Category Archives: kim-1

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The KIM-1 family

The KIM-1 is one of the first computer systems build around the 6502 microprocessor, somewhere in 1975.
The hardware and software concepts in the KIM-1 were reused in a number of systems created later.

  • Application and expansion connector
  • KIM-1 monitor software in ROMs 6430-002 and 6430-003
  • RRIOTs in 6530 (equivalent to 6532)
  • Bitbanged serial interface
  • 6 multiplexed seven segment LEDs and hex keyboard
  • MOS Technology papertape format load and save
  • KIM-1 audiotape format

Over the years I have collected a ‘family’ of small computers with one or more concepts of the KIM-1, as shown in the figure above.

System          Connectors KIM-1 monitor Serial  LEDS + keypad Papertape KIM-1 audio RIOT
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
KIM-1                X           X         X           X          X           X        X
SYM-1                X           X         X           X                      X        X
AIM 65               X                                                        X        X
MCS Alpha 1                                X           X                      X        X
Elektor Junior                             X           X                      X        X
KIM UNO                          X                     X          X                    X 
Micro-KIM                        X         X           X          X                    X
KIM Clone                        X         X           X          X                    X
PAL-1                            X         X           X          X           X        X
MOS Reproduction     X           X         X           X          X           X        X
KIM-1 Simulator                  X         X           X          X                    X
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

See also:

RC6502, an Apple 1 clone

On this page my experiences with an Apple 1 clone, my third! Build as kit, a nice experience and another 6502 system in ...

Elektor Junior ASSM/TED

MAE ASSM/TED for the Elektor Junior Adapted version for the Junior of the KIM-1 MAE. Adaptations from the KIM User Cl...

KIM-1 Macro Assembler Editor

I bought MAE in 1980 for Use Schroder, Ingenieur bureau Schroder, as a package for the KIM-1. As did some friends in the...

MAE ASSM/TED CW Moser

MAE (Macro Assembler Text Editor) or ASSM/TED is a program sold by Eastern House Software for the KIM-1, Apple, PET, C64...

New scans of KIM-1 manuals

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I found new high quality scans of KIM-1 manuals on the Retro Commodore website.
That website is filled with high quality scans of Commodore publications.

High quality scans of the User, Programming, Hardware manuals. Also scans of KIM-5 related manuals like Assembler and Editor (a new one for me!).

The originals are from a German distributor, there is a sticker on the frontpage.

I thank Carsten Jensen for his invaluable work!

Manuals are added also to the KIM-1 manuals page, which did get a cleanup too.

See also:

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...

John Bell Engineering catalogs

Thanks to Dallas Shell I have added the 1984 and 1988 catalog to the John Bell Engineering pages. Also a hand drawn and...

New KIM-1 info and more

Added again some KIM-1 information! MDT 650 photos (John Feagans) Scans from the Commodore International Historica...

KIM-1 Simulator simple demo

To test my new HDMI 4K USB Video Capture I made two videos. Simulator running on one notebook, the other notebook with t...

Known 6530 variants

6530-002 $1C00-$1FFF KIM-1 listing in KIM-1 Users manual
6530-003 $1800-$1BFF KIM-1 listing in KIM-1 Users manual
6530-004 $7000-$73FF TIM Terminal Monitor, see the TIM page
6530-005 According to this OSI appnote this is an unprogrammed version of the 6530 TIM
I have only seen ads for this part without further description of what this is.
It has the 16 I/O lines, 64 word RAM and the timer, which can generate an IRQ. One can assume the ROM is empty.

6530-006 Allied Leisure pinball version 1 (IC6)
6530-007 Allied Leisure pinball version 1 (IC3)
6530-008 Allied Leisure pinball version 1 (IC5)
6530-009 Allied Leisure pinball (IC5)
6530-010 Allied Leisure pinball (IC6)
6530-011 Allied Leisure / Fascination pinball (IC3)

6530-012 Gottlieb System 1 sound board (R3014-12)
6530-013 Gottlieb System 1 sound board (R3014-13)
6530-014 Gottlieb System 80 series sound board (R3016-11)
6530-016 Used in Gottlieb system 80/80A/80B sound boards

6530-024 Commodore Chessmate (based upon Peter Jenning’s MicroChess)

