Can I Fix this 46 Year Old Computer? | Commodore KIM-1 Repair
I've had this Commodore KIM-1 for over a decade and have never even once seen one sign of life from it. It has been basically a paperweight (and not a very good one at that!) for a long, long time. Who knows when it worked last?
But I have persisted over the years, and thanks to the efforts of many others, finally have a way to potentially fix it. Can I pull it off? Or is too far gone?
Retrospy Technologies has KIM-1 6530 replacement boards and other cool stuff: retro-spy.com/shop/
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/ techtimetraveller
° Background music provided by:
www.epidemicsound.com
° I'm on X - rarely.
/ techtimetravel
00:00 - Intro
04:06 - 6530 RRIOT Trouble?
07:02 - Removing a RRIOT
11:13 - Power Up..
14:51 - It Lives!
16:31 - Programming the KIM-1
23:28 - Conclusion
Edit: Sorry about the background music. I dialed it to -35db and somehow in processing on YT it perked up again. There's a lot of free background music on offer out there for YTers but so much of it has obnoxious segments - trumpets, guitar, drums, pianos, etc. I get that the artists (whom I am grateful for) dont want to be boring, but that's kind of what we want background music to be. I wouldn't mind trying something other than slow jazz but there's just not a lot out there that fits as proper background music, and I feel like the right music makes the video feel more professional. Anyway, next video I will assassinate any loud instrument solos I come across. Sorry it's been.. um.. a really long time.. but, life happens. Anyway, I managed to squeeze this little side project in, filmed and edited in record time. Sorry - no animations/3d.. it would have added weeks to this and KZhead would bomb it anyway. But the next video will have those, and it's not far from being finished!
No worries. I like that jazz!
I’ve had little luck with music audio values myself, getting fairly consistent complaints. My last one has music turned down way low and it somehow still gets louder.
I liked the music! Sounds like it was going for a 'Kind of Blue' vibe but given that's the best selling jazz record ever that's not a bad thing.
Well, just know that jazz of any kind is really nothing but noise pollution.
Regarding the statement that background music makes the videos feel more professional, take a look at other channels like Adrian’s Digital Basement or clabretro which have similar themes to your channel and don’t use any background music. Personally I just find it distracting at any volume and don’t find it to make videos any more professional. Just my 2 cents. I don’t mean this as a criticism of your channel but rather just to say maybe consider not using any in some videos and see what feedback you get. I suspect no one in the comments will be asking for background music on those videos but on videos with background music people will definitely ask for it off or turned down…
Probably around 1986, when they were still being used in university computer labs to teach wiring up your own digital circuits. Crazy advanced stuff like adding massive amounts of memory to it. I didn't have the lab, but my girlfriend did, and she showed me her Kim-1 station in the lab where every student had one. I was a mad software hacker back then, but I was like dang, I had no clue you were off the chain as a hardware hacker. I just though she was an intense physics and math nerd. Cern never hired her, but she later got a job at Intel writing device drivers. I could assembly level program my C=64 back in my dorm, but this girl after her Kim-1 lab could not only assembly program one, but friggin build one as if she were Bill Herd
Hi Bill 👋🏼
You got it running. Not get Doom running on it. 🤣🤣🤣
The KIM-1 literally looks like a time machine board, fitting with your channel name.
The KIM-1 was the first computer I ever programmed. My high school electronics class had one that nobody had played with. This would have been 79 or 80, long time ago. It was in a wooden box with a smoked plexiglass cover. I thought the chips were socketed on it, but again, long time. I'm sure I typed in that exact program and a bunch of others that were in the Xeroxed manual, although I think it was spiral or comb bound. I thought it was the coolest thing in the world at the time. I wanted to take computer classes but they insisted I had to take advanced algebra as a pre-requisite. I didn't do well, I was so mad at being forced to take the class that I copped an attitude and ditched class... to go hang out in the electronics lab! Needless to say, didn't pass that class so I couldn't take any computer classes. I ended up begging my parents for a computer kit in the back of Popular Electronics. It was expensive (for the time), but since it was educational, I got it for Christmas. It turned out to be a Sinclair ZX-80 with a whopping 1K of memory! The best thing about it was it forced me to learn machine language due to its efficiency. 40+ years of programming computers and micros, I have as of yet to apply anything that was taught in that advanced algebra class in anything I've done. Calculus would have come in quite handy (PID loops, Fourier transforms), but advanced algebra has been worthless.
