer
• Datamover 68000 Co-processor

Photo from the only known to me existing MTU-130 system, owned by Dave Williams.

MT-140 adverts

Newsletters and brochures

	MTU News V1.1 1982-05
	MTU News V1.2 Q3 1982
	MTU News V1.3 Q1 1983
	MTU News V1.4 Q2 1983
	MTU-130 Computer Operational Specifications 1981-10-01
	MTU-130 article in Creative Computing 1982 february

Manuals and documents
See also the other MTU pages.

CIL Reference Manual Datamover Hardware 68000 Microprocessor Board Manual DMXMON Reference Manual Graphics Editor Demo Program IGL Reference Manual KGL Reference Manual MACASM User Manual MAGIC-L MTU System Manual MAGIC-L User’s Manual Monomeg Single Board Computer Hardware Manual MTU C User Manual MTU-130 Computer Operational Specifications 1981-10-01 MTU-130 Double Density Disk Controller Manual MT-130 bootrom and assembler source MT-140 Disk_Controller_Hardware_Manual MTU-130 Full Screen Text Editor MTU-130 Hardware Manual MTU-130 Setup and Installation Manual MTU-130 Utility Programs Manual MTU-BASIC 1.5 Reference Manual MTU-BASIC Reference Manual MultI-O User’s Manual Errata for Multi I-O Manual Rev B Programmover Reference Manual Simplified Music Compiler-Player Manual VGL Reference Manual DISKEX Release 1.0 User Manual 1982-04 MTU-130 Full Screen Text Editor 1982-04 Rev D MTU-FORTH 79 User’s Guide Wordpic Paginate Module Preliminary Documentation Wordpic Preliminary User Manual 1982-07 Rev A Wordpic Reference Manual 1983-05 Rev A Wordpic Tutorial Manual 1983-05 Rev A Writing a BASIC Library 1982-02 Rev A

(Scans contributed by a.o. by Eric Wright, Dave Plummer and Dave Williams)

Accupath 1000

Original article by Eric Wright.

I (Eric) found this at the local ewaste recycler (eCyclers of Idaho in Idaho Falls, Idaho) and took it home since I was curious about it. I could find very little about the computer online other than it was some sort of “BS medical device”. After a few quick fixes (blown fuse and a wiring issue), I powered the machine on to see what all it would do…. and it didnt do much. It started to seek on the floppy drive and the monitor showed garbage.

At this point, I decided to tear further in to the system. Inside, ther was a linear power supply, a monitor capable of displaying composite images, and two MTU boards. Doing a bit of searching on these two boards, I was able to determine that they came from an MTU-130 system. The main board is what MTU called “monomeg”, it was a neat 6502 based board featuring 80kb of RAM. One interesting thing that I read, is that this board has some sort of extended 18bit address bus allowing up to 256K of address space.

The boot ROM has been dumped
Judging from a quick look, it appears it is talking with the 765 floppy controller ia $FFE8-$FFEF. I will look at the floppy controller board and see if i can figure out how they have it mapped.

Some more info by Eric Wright Here is a little more information about the setup inside of the Accupath 1000:

There are three ROMs between the main board and floppy controller board. both of the ROMs on the main board are used as decoders (256×4, MMI6301) from what I can tell, while the ROM on the floppy drive controller (256×8) actually bootstraps the system.

During boot strap, nothing is show on the screen (they only have 256 bytes afterall) except the current RAM contents that the video system is using. The ROM seeks an image off of the floppy drive, loads it to RAM, and jumps to it. I will get this ROM dumped and disassembled soon.

The floppy disk drive is a Qume Qumetrak 542. After disassembling the ROM, I hope to be able to load some sort of monitor via floppy disk.

Accupath (A MT-130 variant) in treatment

From COMPUTE! Issue 19 December1981

MTU-130: A New 6502 Microcomputer

Micro Technology Unlimited of Raleigh, North Carolina has announced the development of a new “top-of-the-line,” general purpose microcomputer. The first production shipments were announced for November for this 6502-based machine which will retail for $3995 (with single-sided disk drive, 500,000 bytes storage). Other packages are offered, which increase disk storage, up to a unit with two double-sided drives, two million bytes, for $4995. These prices include the MTU-130 computer with 80K RAM, a 12″ green phosphor CRT module, the selected floppy drive(s), all necessary cables, the operating system CODOS, an Editor, four-voice, digital, synthesized music, and a demo disk.

Novel Features
“MTU believes that the user should receive a system powerful enough to perform all necessary functions without having to add memory expansion, graphic expansion, etc. . . .” the designers remarked. The result is a computer which is fully, one might say luxuriously, implemented.
The unit features a 1 MHz 6502 with 18 bit addressing for up to 256K clear address space. Three video display operating modes: 1. bit-mapped black and white high resolution graphics 480 wide by 256 high; 2. 25 lines by 80 characters, mixable with graphics; and 3. bit-mapped graphics with four levels of gray in 240 wide by 256 high.
NOTE: I/O addresses occupy 0BE00-0BFFF when enabled under software control.

All the software is in RAM permitting easy upgrading or personalizing. It includes a CODOS disk operating system, printer drivers (see the high-resolution possible on a definable dot-matrix printer in the photo), two eight-bit parallel ports and one RS-232 serial port with software select of baud rate, an eight-bit D/A port with filter and amp (for speech, sound, and music), and an interface for a 50K Baud, interrupt driven, network option.

Additionally, the MTU-130 contains four EPROM sockets which are software controlled, a high resolution light pen, separate cursor keys, and a bank of eight user-defined function keys.
A unique approach to bank switching—using indirect addressing on the 6502—allows one 64K section of memory to contain a program while the data resides above in its own 64K zone.

Digitized Sound
The optional MTU-BASIC 1.0 with graphics and disk library extensions is an enhanced Microsoft BASIC. Currently, bank switching is not available to BASIC directly, but the system permits relatively easy user enhancements. Also, when the computer is turned on, it says, “MTU model 130. Please enter today’s date.” The “voice” is entirely digital and sounds remarably human (except that high frequency is muted—the cutoff is around 4 KHz). This provision for digital storage of sound is exciting, but, like high resolution graphics, it is a byte-eater. A two second message uses 16K on the disk. This space can be reduced, though, and plans are in the works to make the storage more efficient. The manufacturer also expects to provide an optional A/D microphone peripheral which will permit owners to digitize their own messages.

The eight inch floppy drive spins all the time, but the head remains out of contact with the disk until necessary. And it is fast. A 14K high-resolution picture can load to screen in about two seconds. Transfer rate is over 19 thousand bytes per second, sustained.

Future Options
MTU is currently working on additional software for the 130. Expected in early 1982 are FORTH, PASCAL, cassette I/O, PET/Apple BASIC translator utilities, and a word processor. Planned hardware includes a 128K memory expansion board, the A/D microphone system, a high fidelity sound synthesis and analysis package, a network operating system, and a rigid disk controller.
A prototype board for construction of custom circuits and a banker board are available now as options.