Those "mystery" boards with the RCA, MIDI and DB25 ports are the internal boards for the rack-mount unit that accompanied the SMPL system. The DIN ports are MIDI, the leftmost two RCA ports are Roland Sync, the next three RCA ports are SMTPE timecode, and the remaining RCA and DB25 ports are interfaces to professional studio tape machines, to control the tape transport and transmit/receive SMTPE timecode to/from them.
@@mtewner I have a suspicion that the actual rack-mount unit may even still be at the scrapper in a big pile of other "generic rack mount boxes with plugs on the back" type of devices.
I think the only part of that museum piece I would even consider changing is the power cord. Everything else (even the green board) might be potentially significant to someone investigating it later.
Back in the 1980's programmable thermostats were just coming online and were costly. Being handy, I ran my home furnace with an Atari 400. I added a full keyboard & modified it to 65Kb ram. With a real time clock and custom software to accommodate a personalized HVAC schedule it ran until I sold the house. It would also reboot itself after a power outage. It was fun building it.
I'd keep the MOS KIM-1 as close to it's current state as possible, but of course gently clean it and take required actions to ensure no further degradation. I believe it's better to leave it with all it's modifications as it was clearly being used for something, that history is much more important than returning it to pristine factory condition.
It's good to see a KIM-1 again. It was my first 'pc'; I purchased one at the computer fair in Chicago late in 1977 while I was attending IBM's base school for new CEs. I remember doing a show-and-tell to the class and instructors pointing out similar features to the IBM 360 we were learning. I also remember the instructors being amazed. They had no idea about the start of personal computing that I was showing them.
We had a KIM-1 in the Engineering Lab I worked at that was used to develop telephone test equipment. During my tenure there we had the opportunity to attend a 6502 programming class that came with a SBC based on the KIM, the Rockwell AIM-65. It came with a 20 char. alphanumeric led display, a 20 column thermal printer and a regular keyboard. We had to buy the AIMs but got to keep them. I still have mine. There was also a similar SBC called the SYM-1 (I forget which company made it) and we had a "homegrown" lab system that was basically a KIM-1 with extra ram and a serial port for a terminal. As far as using it, it's probably the absolute best way to teach yourself 6502 at the lowest level machine opcode. I eventually got the Assembler, Basic and Forth roms for my AIM-65.
@@macgeek21 The KIM-1 was used for all kinds of things. One of the things my dad had programmed his for was a "heartbeat sound generator" to help my sister sleep when she was an infant.
In the 80s I helped to develop a system to collect, measure, and process vibration signals from some massive machines used in the steel industry. The basis was a ZX 81 and all the programming was done in assembly and believe me, to program FFT on that was a challenge :)
@@jonathaningersoll6213 Technically that's possible (mouse wheel is usually an incremental encoder) and awesome if it does that (think of actually having a servo for the door that runs in pulse train mode)
The video socket is meant for a video card called the TVT-6. It was created by Don Lancaster who designed the TV Typewriter. It could display up to 4000 characters on a television. A popular configuration was 16 lines by 32 columns of characters. Hope this helps.
Well, this was in Oklahoma, which gets a complete rollover in buildings every 10 or so years because of tornadoes. It's a miracle any of this stuff survived.
Thanks! There is actually a low voltage relay doing the triggering, keeps mains voltage out of the equation when it comes to going through a steel wall panel. I think the landlord likes it best, because when I hear someone playing with it, it's almost always him.
Back in the days, I was 14 and had a Commodore 64. I wanted to program eproms, but buying a factory programmer was way above my budget, so I built my own. Got a design from the 'fidonet' (.512 ) where I was node, and etched the PCB myself using ferrochloride. My mom still remembers all the yellow stains in my clothing and carpet in my room. Somehow the etching worked and I managed to procure all the parts and built the entire thing. I was really proud of myself. Then it didn't work. Spent weeks on it, why didn't it work. It turned out, I printed the PCB layout as is, while I should have mirrored it. So the entire thing was built wrong.