6530-241 MIOT in pinball machines
6530-243 MIOT in pinball machines

Commodore diskdrives ROM at $FC00-$FFFF

901466-01 6530-??? 2040 DOS 1.0 Shugart SA390 2040, 3040 and 4040
901466-02 6530-028 4040 DOS 1.2 Shugart SA390 2040, 3040 and 4040
901466-04 6530-034 8050 DOS 2.0 DOS 2.1 Shugart SA390
901483-02 6530-036 8050 DOS 2.5
901483-03 6530-038 8050 DOS 2.5 Micropolis 1006-II (8050)
901483-04 6530-039 8050 DOS 2.5 Tandon TM100-3M (8050)
901884-01 6530-040 8X50 DOS 2.7 Tandon TM100-3M (8050) Tandon TM100-4M (8250)
901885-01 6530-044 8X50 DOS 2.7 Micropolis ???
901885-04 6530-047 8X50 DOS 2.7 Micropolis 1006-II (8050) Micropolis 1006-IV (8250) Micropolis 1106-II (Safari, mit Garagentor, 8050) Micropolis 1106-IV (Safari, mit Garagentor, 8250)
901869-01 6530-048 DOS 2.7 M.P.I. 101SM (8050)M.P.I. 102?? (8250)
251256-02 6530-050 8250 DOS 2.7 Matsushita JU-570-2 (8250LP)
251257-02A 2716 DOS 2.7 Matsushita JU-570 (SFD-1001) Matsushita JU-570-2 (SFD-1001)
251474-01B 2716 DOS 2.7 Matsushita JU-570-2 (8250LP)

Replacing the 6530-002 and -003 in a KIM-1 has become quite easy. See this page on replacements with a 6532, some glue logic and a (E)EPROM.

The RRIOT in CBM disk drives are only different in the ROM contents The rest is as follows:

– Pin 18 is PB6 (no CS1).
– Pin 19 is CS2 (noPB5) .
– Pin 17 (PB7/IRQ) has no Pullup.
– ROM is in $FC00 bis $FFFF (RS0=0, CS1=X, CS2=1).
– RAM is in $0000 bis $003F (RS0=1, CS1=X, CS2=0, A9=,0 A8=0, A7=0, A6=0).
– I/O is on $0080 bis $00BF (RS0=1, CS1=X, CS2=0, A9=,0 A8=0, A7=1, A6=0).

Logic of addressing:

 	RS0	CS1	CS2	A9	A8	A7	A6
ROM	0	X	1	-	-	-	-
RAM	1	X	0	0	0	0	0
IO	1	X	0	0	0	1	0

Via an adapter board Commodore reused older 6530’s with new firmware by disabling the built in ROM and adding a 2716.
See Zimmers Commodore archive. Note that not just any 6530 can be used in this way, only the 6530’s from the Commodore diskdrives. A more general approach with a 6532 is described here.

Most if the information on this pages is also found on the pages of Martin Hoffman Vetter

See also:

RC6502, an Apple 1 clone

On this page my experiences with an Apple 1 clone, my third! Build as kit, a nice experience and another 6502 system in ...

Elektor Junior ASSM/TED

MAE ASSM/TED for the Elektor Junior Adapted version for the Junior of the KIM-1 MAE. Adaptations from the KIM User Cl...

KIM-1 Macro Assembler Editor

I bought MAE in 1980 for Use Schroder, Ingenieur bureau Schroder, as a package for the KIM-1. As did some friends in the...

MAE ASSM/TED CW Moser

MAE (Macro Assembler Text Editor) or ASSM/TED is a program sold by Eastern House Software for the KIM-1, Apple, PET, C64...

Micro Technology Unlimited MTU pages enhanced

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Dave Plummer (Dave’s Garage) received lots of documents on the MTU products with his KIM-1 in a cage system and scanned them for us.

Dave Williams (devilishdesign, vintagetech) has a MT-130, a standalone 6502 system sold by MTU with MTU cards and also scanned documents and imaged floppies.

On the internet I also found a stash of MTU products documents for the PET computer, like PET versions of the K-1008, a KIM-1 bus adapter and more.

All this made me add pages to my website, devoted to MTU. Special attention to the genius behind MTU, Hal Chamberlin. Several of his articles about music and microprocessors and a clean scan of his book Musical Applications of Microprocessors .