I have to admit there is a certain appeal to the ZX80/81, both of which I have. I just wish I'd had more of a brain for programming. I find programming a bit overwhelming at times. I never saw the KIM myself until the early 2000s when they started popping up a fair bit on ebay. I was a few years behind you.. in 1981 at my grade school we had one PET per classroom that we used. I'd bet there were some KIMs still in our high schools though.
I'd still highly reccomend the Hakko desoldering gun. It's expensive, but the time and frustration saved is more than worth the cost of entry. I use mine almost daily, and i'll never go back to the manual solder sucker. Great video, as always!
Do you ever run into issues with lifted pads, etc? Is it safe on more fragile, older PCBs?
@@TechTimeTravellerit is fantastic. We use the piss out of ours in the shop. The hot swap nozzle station is definitely worth the buy as an accessory. You can swap between different nozzle sizes at a whim I just clicking it in and rotating it to do a bunch of different sized holes for desolder job. It's extremely safe on these older boards because you can adjust the temperature to exactly what you want
I have one of these chinese knockoffs, a ZD-985 desoldering station. It's dirt cheap and works really well and reliably.
I would spend some money on a current limited, adjustable power supply first. Solder suckers kinda get a bad rap if you're not doing it constantly.
@@TechTimeTraveller No, they are probably safer in general since the de-solder gun heats at the same time, it's suction isn't actually that strong (probably less so than when a manual sucker makes a good "seal") , also you tend not to heat up pads and apply significant tip force like you might (e.g. a stubborn joint) using a separate iron and manual sucker, with the gun you actually tend to push down/hold the pad in place if anything, unless your being lazy and not matching tip (hole) size to component, that's the only time I've had minor issues namely with larger components (>1.2mm leads), as tip may get stuck on component lead/leg and some finessing is needed to free it, I also cheat and use the de-solder gun as second Iron sometimes, as my gun/unit has more thermal mass than my Hakko fx-888d. Do you get the Duratool (Duratool 140W - D00672) brand or its clones in the US? their de-soldering gun/unit is 1/3 of the price of Hakko and I can't fault it barring it being a bit noisy at idle due to a cooling fan ( I could probably swap to lower RPM (Noctua) fan if could be bothered)... none the less I could never go back to a manual "solder sucker". I had to replace the Duratool gun after 3 years of use, but CPC (Farnell owned) in the UK sells replacement parts and the gun only costs the equivalent of $30 .
I bought mine in 1977. Built a s100 motherboard for it. Good times.
I've seen some crazy buildouts with these.. one guy had this massive case for it with integrated monitor, keyboard and paper tape reader. Was featured in an old magazine. Wonder what happened to it.
Would be cool if you still have it!?
Not seen yet- thumbs up! Your channel is my absolute favourite one. Best regards from an absolute CBM/PET guy in germany! ;)
Many thanks!
Well done with the repair. In 1977 there were (almost) no home computers. Enthusiasts jumped on the affordable and expandable KIM-1. 4k expansion boards were simple. Connecting to a teletype was simple. Programs were hand compiled into 6502 machine language with paper and pencil. For the first time a regular person could buy a pre assembled computer and learn how they work. That's what makes the KIM-1 special.
I just love that end 70's era "analogue" routing!
"Why? What have you heard? I can explain! I was young and dumb! I needed the money! Don't judge me!" 🤣🤣🤣
I think I learned assembly on a kim ! in college in Newfoundland in 1987. I'm not sure but the keypad and display looks familiar. I remember it was in a black suitcase.
