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!
See the links below for current implemntatiosn pf the AH5050 disk interface. Simple to make yourself, just a 7406 and an IEC DIN connector!
AH5050 interface
AH5050 interface
AH5050 interface connected to the AIM 65
Downloads
Links
Retrospy AIM 65 I/O interface
Ralf (ralf02, forum64.de) obtained a working AIM 65, alas without the keyboard.
So he designed and build one. In his own words:
Wenn ich an den Rechner 24 Volt (für den Drucker) und 5 Volt anlege, startet er schon einmal. Allerdings war leider keine Tastatur dabei. Es gibt zwar Tastatur-Nachbauten, die bei Ebay & Co für sehr viel Geld verkauft werden, aber ich dachte mir, das kann man doch auch selbst machen. Also habe ich mit KiCad eine Platine entworfen, mit Cherry MX Tastern bestückt, “blanke” Tastenkappen von Amazon draufgesetzt und mit dem Brother Etikettendrucker beklebt.
Translated:
When Ralf connected the 24 V (printer) and 5 V, the system started. But the keyboard was missing. Though there are keyboard replicas on ebay , costing quite a lot of money, I decided to build one myself. Kicad for the PCB, Cherry MX keys, blank keycaps and a Brother labelprinter for the lettering.
The result is a quality keyboard that fits the AIM 65 very well. See here the page with photos and design.
Ralf (ralf02, forum64.de) obtained a working AIM 65, alas without the keyboard.
So he designed and build one. In his own words:
Wenn ich an den Rechner 24 Volt (für den Drucker) und 5 Volt anlege, startet er schon einmal. Allerdings war leider keine Tastatur dabei. Es gibt zwar Tastatur-Nachbauten, die bei Ebay & Co für sehr viel Geld verkauft werden, aber ich dachte mir, das kann man doch auch selbst machen. Also habe ich mit KiCad eine Platine entworfen, mit Cherry MX Tastern bestückt, “blanke” Tastenkappen von Amazon draufgesetzt und mit dem Brother Etikettendrucker beklebt.
Translated:
When Ralf connected the 24 V (printer) and 5 V, the system started. But the keyboard was missing. Though there are keyboard replicas on ebay , costing quite a lot of money, I decided to build one myself. Kicad for the PCB, Cherry MX keys, blank keycaps and a Brother labelprinter for the lettering.
The result is a quality keyboard that fits the AIM 65 very well.
Ralf gave me permission (thanks!) to publish the photos and gerbers of the PCB.
Here the archive with the gerbers of the PCB.
Mr. Nagano, from Tokyo, Japan send me photos and circuit diagram of an AIM 65 clone he built. It is a beautiful and functionally and esthetic faithful clone. In fact, he built two, one with a CPLD 3V3 version and a 5 V version with a 6532 RIOT.
Read all about it here.
With the help of users on the German Classic Computing forum I have added many manuals and magazines in German about those systems:
– AIM 65 PC100 manuals
– MICROMAG magazines
– KIM-1 manuals in German
I also added books on the 6502 in general and on the KIM-1, SYM-1 and AIM 65 to the Books section.
Reading old magazines is always fun, from the period 1976 to 198x magazines were filled with articles on the 6502, the KIM-1 and other SBC’s.
German, Dutch and English magazine articles extracted here.
Kilobaud, Byte, Dr Dobbs and of course the dedicated 6502 User Notes, MICRO Journal and Compute are valuable sources, but look at the many magazines on this page!
