Another update to the Simulators

KIM-1 and TIM Simulator have seen a small update.
Improvements on console handling and little annoyances. Focal added as programming language, for KIM-1 and TIM!
The Apple 1 Monitor, wozmon is now available as a Setting to be added the not used space in the 6530-003 tape ROM.

KIM-1 Simulator 1.4.0
TIM Simulator 0.6beta
Convert Hex Formats 2.8 (bundled also with simulators)

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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 a convenient interpreted language. Floating point 9 digit accuracy. At least two versions were distributed around 1977, one by Aresco, called “Focal V3D” and another by the Program Exchange as representative of the Denver 6502 Group, often called “Focal-65E”

Latest addition is a reconstruction of the source, by Wayne Wall of the Denver 6502 Group in 1977, of Focal V3D for the TIM to binary, and a port to the KIM-1.
Based upon a listing of the TIM Focal-65 from 1977 and a Focal-65 User manual, repaired and cleaned up.
And that enabled the reconstruction of the soource Focal-65 V3D as distributed by Aresco!

Read all about Focal-65 here!

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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 a convenient interpreted language. Floating point 9 digit accuracy. At least two versions were distributed around 1977, one by Aresco, called “Focal V3D” and another by the Program Exchange as representative of the Denver 6502 Group, “Focal-65″ or FCl_65” or “FCL-65E”

Information from the German 1981 article in MC Magazine, see the articles, indicates the existence and sale of Focal versions by the 6502 Program Exchange:

  • FCL-65 and FCL-65E with Mini userguide
  • My version from Aresco Focal V3D, 1-oct-1977 binary and userguide
  • Focal V3D for TIM, listing known and available on this page
  • Focal-65 V3E 1-oct-1979, Apple II, source listing known at MC Magazine in 1981
  • V4 for Apple, listing known and in possession of Wayne Wall, not public available

I suppose this list is incomplete, other versions may have existed. None but my binary of Aresco Focal-3D, the Aresco V3D Userguide, a User Guide by the Denver 6502 group and a listing of Focal-65 V3D for the TIM survived and is available.

Latest addition to this page is a reconstruction of the sources, of Focal V3D for the TIM to binary, and a port to the KIM-1. Also the Aresco version source is reconstructed and identical to the tape dump of 1978.

On this page you will find:

  1. My experience with Focal-65 as started in 1979
  2. Reference material: User manuals, listings
  3. Magazine articles about Focal-65
  4. Reconstructed sources of Focal-65 for TIM and KIM-1
  5. Reconstructed source of Focal-65 for the KIM-1 Aresco version
  6. On the origin of Focal-65

My experience with Focal-65 started in 1979

In 1979 my good friend Anton Muller, at a meeting of our Dutch 6502 KIM Club, surprised me with a package Anton had imported from the U.S.A. : Focal V3d by Aresco.
The package came with a cassette tape and a user manual. We installed it on the KIM-1 and played with it. Impressive what was done in about 5K!
Floating point, string handling, a trick to suppress the hardware echo of TTY input.
After an article in our club magazine more members of the club became Focal-65 users and published articles about it.

This version of Focal-65 has survived. I have dumped a working version from cassette in 2004 (not the original alas, but a working copy with a bit too much) and scanned the user manual.
Manual and binary version have been available on this website now several years. Also I added DEC Focal manuals, Digital Equipment Corp. developed and sold Focal as a product for the PDP computers. In the KIM/6502 User notes articles were published on making Focal even more interesting, also published here.

When the KIM Simulator became usable, I tested Focal and saw that suppressing the TTY echo worked, but the wait for keyboard input loop preceding the read character routine did not. So I added a setting to let Focal-65 survive that loop. So Focal-65, Aresco version, runs unaltered on the KIM-1 Simulator!

The FOCAL programming language

In 2023 a source listing appeared, thanks to Paul Birkel, of Focal-65, programmed by Wayne Wall and friends in 1977. Target system is a TIM such as Jolt or Superjolt. I typed in that listing exactly with modern assembler syntax and made that version operational.
Here I present several reconstructed versions, for TIM (653-004) such as Jolt and KIM-1 based systems.
– A TIM/Jolt/Superjolt system needs minimum 8K RAM in lower memory.
– The KIM-1 needs memory, minimum 8K, from $2000 and up.
See below for the TIM version and a port to KIM-1. These are 90% identical to the Focal-65 V3D Aresco version, so that was the start to recreate that source too .