Congrats on the successful rescue! Reminds me of my own multi-year effort to get my TIM-1 system (based on the MAI "Jolt" with a 6530-004 chip) running reliably. It would run for a while, then refuse to fully boot. Finally tracked it down to a marginal jelly-bean 74xx chip and a bad socket. Sheesh. The key piece of troubleshooting equipment was an HP 1662 logic analyzer with which I could watch the CPU trying to run, then fly off into hyperspace. The bad chip was in the address decode logic that enabled the 6530's ROM. I built the system in the mid-1970's. The CPU and TIM chips were purchased from the Wescon show where they debuted; the Jolt board was purchased a year later after I got tired of trying to wire-wrap what would basically be the same thing. Already getting lazy, so young in life. It's got a Bay Area TVT for the terminal, high speed paper tape reader, and an 8-bit DAC that did data acquisition for my masters project. Blows my mind that an Arduino can do the same, so much better, for so little cost. I have paper tapes for Tom Pitman's Tiny Basic, an assembler and text editor, and a few random utilities from the day. Now all I do is play Hunt the Wumpus on it. Fun times. I wouldn't mind finding any other games, if they even existed.
Nice!! I have a Bay Area TVT a viewer here was kind enough to offer me. I'd love to have a Jolt but I don't think I've ever seen one come up for sale, ever. I think if it did the price would give *me* a jolt. Funny enough, I did see a 6530-004 sell on ebay just last week.
@@TechTimeTraveller Yeah, one of the take-aways from your video was the staggering price people are getting for the KIM-1. As I recall, the KIM was much more common than the TIM systems (e.g. the Jolt), so I wonder what my system is worth? I have no idea how the vintage market valuation works. I did see the 6530-004 on eBay, and it was tempting to get it just in case mine dies. Good caution from the other viewer about the exposed edge connector; the Jolt uses ribbon cables for connecting to memory and I/O, but the ESD risk is the same. ALWAYS use a wrist strap! I wonder... If something were to happen to my 6530-004, would the pedigree of my system with the original Wescon chipset be worth more not working, than a system with a replacement chip that was working? I also bought one of the original Shugart 5" floppy drives, intending to build an interface for it but never completing it. Doesn't the KIM-1 have a built-in cassette interface? I've resorted to using an HP 100LX palmtop, recording the terminal's serial data with its built-in capture function. Far more reliable than tapes.
Excellent content! One of the best in the retro space.
Many thanks!!
Not kidding, a lot of this space has become extremely toxic, money grubbing and lame. I actually learned a lot about the KIM and that's cool. TTT represent
I have watched Adrians Digital Basement quite a few times. And in some of the videos he has posted where he was repairing Commodore 64's, he has found new chips that are replacements for some of the older Commodore chips. Now I can't say for certain, but maybe someone in the Kim-1 community might know of replacements for the RRIOT chips
Wooo! Congrats on getting the KIM working! That is fantastic, I an excited to see a KIM up and running. I simply know no other way to add the numbers 2 and 3. Believe me, I know how you feel. I have had a KIM for years and have been avoiding plugging it in specifically because of those RIOT chips. As long as I don't try to power it on, it might still be a good and working KIM. I know I can't be the only one with a Schrodinger's KIM in their collection.
Superposition is a lie. (I'm sorry!)
Nice! Very satisfying to see life in this old board again.
I remember seeing the KIM-1 in Popular Electronics and wisely deciding to buy a complete computer instead.
yeah thats a great feeling when you see something runs for the first time. id recommend getting some flux and copper braid for repairing the shorted lines. i also couldnt see buying the hakko at that price and went with a zd-915. That with a hot air gun (for the ground vias) was magic doing some recap work on some motherboards recently.
awesome to watch whilest making food ^.^ always happy when you upload
That Radio Shack looking soldering iron might be part of the difficulty. A good soldering iron iron is a "must" when dealing with higher density electronics.....