One of the documents is the “K-1008-2L Patches to Microsoft BASIC”. Software source of the integration of the text and graphic routines into Microsoft Basic. I already did a simple integration of the K-1008 as terminal into Basic with the Graphics Software package SDTXT and VMSUP, so I have already a lot of the code. So this source wil be typed in also!

See also:

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...

John Bell Engineering catalogs

Thanks to Dallas Shell I have added the 1984 and 1988 catalog to the John Bell Engineering pages. Also a hand drawn and...

New KIM-1 info and more

Added again some KIM-1 information! MDT 650 photos (John Feagans) Scans from the Commodore International Historica...

KIM-1 Simulator simple demo

To test my new HDMI 4K USB Video Capture I made two videos. Simulator running on one notebook, the other notebook with t...
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MTU history: Hal Chamberlin

Micro Technology was around 1980 a manufacturer of products aimed at the KIM-1 and AIM 65 and SYM-1 user. Later on they made the MTU-130 computer around the 6502 and a compact version the MT-140. After the founder and technical genius Hal Chamberlin left in 1986, it became focussed on software like Karaoke.

From the current MTU website:

In 1960 in the 7th grade, David B. Cox and Howard (Hal) A. Chamberlin, Jr. became lab partners and close friends. In 1966 as a college freshman, Hal designed his own digital computer (the HAL 4096) using scrap IBM magnetic core memory planes and logic cards. David worked with Hal to design, etch and build Printed Circuit boards, select and purchase components, wirewrap the backplane and generally support Hal’s monumental effort. The HAL4096 was demonstrated publicly at the 1968 NC State University Engineer´s Fair.

At the 1967 NC State Engineer´s Fair, Hal demonstrated a punch card deck program of Do loops tuned to play the song Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do …. This ran on the campus IBM 1630 computer. The Radio Frequency Interference (RFI) was so intense out of the computer that Hal used it as the output signal to his transistor radio! This was one of the first public showings of a computer music synthesis program.

In 1968, Hal wrote a second synthesis program that computed audio sample voltages, giving control over the harmonic content and duration of notes and chords, based on the Nyquist Theorem of digital sampling. This ran on the Biomathematics Dept. Ambilog computer with two D/A converters used to drive an HP analog X-Y plotter to generate the analog audio output recorded to a Revox tape deck. Music synthesis pioneers had to be resourceful to get their analog outputs from early digital computers!

In February 1971, after graduating from NC State with BS degrees in Electrical Engineering, David incorporated Technology Unlimited Inc. (TUI) with Hal as Vice President. Hal continued at NCSU in Electrical Engineering and received his Masters. In 1973, for a Singer-Kearfott contract, we designed and built an 18-bit A/D converter with an Intel 8008 microprocessor controlling it. This A/D design delivered a true 18-bits (all valid and without noise) for more than five years.

On March 1, 1976, David sold TUI to Hendrix electronics, the leader in Text Publishing systems for newspapers. TUI had developed the world’s leading microprocessor-floppy disc based, display word processor system. David had independently negotiated with Olivetti and A.B. Dick Co. for 2.5 years, but neither could make up their minds to take TUI’s product to market. Eventually, A.B. Dick bought the product line in 1980 and sold over $1 billion dollars worth between 1980-84.

On March 1, 1977, while still employed by Hendrix, David and Hal started Micro Technology Unlimited. Our goal then and still today is to Bring microcomputer digital audio down to everyone. Our designs are visionary and improve the creativity, productivity and quality of audio communications. It has been a real trip through the 1968-2004 period in digital audio!

In 1979, Hal’s book Musical Applications of Microprocessors was first published. It quickly became the definitive work for digital audio. Developers worldwide visited MTU to talk with us on design concepts. In 1986 Ray Kurzweil (Kurzweil Music Systems), after three years of personal offers, hired Hal away from MTU.


Some of Hal Chamberlin’s publications:

Musical applications of microprocessors, Hal Chamberlin.
1980, First Edition.
Clean scan made by Hans Otten, 2023
Byte Magazine 1977 09
A Sampling of Techniques for Computer Performance of Music
Hal Chamberlin
Byte Magazine 1980 04
Advanced Real-Time Synthesis Techniques
Hal Chamberlin
Software Keyboard interface for the KIM-1.
Hal Chamberlin
1981 01 Simulation of Musical Instruments
Hal Chamberlin
The Computer Hobbyist Magazine, 1974 -1976
Hal Chamberlin as Contributing Editor

See also:

RC6502, an Apple 1 clone

On this page my experiences with an Apple 1 clone, my third! Build as kit, a nice experience and another 6502 system in ...