Reference material for download

First some downloadable reference material.

DEC-08-AJAB-D PDP-8-I FOCAL Programming Manual.
Focal by DEC is the beginning of all Focal implementations. A typical DEC manual, easy to read, complete, well organized.
DEC-08-AJBB-DL Advanced FOCAL Technical Specification April 69
This manual is where Wayne Wall got his design. From the flowcharts and labels, similar names and concepts can be found in the Focal-65 source
Focal-65 users guide V3D, by Aresco
Focal-65 Users Guide V3D by the Denver 6502 Group.
Cleaned up version made by me.
TIM Focal-65 V3D source listing
Cleaned up version made by me.

Articles on Focal-65

KIM/6502 User notes
Articles from the magazine, Focal corner

  1. Introduction to FOCAL, 6502 User Notes 12
  2. Improve on echo problems with KIM TTY, 6502 User Notes 13
  3. Make room for enhancements, extend to 8K, User Notes 14
  4. Speed it up, 6502 User Notes 15
  5. Cassette save/write an LED display listing, 6502 User Notes 16

KIM Kenner
Introduction to FOCAL, how to program, Dutch

Compute II
Modify and Move FOCAL 65-E into EPROM, Compute II Issue 3

MC Magazine
German article on Focal-65, has interesting information on versions

Working versions, reconstructed from sources

Denver 6502 Group Focal for TIM

In 2023 a listing of Focal-65, by Wayne Wall, for a Focal-65 version for the TIM, showed up, thanks to Paul Birkel.
A low low quality scan, so I cleaned it up, improved contrast, removed artefacts and cropped it. The result is readable, but not fit for OCR.

TIM Focal-65 V3D source listing
Original printed listing 1977 by Wayne Wall. Cleaned up version.

I typed this source in, exactly as the listing: uppercase, same comments, same line numbers.In this way I honor the original author and also enable checking of the binary result.
I did change the assembler syntax to a modern assembler. The original was written for PAL-65, an assembler by Wayne Wall in PDP macro assembler format.
When it assembled I compared the binary out to the binary in the listing by hand. Of course typos and the curse of direct addressing, the #!, caused some extra work.
The result was a binary with the same length. as shown in the listing.

Then the binary was loaded in my TIM Simulator, with a small external patch for the ‘no echo’ input character routine in the source. The TIM has ‘software echo’ hardcoded in the monitor for reading a character from TTY, so the monitor code is copied with optional echo.
It runs!


Focal-65 for the TIM, here the source as typed in, listing, binaries in Intel hex and Papertape format and the TIM Simulator patch.

Denver 6502 Group Focal for the KIM-1

To illustrate how easy it is to adapt Focal to other 6502 systems, I ported the TIM version to the KIM-1.
Changes required:

  1. Program moved from $1000 to $2000
  2. Replaced the TIM I/O package with a KIM-1 version: IRQ/BRK vector, no echo character input (partly taken from the Aresco disassembly for character output
  3. Further no changes, same line numbers, same size

This version runs fine in the KIM-1 Simulator with the Focal V3D setting.



Focal-65 for the KIM-1, here the source as typed in, ported to KIM-1, listing, binaries in Intel hex and Papertape format

Aresco Focal-65 V3D

Here the original Aresco Focal V3D dump from cassette. Note that the dump contains a bit more than necessary. The zeropage is completely dumped, and filled in by a running Focal session.
It runs on a KIM-1 and on the KIM-1 Simulator with the Settings – Type of Break setting set to Focal V3D.

First attempt to get a source, unfinished, does not assemble, but informative.
Disassembled source by Paul R. Santa-Maria (2004) and Hans Otten (more comments) (2022).

Focal-65 users guide V3D, by Aresco

Reconstructed source of Focal-65 for the KIM-1 Aresco version

With the source of the KIM-1/TIM and the binary of the Aresco version I have since 1978, it was an easy job to reconstruct the source of the Aresco version.
By comparing the binary output of the assembled source and the binary of the tape, differences can be seen and fixed in the source.

The interpreter code is 100% identical to the tape dump (minus the extra unused bytes saved at the end). Zero page is clean.

The code runs in the KIM-1 Simulator with the Focal V3D setting. No surprise, the binary of the tape dump also runs and the binaries of the code are identical.

