post

Elektor Elektuur Junior

The Junior computer design was published by Elektuur/Elektor from 1980 on. It was published in a series of magazine articles, four books and several so called paperware A4 booklets. And the ESS Elektor Software Services for the ROMs.
Loys Nachtmann designed and developed the Junior Computer, G.H. Nachbar did the Dutch translation of the German books. The 4 Junior books were translated into English, German, Spanish, Italian and French.

The Junior design is in fact heavily inspired by the hardware of the KIM-1 (or you can call it a copy!), the floppy disk interface design is a copy of the Ohio Scientific floppy disk interface design. Though I am not aware of copyright claims by MOS Technology/Commodore or Ohio Scientific, the inspiration is clearly visible.

It was delivered as a kit by shops or could be be built from the PCB’s (and later the ROMs) sold by Elektuur. Many hobbyists have build one, it was cheap and well documented.
Later extended with video card and an adapted version of the 8K KB9 Basic and even a disk operating system (Ohio Scientific DOS OS65D V3).

Articles in the Elektuur magazine and books (1-4), a 6522 book in the same series, in Dutch, English, French, German, Italian and Spanish were published.

Quickly adopted by the Dutch KIM Gebruikers Club because it was so close to the KIM-1. In the later days the number of Junior Computer users exceeded the KIM-1 users and changed the nature of the club from professional users to a hobby club. It also led to the DOS65 operating system for the Elektuur 6502 CPU board

The magazine Elektuur (the Dutch name) and Elektor (the name in the rest of teh world surprised us in 1980 with the publication of a build-yourself 6502-based SBC. It is a design in the tradition of the KIM-1 and SYM-1: a hexadecimal keyboard, six hexadecimal led displays and KIM-1 compatible tape format.
Many Junior Computers were built, either from the PCB made by Elektuur and separate components or as a complete kit. And after we (Anton Muller and me) sent a letter to the Elektuur magazine that got published about the KIM Gebruikers Club, many hundreds Junior users joined the club.
Developments after the Junior design was published in Elektuur led to the EC65(K) (see the Elektor Computing books) and the KIM Club DOS65, documented on this page.

What you can find here:


Radio Bulletin

The dutch magazine Radio Bulletin (RB, RB Electronics) has a long history, going way back to the early years of electronics. The name was derived from what electronics meant for amateurs in these days: building radios yourself.
It was published by Uitgeverij de Muiderkring, a publishing company in the Amroh group of companies.

The magazine was published in large volumes in the years 1970-1985, due to the popularity of do-it-yourself electronics and audio. Also the beginning of the microprocessor revolution was adequately covered and the great years of the hobbycomputers 1980-1990 were contributing to the success. Besides the magazine Uitgeverij de Muiderkring published many books on electronics. After 1990 the success faded and the magazine left the mass market and stopped in 2003. The publishing company Uitgeverij de Muiderkring, together with Amroh, went bankrupt in 2002 (I lived closely to the last location and saw the empty offices when passing by).

In 1977 Dick de Boer joined the staff of RB and introduced the readers to microprocessors and in particular the 6502 and the KIM-1. Also the KIM Gebruikers Club and the HCC were founded that year and RB started to write articles about all this exciting new developments!
I was then already a freelance writer about electronics but Dick made me study the microcomputer such as the KIM-1 and made me join the KIM
Gebruikers Club and the HCC (member 760 member). Dick de Boer, his successor Paul de Beer and me (Hans Otten) and others wrote many articles about the KIM-1 and related 6502 based systems for Radio Bulletin. Especially Dick wrote good introduction articles and developed sophisticated hardware and software like a graphical display. After leaving the magazine he became a software engineer and helped me also to my first job as software engineer in 1980. Me and Paul de Beer concentrated more on expanding 6502 systems like the KIM-1 with memory (RAM, ROM) and I/O cards like PIA, VIA and ACIA and mass-storage such as the Mini Digital Cassette Recorder. The bus of this expansion system was the so called BEM-bus.

I did translate a book Computer Interfaces by Owen Bishop for de Muiderkring to dutch. A scanned version is presented here.

All these articles are downloadable here, as they describe my publishing history and my KIM-1 system, designs by us of which the prints sold quite well. As you can see in the long list of articles the KIM and the 6502 played a major role in the microprocessor revolution starting in 1977 and lasting until 1987 for me.

What you see about Amroh, Uitgeverij de Muiderkring and Radio Bulletin is:

Selection of my and others articles 1977 – 1987 in Radio Bulletin
the RB Specials
the Cosmicos 1802 CPU based system by H.B. Stuurman, book and articles
some bits about the long history of Radio Bulletin
Elektronica ABC, the diy magazine

See also:

– Dr Blan articles on Step-by-Step radios
– Step by Step radio by Amroh