Hi,

I just finished a KIM-1 emulator that runs on the Arduino Uno. Some more functionality is planned but the current version seems to work well. It requires a basic Arduino Uno using its serial port, and also supports an add-on shield with LEDs and keyboard for real single-board operation.

I found the 6502 emulation code in a post of Miker00lz on the Arduino forum, so all I did was to implement the KIM-1 on top of that. I/O through the 6530 RIOTs is not seriously supported yet, other than to support the LEDs and keyboard.

Beta version and description are here:
http://obsolescenceguaranteed.blogspot.ch/2014/06/kim-uno-kim-i-emulator-on-arduino-uno.html

Also, using the same engine, I cooked up a dedicated 6502 Microchess game for the Arduino. It runs the venerable Peter Jennings code for the KIM-1 with some added comfort (load/save games etc) in the emulation engine.
http://obsolescenceguaranteed.blogspot.ch/2014/06/6502-microchess-on-arduino.html

It's work in progress, but comments and suggestions are welcome! As Arduino Uno's have come down in price to $13 or so, it's a very cheap way of owning a KIM.

Regards,

Oscar.

oscarv:

Welcome and thanks for the post. Some very nice projects: yours and the others on the Arduino site.

_________________
Michael A.

Great work!

A KIM-1 and a MicroChess in hardware!

I like it Oscar! Do you have a link for the hex keypad and 7-segment display shield?

Ed,



I'll post the link as soon as Christoph, who made the board, has it up on his site. The emulator, BTW, also runs just on a 'naked' Arduino over the serial line.

I'm actually thinking of creating a dedicated small board using the original KIM keyboard/LED schematics - ie, the full 23 keys and 6 LED digits. The game element in that would be to see if the all-in parts cost can be kept below $15... and it would make it worthwhile to fully emulate the 6530's I/O ports by mapping the 6530 pins one-to-one on Arduino I/O pins. Not terribly useful, but fun.

Kind regards,

Oscar.

Thanks!
It's a pity the Arduino has relatively few pins, but still it seems there's a lot of potential there.
- Arduino 6502 emulator + BASIC interpreter
- Arduino/ATmega328 C64 Emulator
- Arduino based parallel EEPROM programmer

In the Arduino family the Arduino Atmega2560 has much more pins and is also very cheap. Perhaps enough to emulate the KIM-1 even better.

True, but the atmega328 is somehow fitting - it has just 2K of RAM, just enough speed to emulate the 6502... and if you want to replicate the KIM's keyboard/LED circuitry, just enough pins to do what the KIM's 6530 and 74LS145 do together.

So the constrained package of the atmega328 feels like an elegant fit for this. Small scale MCU emulating a small scale SBC, something like that. It's all subjective of course, none of this has a particular purpose. Like growing Bonsai trees

Regards,

Oscar.