Focal-65 for the KIM-1, Aresco version, here the source , listing, binaries in Intel hex and Papertape

The history of Focal for the 6502

Excerpt from the history of the Denver 6502 Group.
In 1975, Denver was a hotbed of computer activities. There was a new computer club called the Denver Amateur Computer Society (DACS), and every meeting was packed with radio amateurs and hobbyists anxious to learn about this exciting new technology. DACS was dominated by Intel 8080 based computers, but there were a few people interested in the 6502. Wayne Wall was one of the first to appreciate the power and speed of the 6502, and he decided to form a subgroup of DACS for 6502 users.

Wayne was a genius assembly language and systems programmer who worked at the Colorado School of Mines. He began holding meetings every Tuesday night at the School of Mines Computing Center for anyone interested in the 6502. At first it was called the 6502 sub-group of DACS, but as time went on, it became the 6502 Group.

All told, there were probably about 100 members, but on a typical night, 30 to 40 people would crowd into the meeting room, anxious to hear Wayne’s latest ideas and see his demonstrations. He was famous for his magic shows that invariably consisted of doing something hitherto unimaginable like simulating human speech with 13 bytes of assembly code. Wayne quickly gained the well deserved reputation as a computer wizard.

Most members of the group owned Digital Group systems. The Digital Group was a local company that had a short but spectacular career manufacturing computer kits. They were powerful, easy to assemble and way ahead of their time, with memory-addressable video cards, system monitors and relatively large memory boards. In addition to the Digital Group systems, the group had a scattering of Kim’s, Tim’s, Jolt’s and even a few odd homebrew machines.

At the time, there was virtually no software available for the 6502. All programs had to be tediously hand-assembled and typed into the machines. Wayne decided that his first task was to find a way to deal with this problem.

The School of Mines had a huge black mainframe called a PDP-10, and Wayne wanted to use the power and capabilities of this computer to write 6502 code. The first possibility was to use a FORTAN cross-assembler that was available from MOS Technology, but it was slow and buggy. Instead, Wayne chose to write 6502 macros for the PDP-10’s “PAL” assembler. After a few days work, Wayne had a fast new assembler that he called “PAL-65.” Suddenly we had the ability to write relatively large assembly language programs for the 6502.

Initially, Wayne cranked out a series of assembly language games. The first was a simple text based game where you shot arrows at a mythical beast called a Wumpus. Most of our computers had between 512 and two kilobytes of memory, but as Wayne’s games grew in complexity, we struggled to keep up, spending our nights soldering memory chips onto circuit boards.

Wayne now turned his attention to a high level language. The Intel based microprocessors had a version of BASIC written by Microsoft. Wayne decided that we should have a similar language, and he chose to write a version of the DEC language called FOCAL. Even though it was a relatively obscure language, FOCAL had some subtle advantages over BASIC, the biggest was its ability to evaluate strings as expressions.

Wayne wanted FOCAL to be a group project, and one evening he showed up with a stack of photocopies of the DEC flowcharts for the language. His plan was to assign each section of the chart to one of the 6502 Group members. We were supposed to go home, write 6502 assembly code for the section, and in a few weeks, we’d have an operating version of FOCAL. Unfortunately, Wayne had overestimated our skills. Most of us had been assembling code by hand and had no idea how to work from a flow chart. In the end, Wayne and Bob Ulshafer did most of the coding.

When it was finally finished, FOCAL was a big breakthrough. Suddenly we had a true programming language. Complex new games began to appear on our computers including a version of the famous mainframe game Star Trek, written by Larry Fish. Over the next few weeks Wayne wrote a five-byte floating point package for FOCAL based on a Dr. Dobbs article. With the new floating point power, simulations and mathematical programs sprouted up everywhere.

With thanks to Paul Birkel for the scan of the listing.

A TIM (6530-004) Superjolt simulator update, also KIM-1 Simulator

A TIM (6530-004) Superjolt Demon simulator.

Version 0.4. TIM Superjolt Simulator V0.4, Tiny Basic working!

Since the TIM Simulator and the KIM-1 Simulator share a lot of code, also the KIM-1 Simulator got an update, to let Tiny Basic work better: V1.3.8 is available.

The bundled Conversion 8 bit hex formats is now at version 2.6.

I have since yesterday a Raspberry Pi 5. Great little machine. Very grown up installation. Lazarus works fine with the usual trick of first the apt install version and then fpcupdeluxe for a newer version.

The TIM and KIM-1 Simulator work fine on the Pi 5, so a Raspberry Pi 5 is now included in the distributions.

Superjolt and TIM 6530

I have acquired 3! Superjolts. With a Synertek Superjolt CP110 manual and Tiny Basic + RAP (assembler) in ROM.

