Bill Mensch wrote:
I would be happy to contribute some commentary concerning the creation of the 6530 at MOS.

Best,
-Bill

For the KIM-1 no introduction event is known. The first publications in magazines about the KIM-1 were in the second quarter of 1976, so press releases and first products must have come from MOS Technology in the first quarter.
Design of the KIM monitor (the ROM in the 6530-002) happened at the same time as development of the TIM monitor (the ROM in the 6530-004) in 1975. The ICs became available end of 1975, see the Hardware manual.

The KIM-1 computer development, with 6530-002 and 6530-003 (the ROM with the audio tap routines), most likely was done in the second half of 1975.

The only real date I can pinpoint is the publication date of the User Manual, January 1976. So I date the ‘birth’ of the KIM-1 computer in January 1976.

I have collected some KIM-1’s over the years. The first KIM-1 in 1978 I bought and sold many over the years. Now I have nine original KIM-1s, from first edition to Rev A, B, D, E , 2x F, 2xG.
The KIM-1 replica by Eduardo Casino (still building, I have original 6530-002 and -003 for it), and a Digitus Sweden clone.
And several reproductions with 6532’s as replacements.

Top row : first edition, Rev A, Rev B, Rev D, Rev E
Middle row: Rev F, REV F, Rev G, Rev G, Digitus
Botton row: Rev D Eduardo Casino, KIM-1 Ralph, KIM-1 Dave Williams, KIM-1 Dave Williams (not shown an unbuilt blue Dave Williams KIM-1).

KIM-1 clones! (Briel MicroKIM, Corsham KIM clone, PAL-1, PAL-2).
Vince Briel was the first to design and sell a KIM-1 clone, the Micro-KIM. Essential was the replacement of the 6530 RRIOT with a 6532 RIOT and an external ROM. The idea came from Ruud Baltissen. The PAL-1 and PAL-2 are still available as kit. The design files for the Micro-KIM are on github.

Top row: Briel MicroKIM, Corsham KIM Clone and PAL-2.
Bottom row: PAL-1 , Corsham breadboard

Today I received a scan of a MOS Technology sheet with the chip equations of the MCS6530-044 and MCS6530-005 (thanks Scott Barnes!).
No CS1 and CS2, just I/O PB5 and PB6.

Now the mystery of the-005 is solved! See all 6530 information here.

MCS6530-005 Chip Select Equations (thanks Scott Barnes)

As application software Tiny basic and the Resident Assembler Program RAP are available.

More about the Jolt, Micro associates and Superjolt at the Jolt and Superjolt pages

– DEMON
– Tiny Basic ad Resident Assembler Program
– Focal-65 V3D
– adaptations to Jolt sofware by Scott LaLombard
– Jolt/Superjolt/TOM simulator

DEbug MONitor (the program in the TIM 6530-004)

The JOLT CPU card comes complete with DEMON, MAl’s debug monitor program. The program is located in the 1,024 byte, Read Only Memory (ROM) of the multi-function 6530 chip and is therefore
completely protected against any alteration. DEMON provides a permanently available general purpose monitor program to aid users in developing hardware and software for MAl’s JOLT series of microcomputers.
DEMON’s Features Include:
• Self adapting to any terminal speed from 10-30 cps,
• Display and Alter CPU registers,
• Display and Alter Memory locations,
• Read and Write/Punch hexadecimal formatted data,
• Write/Punch BNPF format data for PROM programmers,
• Unlimited breakpoint capability,
• Separate non-maskable interrupt entry and identification,
• External device interrupts directable to any user location or defaulted to DEMON recognition,
• Capability to begin or resume execution at any location in memory,
• Completely protected, resident in Read Only Memory,
• Capability to bypass DEMON entirely to permit full user program
control over system,
• High speed 8-bit parallel input option, and
• User callable I/O subroutines.
DEMON’s Command Set Includes:
.R Display registers (PC,F,A,X,Y,SP)
.M ADDR Display memory (8 bytes beginning at ADDR)
: DATA Alters previously displayed item
.LH Load hexadecimal tape
.WB ADDR1 ADDR2 Write BNPF tape (from ADDR1 to ADDR2)
.WH ADDR1 ADDR2 Write hexidecimal tape (from ADDR1 to ADDR2)
.G Go, continue execution from current PC address
.H Toggles high-speed-reader option (if it is on, turns it off; if off, turns on)
See the TIM manual for more information on DEMON, the name MAI uses for the TIM program.

DEMON software manual (this manual has an alternative listing of the TIM 6530-004 monitor)

RAP — 1.75K Byte Resident Assembler Program
(This looks like a predecessor of the RAE of the SYM-1). The JOLT Resident Assembler Program (RAP) is designed for use on JOLT systems equipped with at least 4K bytes of RAM memory. RAP has some significant advantages over conventional assemblers:
1. Resident as part of the JOLT system on PROM chips. The assembler never has to be read into volatile memory before use. It, just like the DEMON monitor, is instantly available. In addition, costly time sharing services are not needed for cross assemblies.
2. Operates on one pass of the source code. The source tape is read in only once, thereby increasing assembler speed by a factor of two over conventional assemblers that make two or three passes over the source code.
3. Small in size. The assembler is smaller by a factor of 4 or 5 over comparable assemblers. Its size guarantees the smallest number of PROM chips needed and minimizes printed circuit board space requirements. With the assembler PROM chips installed in your JOLT PROM board (at address E800 hex), the assembler may be activated by reading the source code input on the console input device and transfering to location E800 hex using the DEMON monitor. As source code is being read in, a listing is produced on the console printer and the object code is generated directly into RAM at the addresses specified by the origin directive (.ORG).
After the assembly is complete, the object code may be punched onto paper tape or executed directly using DEMON. The assembler assumes RAM at locations 1FFF hex and lower to be available for symbol table usage. RAP uses an efficient symbol table algorithm and users can normally expect that about 4 to 6 bytes of RAM will be used for each symbol or that a 3000 byte program would use approximately 800 bytes for the entire symbol table (locations 1CEO to 1FFF hex). This space need not be left unused if buffers,’ etc. are allocated to it. The Resident Assembler Program is compatible with the MAS Technology Cross Assembler with the following exceptions:
1. Expressions and * (used for current program counter) are not allowed.
2. Thee .OPT and .PAGE pseudo operations are not implemented.
3. Octal and binary numbers are not implemented.
4. .ORG is used instead of *= to origin program.
5. .RES is used for reserving storage.

	Superjolt CP110 User Manual Contains Tiny Basic, RAP userguide
	RAP and Tiny basic ROMS

FOCAL

See the FOCAL065 V3D page for a TIM version of the FOCAl language.

Scott LaLombard software

While building a Jolt replica with many expansion boards. Scott Lalombard adapted some software like Tiny Basic. Read about his programs here.

TIM/Jolt Simulator

A Jolt/Superjolt/TIM simulator.

Above photos by The National Museum of American History.

Photos from https://vintagecomputer.net/MAI/

Photos from https://collection.powerhouse.com.au/object/372464

My Jolt

Jolt replica by Eduardo Casino

Board images thanks to Achim Harald Baqué and mister-freeze/snuci.

Here photos by Ray Holt (the hardware designer) of such a Jolt.