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! For other purposes like sales messages, hardware & software questions or information requests, please use our main forum.

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?