A good opportunity to update the 6530 and the Jolt SuperJolt pages. Better quality and more documents, more photos, ROMs dumped.

THE-RC 41523 CPU-4

CPU-4 is a 6502 SBC based upon the TIM 6530-004. Developed for teaching on the Technical University Eindhoven.
The only surviving part of the system is a 40 page Dutch manual.
Described are the function of TIM, Tiny Basic and Resident Assembler Program, same as the Jolt and Superjolt.

Dutch manual of RC41523 CPU-4

Some excerpts from the manual:







Superjolt manuals and schematics

I have added Superjolt manuals and schematics to the Jolt pages

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Byte Magazine

Articles and advertisements from Byte Magazine related to the 6502 in general and the KIM-1.


Byte Magazine 1975 11 Son of Motorola (or, the $20 CPU Chip)

Byte Magazine 1975 11 Son of Motorola (or, the $20 CPU Chip)

Byte Magazine 1975 12 Introducing Jolt .. the world lowest cost computer system


Byte Magazine 1976 01 Introducing Jolt .. the world lowest cost computer system


Byte Magazine 1976 04 What’s New, KIM-o-sabee


Byte Magazine 1976 05 A Date with KIM

Byte Magazine 1976 05 A Date with KIM

Byte Magazine 1976 08 How I relate to KIM True Confesssions

Byte Magazine 1976 08 How I relate to KIM True Confesssions

Byte Magazine 1977 03 A opcode Table for 6502

A opcode Table for 6502

Byte Magazine 1977 04 A Review of Tom Pitman’s Tiny basic

Byte Magazine 1977 04 A Review of Tom Pitman’s Tiny basic

Byte Magazine 1977 04 KIM goes to the Moon

Byte Magazine 1977 04 KIM goes to the Moon, Jim Butterfield

Byte Magazine 1977 06 Interfacing the IBM Selectric Keyboard Printer

Byte Magazine 1977 06 Interfacing the IBM Selectric Keyboard Printer

Byte Magazine 1977 06 Come Fly with KIM

Byte Magazine 1977 06 Come Fly with KIM

Byte Magazine 1977 07 Giving KIM Some Fancy Jewels


Byte Magazine 1977 09 A Sampling of Techniques for Computer Performance of Music

Byte Magazine 1977 09
A Sampling of Techniques for Computer Performance of Music
Hal Chamberlin

Byte Magazine 1977 09 A new Dress for the KIM


Byte Magazine 1977 10 Use S-100 Boards with your KIM-1 advertisement

Use S-100 Boards with your KIM-1 advertisement

Byte Magazine 1977 10 Chess program for SOL and KIM-1

Chess program for SOL and KIM-1

Byte Magazine 1977 11 Advertisement KIM Meets S-100

Byte Magazine 1977 11 Advertisement KIM Meets S-100

Byte Magazine 1977 11 Sweet 16 Steve Wozniak

Byte Magazine 1977 11 Sweet 16 Steve Wozniak

Byte Magazine 1977 11 A 6502 Personal System Design: Kompuutar

Byte Magazine 1977 11 A 6502 Personal System Design: Kompuutar

Byte Magazine 1977 12 The XF and X7 Instructions of the MOS Technology 6502

Byte Magazine 1977 12 The XF and X7 Instructions
of the MOS Technology 6502

Byte Magazine 1978 02 Sweets for KIM A Low calorie Text Editor

Byte Magazine 1978 02
Sweets for KIM A Low calorie Text Editor

Byte Magazine 1978 03 Microchess 1.5 versus Dark Horse


Byte Magazine 1978 03 KIMSI

Byte Magazine 1978 03 KIMSI

Byte 1978 06 More Music for the 6502


Byte 1978 06 Audio Processing with a Microprocessor

Byte 1978 06
Audio Processing with a Microprocessor

Byte 1978 07 KIMER: A KIM-1 Timer


Byte Magazine 1978 09 Plugging the KIM-2 Gap

Byte Magazine 1978 09 Plugging the KIM-2 Gap

Byte Magazine 1978 11 KIM-1 advertisement

Byte Magazine 1978 11 KIM-1 advertisement
Commodore MOS Technology

Byte Magazine 1978 12 SUPERKIM advertisement

Byte Magazine 1978 12 SUPERKIM advertisement

Byte Magazine 1978 12 A Single Board Microcomputer System SYM-1

Byte Magazine 1978 12
A Single Board Microcomputer System SYM-1

Byte Magazine 1978 12 Zapper A Computer Driven EPROM Programmer

Byte Magazine 1978 12
Zapper A Computer Driven EPROM Programmer

Byte Magazine 1979 01 RNB Enterprises SYM-1 KIM-1 VAK-X boards advertisement

Byte Magazine 1979 01
RNB Enterprises SYM-1 KIM-1
VAK-1to VAK-8 boards advertisement

