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Corsham projects

As you can read below in the screenshot of the last post on Corsham’s website below, Bob has left us. I will miss him, a dear friend with whom I exchanged many emails about the KIM-1.

To honor his legacy I have collected on these pages everything available, from his former website, Github repositories and information I have received from Bob, enhanced with photos of Corsham products I have bought over the years.

I have decided not to replicate his website. Instead the structure is about all of his projects, current and past, with on each page all information available to me about the product, enhanced with available material from outside.

Note that I do not have more information. I do not have the PCB designs. I do not sell any Corsham product. All I have is here is what Bob once published.

Links
The Corsham Technology website used to live at https://www.corshamtech.com
Bob’s private website is still up (August 2024) at https://k2ut.org/
The Github repositories are also still up at https://github.com/CorshamTech
The forum at groups.io is here: https://groups.io/g/CorshamTech/

Pages you find here:


The last message on the Corshamtech website with the sad news about Bob.

Bob Applegate at his desk

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Bus extender

Bus extender

A handy bus extender from Retrospy. I glued labels from the KIM-1 manual on it, the PCB labels are wrong. PCB edges pads could be a little longer.



KIM-1 Application and Expansion labels for Bus extender

RetroSpy Technologies produces a range of retro (Vintage) hardware products that are of interest for the KIM-1/SYM-1/AIM 65 owner. Also the PAL-1 user may benefit from the products!
Retrospy is inspired by the Corsham Technologies products and since Bob Applegate is no more among us, produces similar/inspired products.

I bought several products from RetroSpy.
KIM-1 RAM/ROM Board
MOS 6530 Replacement for the KIM-1 SBC
PAL-1 Motherboard Expansion Kit
Bus extender

Other interesting KIM-1/AIM 65/SYM- related boards on the Retrospy shop:
AIM 65 I/O board
SYM-1 I/O board
SYM-1 SymDos I/O board
SYM-1/AIM-65 RAM/ROM board
KIM-1 I/O board
2532 to 2764 EPROM adapter
SD Card Storage System (like the Corsham one)

I should have bought he KIM I/O card also, for the 1541 connector, next time!

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MOS 6530 Replacement for the KIM-1 SBC

The 6530-002 AND 6530-003 RRIOT (RAM ROM I/O Timer) are the heart of the KIM-1. The mask programmed ROM contains the KIM-1 software, very early and smart 6502 code.
These ICs are not available for a long time now, and that prevents repairing a KIM-1 with a faulty 6530.

Ruud Baltissen designed many years ago a KIM-1 clone, where the 6530 was replaced with the nearly identical, no ROM, 6532. This led to the MicroKIM, the PAL-1, the Corsham clone.
Also boards to replace the 6530 with a 6532, a small EPROM and some glue logic were made.
Bob Applegate and Eduardo Casino did this with PCBs and through hole components. Rather large boards that work fine.

Retrospy Technology used SMD to shrink the PCB to to a bit oversized 6530. Samll enough to fit on a KIM-1 in an IC socket.

Description from the Retrospy store:

Drop in replacement for impossible to find and replace MOS/Commodore KIM-1 specific MOS 6530 integrated circuit.

  • Small footprint.
  • Low profile.
  • Configurable for either U2 or U3 via jumpers.
  • Small enough that 2 can be used simultaneously in U2 and U3.
  • Will fit over most socketed RAM.
  • Requires MOS 6532 RIOT IC to be installed.
  • Requires a socket at U2 and/or U3.

Jumpers on teh board switch between 6530-002 and -003.

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KIM-1 RAM/ROM Board

I bought this assembled and ready to run board from Retrospy Technologies.
SMD technology, so small and of high quality.

Description from the Retrospy store:
The KIM-1 RAM/ROM board is a custom board than expands the memory of the KIM-1 single board computer.

Features

  • Can provide 8k blocks of RAM or ROM between 0x2000 & 0xFFFF
  • Fills in the KIM’s missing RAM between 0x0400 and 0x13FF
  • 2 pages of DIP switch selectable ROM, upgradeable to 4 or 8 with a 39SF020 or 39SF040
  • Includes a pre-programmed 39SF010 containing 2 pages of common KIM-1 configurations (Xkim for SD Card, Eduardo Casino’s Xkim with support for IEC/1541 drives)
  • Backwards compatible with Corsham Technologies’ KIM-1 I/O Board
  • Includes full color manual and 2×5 pin IDC cable.

Inspiration taken from a design by Bob Applegate of Corsham Technologies, LLC.

This board can be added to any KIM-1 system, but the easiest way to add it is with the Retrospy or Corsham I/O Board. This board comes with a ribbon cable that plugs right into the I/O Board with no mess. By default the DIP switches are set so your KIM will have 5K of RAM from $0000 to $13FF and from $2000 to $DFFF. The extended monitor is from $E000 to $FFFF.

For PAL-1 users with the PAL-1 Motherboard Expansion Kit
– the RAM RAM between 0x0400 and 0x13FF is already on the PAL-1 board, leave that open.
– The usual PAL-1 configuration has ROM at A000-B000, the PAL-1 ROMs are made for that location
– Without the KIM-1 I/O card, just put a Dupont male-female wire between Pin 10 of the “To KIM” connector to Decode Enable of a motherboard connector or K of a KIM-1 Connector expander.