Great video, I love seeing old hardware that I know nothing about!
Glad to see you got it working after so much time. I really like the concept of a device like this... I wonder if any modern kits that can be built to get a trainer similar to this exist?
Someone already created reproduction of the KIM. Corsham had one but sadly he passed, I think there was another one called the KIM UNO. There's still quite a bit of interest in these and the nice thing about the retro vs vintage units is you can really use them without being afraid of damage.
Yeah, best solder-sucker right there. Some re-printed KIM-1 manuals on Tindie, BTW.
It really is night and day different than the plastic ones. It's so good it's demotivated me on getting a desoldering gun.
I'm honestly never a fan of modifying rare, ancient hardware like this. On the other hand, it is cool to see it work!
Yeah.. I wish there was another way but those 6530s are so rare.. and you have no way of knowing if what you're buying will work.
@@TechTimeTraveller I understand. I wonder if there's a way to rejuvenate a chip somehow like freezing them or something.
Ayyy! The Traveler Returns!
Took me a while to crawl out of the algorithm crater the last video put me in LOL
Well done vid! I do have a desoldering iron but i prefer the same japanese desoldering pump with the silicon-tip. Its convenient to use in case theres not much desoldering to do anyway.
Y’know I never heard if KIM until right now Sounds really neat tbh :0
If you wired up an external screen to it and wrote a program, I think the KIM-1 would make a decent novelty clock to have in the office or workshop. Would at least save it from being stuck on a shelf collecting dust unused.
Ótimo video muito bom, o incrível KIM bons tempos aqueles computadores com teclado HEX.
I have a SYM-1 in my parts box. I hope to get it up and running, It was used for training/projects at a University. So it has all kinds of bodges wired on it.
Love it!
nice bit of nostalgia for me, my dad had a couple games set up for me to load on one when I was about 6 or 7 years old, wumpus was my favourite, but also enjoyed a game where you had to identify farm animals.
Ah, the joys of closed source hardware to make an additional buck. Wonder if I should finish my variant of the 6532 adapter I started years ago (never owned a KIM-1 but was asked if I wanted to repair one years ago - I declined because very early minimalist systems don't exactly interest me). Design was based on open source documentation from 2013 by Ruud Baltissen.
Interesting to see it in use. Thanx. A personal preference: i think background music made it hard to follow along. But I guess ymmv as one say, could be my brain.
Yeah that one got me with the darned trumpets in the middle. So much background music on offer is totally inappropriate for that purpose. For the next video I'm going to be more careful to avoid anything with fancy solos and really limit it.. and listen to it after uploading to YT before publishing to make sure it doesn't kick back up post processing. It's tough to get it just right.
@@TechTimeTraveller ah yes. Maybe it was just the track that got a bit annoying. No biggies, I love your videos. Just ment it as feedback, as feedback is something I enjoy myself when I get it on my videos.
I think the most annoying part is how the 6532 RIOT chip (as used in the Atari 2600) has a completely different pinout from the 6530 RRIOT, even though they're basically the same inside. So you *have to* have an adapter board. The board you used is about as slim as you can get it. And the worst thing a board like this can do for you is... nothing. You turn it on and nothing happens, while you're wondering if something is getting fried. I have an old board I've been working on where the reset circuit was stuck on. It took me a while just to confirm that was really the problem. I had to mess around with cutting and un-cutting traces before I found that it came from a trace that ran under five chips. Llifting a 74LS00 pin and bodging on an electrolytic capacitor to ground (there was already a pull-up on the reset line!) gave me a better reset circuit. I still haven't figured out yet what was wrong with the original reset circuit. But now I know what you mean about the feeling of finally getting an old board fixed up, even though I still have a lot left to make mine useful because it wasn't supposed to be a trainer.
May I suggest that you add rubber feet to the four corners of the board ? It might add some mechanical stability to it.
Ah the KIM, definitely on my want list. Unfortunatly probably out of my Price range. But hey i got lucky on other incredibly rare stuff so maybe one day.
