antiquekid3
Veteran Member
Hi!
Well, I've been interested in programming for quite a while now, but I haven't really gotten into the hardware part until a friend of mine sold me a KIM-1 for $20. I was really excited about it, but it doesn't work. I tested the LED display, keyboard, reset circuit and power supply, but all seem just fine. I just hope my 6530s haven't died... :-(
If anyone has any ideas where else I could look for getting the KIM-1 working again, I'd love to hear them!
But my latest toy was a free gift, and one that I've had a lot of fun with! Someone at my local radio club brought me a SWTPC 6800 with the CT-64 terminal, AC-30 tape interface, and a bunch of cards. I have a full 32K of RAM, although I have three bad 4044s...
Also, my original monitor for the terminal is not doing so well. It takes about 5 minutes for it to "warm up" which means going from a nearly black screen to one that is full bright green. Then comes the smell of lots of ozone. I think the insulation in the flyback has probably gone bad, as I can see purple arcs inside the silicone potting.
Luckily, I have a Tandy 200 and a Dell laptop that both offer RS-232 communication. I've been using HyperTerminal the most, though.
The biggest trouble has not been so much hardware related, though. I am not at all proficient in assembly (I know Processing/Arduino, Pascal and Basic) and am having a very hard time figuring out how to send data to a given card inserted in the SS-30 bus. I have numerous other cards, some of which I can't find a single sentence of information on. One particular card was made by Newtech Computer Systems in 1977, called the Model 68, which is some kind of sound card. I've figured out that it's a very primitive D/A converter with an amplifier. It only uses 6 data lines as input.
So how might I write a program that sends 00 through 3F hex (0 to 0011 1111 bin) and back down to 00 over and over, to simulate a triangle wave? I'm clueless as to communicating with the cards besides an MP-C in slot 0 and an MP-S in slot 1.
Thanks in advance!!
Kyle O.
Well, I've been interested in programming for quite a while now, but I haven't really gotten into the hardware part until a friend of mine sold me a KIM-1 for $20. I was really excited about it, but it doesn't work. I tested the LED display, keyboard, reset circuit and power supply, but all seem just fine. I just hope my 6530s haven't died... :-(
If anyone has any ideas where else I could look for getting the KIM-1 working again, I'd love to hear them!
But my latest toy was a free gift, and one that I've had a lot of fun with! Someone at my local radio club brought me a SWTPC 6800 with the CT-64 terminal, AC-30 tape interface, and a bunch of cards. I have a full 32K of RAM, although I have three bad 4044s...
Also, my original monitor for the terminal is not doing so well. It takes about 5 minutes for it to "warm up" which means going from a nearly black screen to one that is full bright green. Then comes the smell of lots of ozone. I think the insulation in the flyback has probably gone bad, as I can see purple arcs inside the silicone potting.
Luckily, I have a Tandy 200 and a Dell laptop that both offer RS-232 communication. I've been using HyperTerminal the most, though.
The biggest trouble has not been so much hardware related, though. I am not at all proficient in assembly (I know Processing/Arduino, Pascal and Basic) and am having a very hard time figuring out how to send data to a given card inserted in the SS-30 bus. I have numerous other cards, some of which I can't find a single sentence of information on. One particular card was made by Newtech Computer Systems in 1977, called the Model 68, which is some kind of sound card. I've figured out that it's a very primitive D/A converter with an amplifier. It only uses 6 data lines as input.
So how might I write a program that sends 00 through 3F hex (0 to 0011 1111 bin) and back down to 00 over and over, to simulate a triangle wave? I'm clueless as to communicating with the cards besides an MP-C in slot 0 and an MP-S in slot 1.
Thanks in advance!!
Kyle O.