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PAL-1 Motherboard Expansion Kit

The PAL-1 connected to the PAL-1 Motherboard Expansion kit


Revison B with larger edge fingers


I bought this kit from Retrospy Technologies and built it to enhance my PAL-1.
Worthwhile to add not only a motherboard but also get KIM-1 Expansion and Application connectors!
Easy to build, high quality PCB, lots of points to solder with the six PAl-1 Motherboards connectors.

Description from the Retrospy store:

With this motherboard, you can connect up to 6 expansion boards to your PAL-1 at the same time. The motherboard also provides the Application and Expansion connectors found on the original KIM-1, enabling the use of original KIM-1 expansion boards.
NOTE: To do anything worthwhile with the Application connector you will need the PAL-1 2nd RIOT Expansion Kit.

Not all signals are routed to the Application and Expansion connectors because the PAL-1 doesn’t provide them, so there is no guarantee every expansion board will work. However, Corsham Technologies’ and RetroSpy Technologies KIM-1 I/O and KIM-1 RAM/ROM boards have been tested and are compatible.

Available signals on the Application connector:
+5V
GND
PA0-7 (with installed PAL-1 2nd RIOT Expansion Kit)
PB0-7 (with installed PAL-1 2nd RIOT Expansion Kit)
DECODE ENAB

Missing are KB Row 0-3, KB Col A-G, TTY KYBD + RTRN, TTY PTR + RTNR, AUDIO Out (lo, hi), AUDIO IN, +12V, K0-K5, K7

Available signals on the Expansion connector:
+5V
GND
A0-A15
D0-D7
SYNC
RDY
IRQ
NMI
RST
SST OUT
PHI2
R/W
/R/W
/PHI2
RAM/R/W

Missing signals are: K6, SST, RO (pin 38 of the 6502), Phi1 (pin 3 of the 6502), PLL Test. On Reb B Phi1 is also available.

The signals /R/W, /Phi2 and RAM R/W are regenerated with two logic IC’s, the (reverse engineered) circuit is show below. The circuit could be a bit simpler, 3/4 of the 74LS00 would suffice.

Add KIM-1 RAM/ROM boards

Any KIM-1 RAM/ROM board can be connected to the Expansion connector. The Retrospy KIM-1 RAM/ROM is an excellent one.
For the PAL-1 only the Decode Enable line has to be added. For exammple with one wire Dupont male-female cable, from a motherboard connector. Any RAM in the region 0-1FFF is already available on the PAL-1 itself and should not be enabled on a RAM expansion. And therefore no need for signals K1-K4, the chip select lines for that region.

This version of the expansion kit has some minor points to improve (2.2 will be a next version the designer told me):
– add Phi1, not used often but is available on the PAL-1 connector
– enlarge the PCB edge pads with some mm’s, KIM-1 boards detach now to easy
– the two logic IC’s can easily be replaced with one 74LS00, only one NAND port and two inverters are required

KIM-1 Expansion connector


KIM-1 Application connector



The circuit on the PAL-1 Motherboard Expansion

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RetroSpy Technologies

RetroSpy Technologies produces a range of retro (Vintage) hardware products that are of interest for the KIM-1/SYM-1/AIM 65 owner. Also the PAL-1 user may benefit from the products!
Retrospy is inspired by the Corsham Technologies products and since Bob Applegate is no more among us, produces similar/inspired products.

I bought several products from RetroSpy.

Other interesting KIM-1/AIM 65/SYM- related boards on the Retrospy shop:
AIM 65 I/O board
SYM-1 I/O board
SYM-1 SymDos I/O board
SYM-1/AIM-65 RAM/ROM board
KIM-1 I/O board
2532 to 2764 EPROM adapter
SD Card Storage System (like the Corsham one)

I should have bought he KIM I/O card also, for the 1541 connector, next time!

KIM-1 keypad replacement

KIM-1 keypad replacement

See the description here

Dual 6532 adapter board

Dual 6532 adapter board

Replacing the 6530 with a 6532 and ROM and some glue logic is a well known method nowadays.
Eduardo designed a PCB that replaces both 6530-002 and 6530-003 on a standard KIM-1 and of course his replica with a PCB that fits in the IC sockets of the 6530’s. That makes a KIM-1 completely operational!

See this github page for the design.

KIM-1 projects by Eduardo Casino

Since early 2023 Eduardo Casino develops KIM-1 hard- and software. His goal is to replicate as much as possible the original hardware, and make it work. His journey started with an exact KIM-1 Replica.
On this page I present his designs (state of July 2024, the journey has not ended yet, so keep looking at all open hard- and software on github.

My first encounter with Eduardo Casino was this topic on the German forum64.de forum in early 2023

If you do not read German: Eduardo, from Madrid, Spain!, announces his project to replicate a KIM-1 Rev D with the exact layout and look and feel as the original, using hires photos, Inkscape and Kicad.

This is not the first KIM-1 replica, as you can see here. What makes this replica special is that it is an exact PCB
replica. With curved lines! Other replicas may have the same dimensions and look and feel but use the straight modern PCB lines design.
He set a high standard and het continues to amaze us with hardware designs and software around the KIM-1. read all about on the follwing pages:

MTU replicas and additions

K-1008 Visable Memory Replica by Eduardo Casino

K-1013 Floppy Disk Controller replica

KIM-1 Motherboard for MTU Cards
KIM-1 RAM/ROM Expansion Board for the MTU Backplane
KIM-1 Programmable Memory Board for the MTU Backplane

CP/M-65

Version for the K-1013
KIM-1/PAL-1 version

KIM-1 Software

K-1008
XKIM
1541 OS