Elektor Junior ASSM/TED

MAE ASSM/TED for the Elektor Junior Adapted version for the Junior of the KIM-1 MAE. Adaptations from the KIM User Cl...

KIM-1 Macro Assembler Editor

I bought MAE in 1980 for Use Schroder, Ingenieur bureau Schroder, as a package for the KIM-1. As did some friends in the...

MAE ASSM/TED CW Moser

MAE (Macro Assembler Text Editor) or ASSM/TED is a program sold by Eastern House Software for the KIM-1, Apple, PET, C64...
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MTU CODOS

CODOS (Channel Oriented Disk Operating System) is the name of the Disk Operating System made by MTU for KIM-1, SYM-1 and AIM-65.
The DOS needs the K-1013 floppy disk controller, 8 inch disk drive(s) and optional the K-1008 Visible Memory.

CODOS V2 was the version for the MT-130/140. Lots of software was available, see the MT-130 page for manuals.
Dave Plummer (of Dave’s Garage) has a KIM-1 system with various MTU cards, including the K-1013.

CODOS Disk images

CODOS Manuals

CODOS Manual
CODOS User Manual
CODOS User Manual OCR’ed
QumeTrak 842 Maintenance Manual

Dave Williams has the following, not yet dumped by him, disks:

  • DMXMON
  • MACASM 1.0
  • MAGIC/L Language
  • MTU-C
  • MTU-FORTH79 2.1
  • WORDPIC
  • WOPDPIC 1.0 NEC 8023 Printer Version
  • MTU-130 User Group Diskette #3
  • MTU-140 User Group Diskette #5

See also:

2531 to 2732 EPROM adapter

By Roy Edmund Antaw I hope others may find this useful when trying to replace 2532 ROMs. It sure ain't pretty, but i...

RC6502, an Apple 1 clone

On this page my experiences with an Apple 1 clone, my third! Build as kit, a nice experience and another 6502 system in ...

Elektor Junior ASSM/TED

MAE ASSM/TED for the Elektor Junior Adapted version for the Junior of the KIM-1 MAE. Adaptations from the KIM User Cl...

KIM-1 Macro Assembler Editor

I bought MAE in 1980 for Use Schroder, Ingenieur bureau Schroder, as a package for the KIM-1. As did some friends in the...
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Johnson McShane brochures

Johnson Computer was an important distributor of KIM-1 products, for MOS Technology, Microsoft and more. Previously they used the name McShane.

It was the firm who brought Microsoft Basic for the KIM-1 to me, see the KIM-1 manuals for their KB-9 document

Documents contributed by Kevin Johnson (of Johnson Computers) via Dave McMurtrie.

Johnson Computer Ads
Johnson_Computer_Product_Flyer
McShane MOS documents


See also:

RC6502, an Apple 1 clone

On this page my experiences with an Apple 1 clone, my third! Build as kit, a nice experience and another 6502 system in ...

Elektor Junior ASSM/TED

MAE ASSM/TED for the Elektor Junior Adapted version for the Junior of the KIM-1 MAE. Adaptations from the KIM User Cl...

KIM-1 Macro Assembler Editor

I bought MAE in 1980 for Use Schroder, Ingenieur bureau Schroder, as a package for the KIM-1. As did some friends in the...

MAE ASSM/TED CW Moser

MAE (Macro Assembler Text Editor) or ASSM/TED is a program sold by Eastern House Software for the KIM-1, Apple, PET, C64...
post

MOS Technology KIM-1 Brochures and Newsletters

Brochure KIM-1
Commodore KIM-1 Commercial
KIM-1 brochure
kim-1 order form
KIM-1 Product Brochure
MOS Technology brochure
MOS Technology newsletter February 1976
MOS Technology April 1976 customer update
Customer Errata Letters
Customer Errata Letter 1
Customer Errata Letter 2
Customer Errata Letter 3











See also:

RC6502, an Apple 1 clone

On this page my experiences with an Apple 1 clone, my third! Build as kit, a nice experience and another 6502 system in ...

