18 May
2012
18 May
'12
10:55 a.m.
From: Liam Proven
Sent: Friday, May 18, 2012 7:30 AM
Quoting
Readers, you now have 12 hours or so to bid for a
slice of computing
history: a Kim-1 single-board computer, released some 36 years ago by
the company that would become a key part of Commodore.
Well.
I remember the KIM-1 from the pages of _Popular Electronics_, and even
handled one in a class on computational linguistics (not yet called that)
with Victor Yngve at UChicago. Victor was the creator of a programming
language called COMIT, which he was still teaching in the 1970s long after
SNOBOL and even Icon had come along, but a heck of a nice guy.
I had no idea that they had anything to do with Commodore.
Rich Alderson
Vintage Computing Sr. Systems Engineer
Vulcan, Inc.
505 5th Avenue S, Suite 900
Seattle, WA 98104
mailto:RichA at vulcan.com
mailto:RichA at LivingComputerMuseum.org
http://www.LivingComputerMuseum.org/
18 May
18 May
11:24 a.m.
On 18 May 2012 at 17:55, Rich Alderson wrote:
I remember the KIM-1 from the pages of _Popular
Electronics_, and even
handled one in a class on computational linguistics (not yet called
that) with Victor Yngve at UChicago. Victor was the creator of a
programming language called COMIT, which he was still teaching in the
1970s long after SNOBOL and even Icon had come along, but a heck of a
nice guy.
I worked on a couple of these things--toys, really. A friend had
one and sought to add onto it like crazy. He had a KIM-to-S100
converter called a KIMSI, had bought a new power supply and case, a
Shugart SA400 (IIRC) disk drive, someone's S100 floppy controller and
even a 2708 EPROM programming board (plugged into the KIM). I
considered the matter throwing good money after bad.
Synertek also had the much-enhanced SYM-1 board.
--Chuck
11:33 a.m.
On 2012 May 18, at 11:24 AM, Chuck Guzis wrote:
On 18 May 2012 at 17:55, Rich Alderson wrote:
I remember the KIM-1 from advertisements and articles at the time.
No, it wasn't much to build a system around, but was it any worse
than any other evaluation board / educational SBC, such as the COSMAC
Elf, MEK6800, etc.?
(Arguably, the Apple I was 'more' as it had BASIC present.)
I remember the KIM-1 from the pages of _Popular
Electronics_, and
even
handled one in a class on computational linguistics (not yet called
that) with Victor Yngve at UChicago. Victor was the creator of a
programming language called COMIT, which he was still teaching in the
1970s long after SNOBOL and even Icon had come along, but a heck of a
nice guy.
I worked on a couple of these things--toys, really. A friend had
one and sought to add onto it like crazy. He had a KIM-to-S100
converter called a KIMSI, had bought a new power supply and case, a
Shugart SA400 (IIRC) disk drive, someone's S100 floppy controller and
even a 2708 EPROM programming board (plugged into the KIM). I
considered the matter throwing good money after bad.
Synertek also had the much-enhanced SYM-1 board. 
1:25 p.m.
On Fri, 18 May 2012, Brent Hilpert wrote:
No, it wasn't much to build a system around, but
was it any worse
than any other evaluation board / educational SBC, such as the COSMAC
Elf, MEK6800, etc.?
(Arguably, the Apple I was 'more' as it had BASIC present.)
QWERTY keyboard and video helped.
Lawrence Hall of Science (UC-based science museum) had a couple of classes
using them. I never got to take those, but I built their classroom
machine - took a picture of a KIM-1, enlarged it and mounted it to a
board, with a real KIM-1 on the back, and wired a lot of LEDs into the
locations of the pictures of the 7-segment displays. We also cobbled
together a bunch of power supplies for them.
12:04 p.m.
I remember the
KIM-1 from the pages of _Popular Electronics_, and even
handled one in a class on computational linguistics (not yet called
that) with Victor Yngve at UChicago. Victor was the creator of a
programming language called COMIT, which he was still teaching in the
1970s long after SNOBOL and even Icon had come along, but a heck of a
nice guy.
I worked on a couple of these things--toys, really. A friend had
one and sought to add onto it like crazy. He had a KIM-to-S100
converter called a KIMSI, had bought a new power supply and case, a
Shugart SA400 (IIRC) disk drive, someone's S100 floppy controller and
even a 2708 EPROM programming board (plugged into the KIM). I
considered the matter throwing good money after bad. Synertek also had the much-enhanced SYM-1 board.
I liked the AIM-65, personally, but I don't have one.
--
------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ --
Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com
-- I don't care who you are, stop walking on the water when I'm fishing!
<>< --
12:05 p.m.
I remember the KIM-1 from the pages of _Popular
Electronics_, and even
handled one in a class on computational linguistics (not yet called that)
with Victor Yngve at UChicago. Victor was the creator of a programming
language called COMIT, which he was still teaching in the 1970s long after
SNOBOL and even Icon had come along, but a heck of a nice guy.
I had no idea that they had anything to do with Commodore.
All but one of mine are Commodore-badged.
--
------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ --
Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com
-- Commodore on desk/Power light glowing brightly/The computer waits -- T. Lake
4601
days inactive
4601
days old
5 comments
5 participants
participants (5)
-
cclist＠sydex.com -
cisin＠xenosoft.com -
hilpert＠cs.ubc.ca -
RichA＠vulcan.com -
spectre＠floodgap.com