You never know with ebay.. the other day ebay had a Rev 0 Apple II with a BIN of $370. Just gotta be persistent.
@@TechTimeTraveller Ive only bought very few things on ebay. Most is on something comparable to Craigslist we have here in Germany. My Intellec 8 i got on there for ~35 USD
Wow! A solder sucker I want! 🤩
It really works. So much better than the plastic ones.
Found this comment right at that part 😂 Solder suckers sound neat
I have a Swedish KIM-1 clone in my collection. The company was called Digitus. Serial #008. :) It does not have the same board. One of the differences is that it has two RAM chips instead of eight.
I'd love to see pics of that! I've heard of a few KIM clones but not Swedish!
That sounds awesome.
They will have used newer 2114 RAM chips (1K x 4 bits) rather than the original 6102 (1K x 1 bit).
@@TechTimeTraveller I put pics up on twitter and tagged you in.
consider getting a syringe of solder flux for smd components, you can also apply this to the board when soldering through hole components. I didn't do this for years myself, and was surprised how much this stuff helps to avoid bridging solder joints and keep the solder where it should be.
Especially in those tight spots like those ram ICs, flux helps a lot. It increases the surface tension of the solder, so it's way less likely to create solder bridges.
I wish they would make hex key pads like that still. I really need some and the ones available now don’t include extra keys like enter or go. Just 0 thru F
Keep a search on ebay for digitran keypads. I scored a couple just like that. They were popular makers of thst sort of thing.
Does this thing have an "expander" unit like the Heathkit ET-3400 had (the ETA-3400 box), so your single-board computer could get input-output to a simple terminal and thus you could run Tiny BASIC on it? I've never heard of one for the KIM-1, but you know that the cadre of '70s-early '80s homebrewers would come up with something.....
13:55 - I have a golden rule on my projects. Absolutely NEVER use stamped pin sockets. Use ONLY machined pin, gold plated, sockets and you will never get the "I have to press right here to make the board work" problem ever again. Yes. The machined sockets cost more. Still cheaper than the lost time. TIME. The only resource you can never replace.
For sure! The only issue I have with machined sockets is they don't look correct on certain machines. Not that that was a concern on this project.. most of the sockets I used I chose from inexperience at the time.
@@TechTimeTraveller Fair enough. As an engineer, I am all about function over form. I have very fond memories of my original KIM 1.
If you had enough of this KIM-1 then I could try to find some Canadian Dollars and offer you a new home for this computer. There are numerous fields where it can be used, as an egg timer of as a trainer for Morse-code. I saw a book once with a large dozen of possibilities for programmes. To be honest, it isn't mutch that can be done. Sitting pretty is the almost the only real task for a KIM-1.
Congrats on getting it running! It’s too late now, but I would have purchased the proper card edge connectors to solder your leads to instead of soldering directly to the card edge of the KIM-1. You’ll never be able to remove the tinning you added to those nice gold plated cards edge pins.
Yeah.. that was a poor early decision on my part. Got too impatient to diagnose the problem. I'll do my best to clean it up.
@@TechTimeTraveller The entire internet is your worst critic when you put your work up on display. Really though, good job troubleshooting and finding that flaky IC or socket by pressing on each one. I just did that today to find a loose IC on an Intel 8080 trainer board I’m playing with. It’s a Lawrence Livermore Labs MST-80. Keep on making great videos!
@RoyceTaft Yes I think some viewers think I'm an expert.. so they scratch their heads when I do certain things lol. But I try to reinforce that I'm an enthusiastic, not an EE and am just having fun and trying to learn. For me if I get it running again that's what matters.
put some red plastic film over the displays for enhanced readability
If you ever wanna sell this one for $100 hit me up. At least it will stay in Canada😂. The kim one is one of those holy grail computers for me. Even considered a replica that could be completely compatible but as much off the shelf true hardware with as little emulation as possible.
