This mini forum is intended to provide a simple means of discussion about the MOS Technology  KIM 1 computer. If you want to share your own experience or memories, or add relevant information about this system: post a message!

How to connect KIM-1 just to regular PC or Laptop

Need help with book

I recently built a Kim Uno which while it is not a Kim-1 provides a very nice emulated environment to play in and it can be build for about $18 in parts and the whole project is open source. Has anyone used this? I would like to enter some programs into $0400 but found that is where the ROMs usually were mapped. My unit will not allow me to write there, but I had read posts that you should be able to hold Rst for 1 second and that allows you to write to the non-volatile area of the Uno. Has anyone else walked this path? On the Strugglebus.

Hello Hams, Love your site, although it is hard for me to get through to you as you only provide Twitter and FB contact info. Your last post here, mentions something Unopened with manuals. What are you referring to? I do have a youtube site, that you might like. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbBQsLXk9W7oM7Pz5lZgHOg

Unopened, new, with manuals worth quite a lot. At least $1000 depending on what Rev and IC''s used.

I met Steve Wazniak and Jobs at the 1975 MOS Technology Convention in San Francisco. The next business day afterwards, I bought two Kim-1 boards. One I used at work and the other sat in its box until today. I never even applied power to it and bought it with the plug in socket chip option. Does anyone know what this board is worth on today''s market? Thanks: Chris 323-218-1435, chris_51_m_ca@yahoo.com

Tuesday, 7 Jan 2020
On the first page of this site''s KIM-1 section, I mention my hand-assembled KIM-Venture program, which runs on a bare KIM-1. I''d like to find a good place to post the user manual, source code, and cavern map for this "tiny Adventure" game. Or I''ll send it to anyone who asks! Write me at BOBkimLEEDOM at hotmail.com, but first remove the 3-character computer name from the address (added here to confound the spambots).

I incorporated a KIM-1 into USPTO patent $ 4,281,579 - issued in yr 1981. Demonstrated working prototype to US piano mfgs (who didn''t get it) but sold rights Yamaha who sold millions. Still have KIM-1 but will be listing on e-bay this week - Thursday 7/19/2012 . Will be interesting to see what it brings.

In the early 80s at age 16 I attended a science camp at RPI, and my project was to program a KIM-1 to use Newton's method to find the resonance of a rotating wheel. It was a lecture demo for a physics prof.

I wrote machine code and hand assembled it, then punched it in. After a while you could read the machine code.

Fond memories of these as I used them in my first real engineering job. Around 1978 we built a motion control system for animation cameras. It used stepping motor control hardware based on 6522s that I designed. The system was used to create motion graphics for TV spots mostly. I still have one with a KIM-3 4K RAM expansion card.

Does any one have a part list and a schematics for this? If you do please email me at david@massonfamily.com

By adding a 300baud Texas Instruments terminal and a modem to edit, assemble and download a program the KIM could CONTROL and monitor an N gauge train layout. The KIM interpreted a routing language including commands like T5C ( set Turnout 5 Curved). It's expansion capability was only unlimited by your imagination.

Chris Baker:

The KIM-1 was the first stand-alone single board computer, and the first one using the 6502. I believe the Apple I didn't ship until well after the KIM-1 had shipped. But in any event, the Apple-1 didn't have a "diskey" (display+keyboard), so I think the KIM-1 deserves pride of place.

Thank you Peter for Microchess! I loved it. I'm still amazed you wrote a chess program in 1k. I wrote a debug monitor that had a "video display". It used 2 analog ramp-up, ramp-down circuits that connected to the x-y inputs of my oscilloscope and displayed all the registers on the screen. I added a Selectric printer, keyboard, and 8k RAM.

I rember this little beauty. Wonderful. Looking at the schematic shows a lot of stuff to make the tape work - all thos bits to the left of the keypad. Then I saw the Apple II book at the just opened ComputerLand shop. Steve Jobs replaced all this circuitry with one op-amp and a D-latch. I immediately wire-wrapped up this onto a S-100 bus prototype board. Copied the Apple II monitor ROM from the book (typed hex codes into DEC PDP8 - wrote paper tape - burned EPROM).... Plugged into the wirewrapped motherboard and bingo it fired up first go (never to be repeated). Even the cassette tape ran at double speed !

I have a KIM-1 that is missing a key on the keypad.
Is it possible to purchase a replacement keypad somewhere?

It was not easy, but circumstances led me to part with my beloved KIM-1. It was the machine that prompted me to pursue a career as programmer for the years to come after 1977, I auctioned it on eBay and the page got over 300 hits, meaning the spirit of the KIM-1 lives on. The final bid was a lot more than what I paid for it in 1977, It has found a new home.

My Kim-1 may have been the most expanded Kim around in 1978. I had the MOS Technology expansion board with 4K of RAM. I also designed a floppy disk interface to an 8 inch floppy disk and wrote a small DOS and development system based on Micro-ADE (Assembler Disassembler Editor).

I just fired up my Kim, and it still works. Unfortunately, the only tape I had of Microchess broke when I tried to play it. Not sure if I will type it all in.

My Kim-1 will be on display at the Vintage Computer Festival, Oct 26-27. See you there.

I built a wire-wrap 4K memory expansion card for my Kim-1. Then I built an interface to drive an IBM 1052 keyboardless Selectric printer. I also wrote driver software to make the printer operate... I often used a Teletype with papertape reader/punch and since the teletype only had an RS-232 serial interface, had to use an opto-iosolated coupler to connect to the Kim.

Microchess ran on the Kim-1. That was chess in 1K of RAM. Microchess on the Kim-1 was the first commercially successful game program for a home computer, first sold in 1976. It went on to sell more than a million copies
on the Apple ][ and TRS-80.

Has anyone gotten a KIM-1 emulator to work? I've tried some of the links (MESS, e.g) with no luck. Key problem of course, is getting the ROM binary...

I have a question that I can not find an answer to on the web.
Is this the first publicly available computer to feature the 6502, or even perhaps the first ever to feature a 6502?