Elektor Junior ASSM/TED

MAE ASSM/TED for the Elektor Junior Adapted version for the Junior of the KIM-1 MAE. Adaptations from the KIM User Cl...

KIM-1 Macro Assembler Editor

I bought MAE in 1980 for Use Schroder, Ingenieur bureau Schroder, as a package for the KIM-1. As did some friends in the...

MAE ASSM/TED CW Moser

MAE (Macro Assembler Text Editor) or ASSM/TED is a program sold by Eastern House Software for the KIM-1, Apple, PET, C64...

MTU K-1008 Visable Memory

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All about the MTU K-1008 Visible Memory: documents, programs, images, videos and replica, you find it here.
The MTU K-1008 is an 8K memory and video display board. Part of the MTU family of card cages and RAM/ROM boards, around 1978 for KIM-1, SYM-1, AIM 65. Later also for Commodore PET systems.

I have some K-1008 information on paper as Fall Catalog and K-1008 User manuals of MTU, the listings in the Graphics software Package and hires photos of the board.

Triggered by Dave Plummer, who owns a K-1008 and made some demo programs I added this spring the K-1008 as peripheral to the KIM-1 Simulator.
A basic working version, with memory settings as the original. A 6502 program in the simulator could fill the video display.
Dave made nice youtube videos about his KIM-1 system with MTU cards in a card cage, see Dave’s Garage.

Then Eduardo Casino, of KIM-1 Replica fame, started to design a replica, including an expansion bus. He motivated me to enhance the Simulator.

Eduardo also OCR’ed and typed in the Graphics Software Package programs for the MTU K-1008. I played with the sources and coupled the text display programs to Microsoft KB9 Basic.

He made a quick and dirty binary image to show on the K-1008 video display. I took his idea and added a facility to the Simulator to load any image to the K-1008.
This requires the use of GIMP, the image handling program, to create intermediate black and white 320×200 files as ‘C header files’.
These C header file can be imported in the Simulator and shown on the display. A command line utility LoadK1008 converts these C header files to a binary image in K-1008 format.

All this required a page with all the K-1008 information: documents, programs, images, videos and replica, you find it here.

Update 10 september: Eduardo Casino has made available his work on the Graphics Software Package: OCR’ed manual, listings, sources, binaries made with 64tass assembler.

See also:

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...

John Bell Engineering catalogs

Thanks to Dallas Shell I have added the 1984 and 1988 catalog to the John Bell Engineering pages. Also a hand drawn and...

New KIM-1 info and more

Added again some KIM-1 information! MDT 650 photos (John Feagans) Scans from the Commodore International Historica...

KIM-1 Simulator simple demo

To test my new HDMI 4K USB Video Capture I made two videos. Simulator running on one notebook, the other notebook with t...

KIM-1 Simulator 1.3.0 -> 1.3.4

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KIM-1 Simulator 1.3.x adds the improvements from the 1.2.x branch to the V1.1.8 branch.

NEw improvements also: bundled with the also recently updated Convert 8 bit Hex formats program and the SST switch now turns on the built-in debugger!
1.3.1 Adds refresh of K-1008 memory with File/tapeload and debugger refresh.
1.3.2 Load C header image files into K-1008 video display, and command line utility to convert C header file to K-1008 binary
1.3.3 Adds a more realistic aspect ratio variant of the K-1008 display besides the simpler and therefore faster ones.
V 1.3.4 August 31 Read text file to console improved, improved K-1008 settings

Have fun with this release and as always: keep me posted of wishes and bugs.

You may ask, but this will never be more than a simulation and not a real KIM-1 emulator, many First Book of KIM programs that manipulate the LED displays will not work in this simulator architecture. TTY programs work well. Use the debugger!

See also:

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...

John Bell Engineering catalogs

Thanks to Dallas Shell I have added the 1984 and 1988 catalog to the John Bell Engineering pages. Also a hand drawn and...

New KIM-1 info and more

Added again some KIM-1 information! MDT 650 photos (John Feagans) Scans from the Commodore International Historica...

KIM-1 Simulator simple demo

To test my new HDMI 4K USB Video Capture I made two videos. Simulator running on one notebook, the other notebook with t...