I've had one for years, with both MCI 6530 chips fried... I'd love to repair it, but where to find those custom mask RROM Riot chips?! :( Are those retrospy circuit boards still available?
You might be best to just purchase these adapters from retro-spy.com - then you just need a 6532 which is relatively easy.
I have vague recollection that there were 3rd party terminal and tape drive connectors available for the KIM-1; was that the case?
I think there were a couple. I have Don Lancaster's TVT 6 5/8, which adds keyboard and video capabilities.
Canadian E-bay sellers. Yea a no-go for me. I purchased 3 pieces from Canadian sellers. The first two I took a bath on. Both were stopped by UPS at the border for customs. The first one was a Sun Sparc 5 about 6 years old when I purchased it but I was told I needed to pay 500 more to get it shipped to me. Second one I don't remember but also stopped at UPS Customs and I had to pay $$$ to get it. 15 years later I got a Uniden 2025 *BROKEN* for parts to fix my one. Made it through UPS customs OK but spent two weeks "in transit" on the US side. I have had less trouble getting obsolete items through UPS customs from Bulgaria and Peru (slide rules) than Canada. Canada is a hard NO due to UPS customs.
Thank you. I've always wondered about this!
There's good reason why us Canadians who live close to the border just cross over and send US destined packages from the nearest US post office. It's absolutely wild the amount of hassle US customs puts computer shipments through despite them being covered by the free trade agreement since the 80s.
When did they start calling the 6530 a "RRIOT" chip? I always called them the "Kitchen sink chip", as in "everything but the..."
Amen.
What were some typical uses for these computers? It seems more a calculator than a computer. Best wishes.
They were mostly trainers to get people familiar with the 6502. But thanks to their expandability a lot of people turned them into full blown computers as we would think of them. I have an add on board that adds a TV and keyboard interface to it. Now that my KIM works I'm really tempted to try it out!
The KIM-1 was made by MOS Technologies. Not Commodore. It was a prototype. It wasn't even branded.
What happens to dead, unobtanium chips? I am guessing that they are resold (at a Canadian-seller discount) as "untested".
Tempting but my ethics won't let me. :) Untested in our niche is definitely a weasel word for broken. There's no way a knowledgeable seller wouldn't test something in the hope of getting more money for it.
On _many_ occasions, I have seen obviously broken items (including missing major components) being sold as-is/untested. Presumably someone is buying this stuff, if only to resell it at a further markup. This happens in second-hand shops as well as online.
I don´t mind the music or the loudness. All´s good here.
SUBSCRIBED
Do you have a link for that solder sucker ?
www.tme.com/ca/en/details/fut.ss-02/desoldering-pumps/engineer/ss-02/?brutto=0¤cy=USD&gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjw26KxBhBDEiwAu6KXt-LcrbEvwRpImy9tT1f4pNqYcT5z_pnE4lamuimMuAnyMNeBUJ8wMhoCVaoQAvD_BwE I found mine on ebay though.
@@TechTimeTraveller Thanks. Genuine SS-02 aren't cheap, but there are a lot of clones at half the price.
Maybe a Machine type Socket would have been better to mate with the pins on that replacement board...
That occurred to me... afterwards.. heh.
Great content, but the background music is always too loud and distracting.
Background music is tough. The majority of what's on offer via YT or epidemic etc is totally unsuitable for a relaxed video. And what sort of is always has these obnoxious bits with trumpets or crazy piano.. I think the artists just want to get noticed. This music was set at -35 decibels below the main audio and somehow after processing it has jumped up again. I have some ideas.. ill get it next time.
@@TechTimeTraveller Now that you mention it, I think it's the trumpet that's grating on my nerves LOL
@toby-xo6rb I know right?!?! Like.. it's a really nice laid back piano track but then they gotta throw in the trumpet solos smack in the middle. It's really hard to find a track where the artist doesn't go to town like that. I've tried limiting it using a hard limiter effect in Premiere, to make sure it doesn't peak up too high... but something happens during KZheads own processing that bumps it back up. I will nail it with the next video. Even if I have to go on a trumpet hunt and cut it out from each track.