Byte Magazine 1979 01 Jade Computer Products

Byte Magazine 1979 01 Jade Computer Products
SYM-1 KIM-1 6502 6530-002 – 003 -004 -005 IC’s

Byte Magazine 1979 02 1980 02 Another Plotter to Toy with, Revisited

Byte Magazine 1979 02 1980 02
Another Plotter to Toy with
Another Plotter to Toy with, Revisited

Byte Magazine 1979 02 Cosmac 1802 Simulator for KIM-1

Byte Magazine 1979 02 Cosmac 1802 Simulator for KIM-1

Byte Magazine 1979 03 MICROCHESS advertisement

Byte Magazine 1979 03 MICROCHESS advertisement

Byte Magazine 1979 05 Aids for Hand Assembling Programs

Byte Magazine 1979 05
Aids for Hand Assembling Programs

Byte Magazine 1979 06 Software for Jolt and TIM owners

Byte Magazine 1979 06
Software for Jolt and TIM owners

Byte Magazine 1979 06 KIM-1 Control System

Byte Magazine 1979 06 KIM-1 Control System

Byte Magazine 1979 07 8080 Simulator for the 6502

Byte Magazine 1979 07 8080 Simulator for the 6502

Byte Magazine 1979 08 Turn Your KIM into a Metronome


Byte Magazine 1979 09 Interface a Chessboard to Your KIM-1

Byte Magazine 1979 09 Interface a Chessboard to Your KIM-1

Byte Magazine 1980 03 KIM-1 Multiplication and Division

Byte Magazine 1980 03 KIM-1 Multiplication and Division

Byte Magazine 1980 03 You Win! with Sybex

Byte Magazine 1980 03 You Win! with Sybex

Byte Magazine 1980 04 Advanced Real-Time Synthesis Techniques

Byte Magazine 1980 04
Advanced Real-Time Synthesis Techniques
Hal Chamberlin

Byte Magazine 1980 04 Program Those 2708s!

Byte Magazine 1980 04 Program Those 2708s!

Byte Magazine 1980 06 An Answer/Originate Modem

Byte Magazine 1980 06 An Answer/Originate Modem

Byte Magazine 1980 09 Penny Pincher’s Joystick Interface

Byte Magazine 1980 09 Penny Pincher’s Joystick Interface

Byte Magazine 1980 06 The Impossible Dream

Byte Magazine 1980 06
The Impossible Dream
Computing e to 116,000 places with a Peroanl Computer
Stephen Wozniak

Byte Magazine 1980 10 The 6502 gets Micro programmable Instructions

Byte Magazine 1980 10 The 6502 gets Micro programmable Instructions

Byte Magazine 1980 12 Monster Combat

Byte Magazine 1980 12 Monster Combat

Byte Magazine 1980 10 Floptran IV: A Tiny Compiler

Byte Magazine 1980 10 Floptran IV: A Tiny Compiler

Byte Magazine 1981 10 A Simple Implementation of Multitasking

Byte Magazine 1981 A Simple Implementation of Multitasking

Byte Magazine 1981 05 06 Build a Super Simple Floppy Disk System

Byte Magazine 1981 Build a Super Simple Floppy Disk System

Byte Magazine 1981 06 An Easy to Use AD converter

Byte Magazine 1981 06 An Easy to Use AD converter

Byte Magazine 1981 06 198106 An Impossible Dream, Steve Wozniak Computing e

Byte Magazine 1981 An Impossible Dream, Steve Wozniak

Convert hex formats new version

Bug fix release of the PC utility to convert MOS papertape, Intel hex, Motorola S record, Apple 1 hex etc. Windows and Linux. Source included.

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PC utilities updated

The PC utilities page has seen an update of th4 Conversion hex formats utility.

Programs to manipulate the binary and hex formatted files of interest for SBC owners. Intel hex, MOS papertape, Motorola S-record, binary, hex conversion fort eh 8 bit world.
Runs on Windows, Linux, Mac due to Lazarus and Freepascal. Source included.