Maybe you can find a track with some nice and relaxed _vuvuzelas_ in the background?
5:30 well a 6532 could be used, with an external rom, which can be done using some 74 logic gates to mimic a 6530 with 128 bytes of extra ram using bank switching
Or a cpld replacement
12:55 investment in an oscilloscope would save lots of headaches
14:55 sram mod Since it's faster and better than dram and cheap now could throw 8kx8bit sram chip Could put it on a PCB and just wire the address and data and chip selects Well it actually uses 1bit sram chips So all 8 chips can just be replaced with one 8bit sram You could also drastically cut down the PCB size too
KZhead loves to go communist and delete all of my comments for no reason
6502 dot org. /mini-projects/816conv/conv dot html I really hate how KZhead deletes comments for no reason Communist wet dream it seema
yeah you 100% need to use a turn pin socket with them round legs.
Yep. Didn't even think of that.. was so focused on 'DONT WRECK THE PADS'. :)
It's okay guys, we're reaching that point where we are simply going to have to keep transplanting modern parts. Nothing we can do about it, it's just the new normal, and we shouldn't fret.
Someone somewhere is going to invent a way to slice open an original 6530 and replace the guts with some microsized version of this retro spy board, glue it back together and call it a day. I have faith!
wow
I really want to know how these would have worked for HVAC!
I think it was basically programmed to run fans etc at certain intervals. There was a card plugged into the socket with an EPROM that contained code it ran each time it was powered on.
@@TechTimeTraveller Ah, that makes sense!
as it's replacing failed part? on basically "ford of cars - any if black", look wrong why blue? greens the default colour of PCB's,? Idea to make more pleasing on the eye? could not mount on the back of the PCB board? same sockets pins everything just build burger/pancake, in reverse you will not able see the chips as they will , squashed to the back of the kim-1 motherboard, and the win, win, no new chips on view? and assuming the Kim-1 is mount base, in display case the back wil not be on view? and as is no an entry hole where old chip was located, the history art, restoration, old chip cleaned up, bit sticky foam or something placed back in the hole, (just check shorting thing out, as only cosmetic now?
Notification Squad!!! :D
Hmmmm...... What did you do to the real TechTimeTraveller?
I prefer the dark blue mask. Whats wrong with combining old and new tech?
Nothing at all. Just personal preference. It's like the difference between restomod cars and cars that have been kept as original as possible. Just depends what you like.
@@TechTimeTraveller I didnt wanted to be rude - sorry for that. My personal preference is that I love to see generations of systems working together. I am not a fan if new tech looks like 50 year old stuff. I love the mix together.
@rweninger Oh I didn't take it as rude at all. It's a very valid point! Debate is always welcome here!
@@TechTimeTraveller Thank you Sir! .-)
Pour Out some Geritol for our buddys' Senior Moment
Lol!
Is this LGR????
Good job getting it going :) You gotta mount that on some plexiglass or plywood with some good spacers. You might want to measure the actual voltage on the board and verify that you have a good +5VDC there. As you already may know old electrolytic caps tend to fail. I see a few that you could probably replace. Applying power will sometimes "Reform" the caps. A possibility is that some bad caps could have been pulling down the +5VDC and after awhile they reformed the longer you had it on. That is why it magically started working. I have not seen a schematic of that board but if there are any caps across the power supply it can be a possibility. Also on the old S-100 type boards they usually have shorted tantalum caps that nee to be replaced. So happy you got that BEAUTY running again.. GREAT JOB !!!!
Thank you!! It actually came with rubber feet that were held by little bolts and nuts but they kept loosening themselves no matter how I tightened them and eventually fell off. There was one left in the video. I think the caps were okay.. I used my scope back in December and it showed a good clean +5V. But that's a valid thing to check. This was definitely, partly, a victim of my early incompetence at repairs. :)
I hate to see wires soldered direct to edge connector gold plated pads.
Yeah.. score one for inexperience and impatience. Lesson learned.
Wish I could find a KIM-1 for $115. I kick myself for not getting one of the clone kits when they where on ebay just to mess around with one. Oh well I guess the Git-hub with the reproduction gibber files and PCBwaaaaaaay is my only hope for another poor Canadian that is in this hobby :(
You never know. Sometimes stuff pops up with a low BIN. Someone got a Rev 0 Apple II for $370 recently..
Микролаб КР580ИК80 907 :)
The reason why those of us in the USA don’t buy Canadian eBay stock is because Pitney Bowes breaks everything.
grufty Musik
Jazzy Nokia intro, what?
The reason those chips die is because their I/O lines are ran straight to the edge connectors with absolutely no protection whatsoever. It's a shocking design! They should have added some ESD and short circuit protection. I know they were trying to keep costs down, but they were selling these into an environment (schools/colleges etc.) that were going to absolutely abuse them! Terrible design! 😆
Sorry for being dense but what is the point of that "computer"? It can´t be made to only add single digit numbers, even a mechanical calculator would do it faster that this demonstration. What was it made to do by design, why does it exist at all?
I regret this was just a repair video and I didn't do much background but I'm hoping to do that in future. I think foremost the KIM-1 was developed to demonstrate the 6502 microprocessor which MOS wanted to sell (not like they had to try that hard) and get engineers familiar with it, since when the 6502 was released there were no computers that could use it. Then hobbyists discovered it. You could of course do more than math - rudimentary games could be made. It was a less expensive way to learn how machine language worked. And then the expansion port/connector allowed people to expand it further - some expanded it into a full blown computer. It was one of the cheapest ways into having a computer back then I think.
why would anyone pay 600 bucks. for a kim-1. it can't be 'nostalgia' for if you (like me) figured out how to use them when they were new (and so were you ;) you can just build your own nowadays. brand new. for like. 50 bucks. and put all the other chips in there you want too lol. i mean i can see why people pay like 20K for a white ceramic chip version with the rotate bug and all that. -those- belong in a musem. all the rest of em are just old evaluation kits, somewhat abused as prehistoric plc's, for a bunch of chips of which millions are sold each day to this very day. lol.
i mean i'll happily sell you some brand new ones :P lol. 100 bucks a pop would be just fine. what color would you like the pcb's to be lol. oh and sorr we cannot fit them with anything less than 32KB ram as those tiny chips did go out of produciton lol.
would say the 'museum factor' only counts for the actual first batches. maybe the aim-65 and sym-1 too. and there too, only the first batches. lol.
Why do some people pay thousands of dollars for an old comic book, a baseball card, a old car? Same reason.
@@jamesross3939 that 'old comic book' generally has to be of some 'extraordinary edition'. which applies to the first kim's. with the white chips. but not to the later ones.
absolutely no idea how many kim-1's were sold but i take it everyone we knew had one at home. lol. it's not like they are 'rare' or something.
Why do americans/canadians say "soder" and not "soLder"?
That's just how I've heard it pronounced up here. Somehow l got bent into a u.
Supposedly because that was the original British English pronunciation. The L sound was dropped from solder when it was borrowed from Old French into English, since the L was silent in French, often being spelt souder both languages (souder is the modern French spelling). When the spelling soLder took hold in English, people gradually started pronouncing the previously silent L, but some kept the old souder pronunciation for a while. The (North-American) colonial pronunciation probably comes from earlier in this L-unsilencing process, and the L never caught on.
@@3DGECASE Good explanation. FYI here in Australia we do say "soLder" with the L, so I guess that's why the silent L always sounds off to my ears. I guess it's evidence that we live in an ever increasingly global society.
@@toby-xo6rb Yeah, I questioned calling it the "colonial" pronunciation for the reason that the Australian pronunciation has the L. Another clash of the global varieties of English.