I still have nightmares about ferric chloride, and there is a house I lived at when I was 15 that probably still has a permanent stain on the patio. And yes, my first board, I did the same thing you did. ;-)
I feel for you. I messed around with making electronics at home a lot as a teen. My brother even more than me. We both had our fair share of projects that never worked despite our best efforts.
I'd mount the KIM-1 on a new spunky block of wood with a modern brick frame PSU. It likely contains the original monitor ROM so may boot to a LED and keypad monitor interface.
That connector may be an S100 buss - does it have 100 contacts? In '79 I taught microprocessor interfacing and programming on the KIM-1. But I really liked the AIM-65 best - printer, full keyboard, and 16 character display.
@@synchronuse not always, museums should cooncentrate on the history of their objects, and the mods are part of that board history, according to a comment by Oklahoma Electronic Recycling they may have boards that could relate to this very KIM-1 and some more computer history so i think it's preferable to keep it in that modified configuration
@@WaltBankes There was a popular video add-on board that used a similar connector and orientation. I think Dan Lancaster developed it, it was featured in an issue of Radio Electronics I think.
The KIM is a piece of history in the condition it's in. It's something of a work of contextual art. Leaving everything fitted to it shows how it was utilized and will help future generations better understand uses for early "micro computer" tech.
The big slot on the KIM-1 is probably an S-100 slot. The KIM-1 is not very rare but this one is: It's an early one from before Commodore bought MOS. I wonder if the 6502 has the ROR bug.
even if it's not that rare, personally i would clean it up, see if it works, and then just hang it on the wall or something. that way you're not throwing away some historic item, it's not wasting space, and it looks cool.
An original KIM-1 does not have a "Big Slot", just the two 44 pin slots on the side which were used to connect to the I/O chips, 20ma current loop TTY and connections to tape storage among others. The Big slot may well have been an S-100 slot, but it was certainly added later, probably for prototyping.
My dad was an engineer in the UK he retired only 5 years ago, even then they were still using a C64 to control one of the milling machines. I suspect its still being used to this day.
Apparently there are still descendants of the MOS 6502 with 40 pins still in production for commercial and industrial uses. Even if he didn't have an original OEM processor he could still probably buy one that is compatible. Pretty crazy but it makes sense since these microprocessors were used in a lot of devices more than just the Vic 20. They even sold their 6502 to Apple and Atari. It's probably a more common chip than some realize.
@@danielc9312 Absolutely; a company named Western Design Center is making not only new 65C02 chips, but also a more advanced version with 16-bit functionality: the 65C816.
+1 for leaving the KIM-1 exactly the way it is -- it's as important to the history to users build them as it is to know what they looked like new in box. For a museum display, I'd have it on a desk strewn with test equipment and components, with a blurb explaining how the development process is often messy.
It is so nice that there are people like The 8-Bit Guy , who really do care about all of those old machines, how they evolved what steps did their creators took, their mistakes and success. All of that absolutely needs to be preserved and displayed to show how that technology helped shape man and society, and vice versa. It really puts tears in my eyes to see that it is being done today and they even inspire more people to do so. A truly amazing channel.
What you have is a pre-Commodore MOS KIM-1. It is very valuable. All of the components with the exception of the 6530's are available, should you wish to restore it. The 6530's have a masked ROM which was programmed at MOS technology and contain the KIM Monitor. If either of them are non-functional, then the KIM-1 won't work. There are work arounds, but it requires replacing the defective parts with a daughter board. This is a very valuable piece of computing equipment. And as Indy said "It belongs in a museum". It is very capable as it is. For instance, it can connect to a terminal and a cassette. There are still folks building expansion cards for it, including memory expansions which will bring it to 64K. That said, I would at least try to see if it will function. Great find and great video!
@@1tolightradius it really is, i love seeing perfect condition un-modded computer, but i love seeing the modded and tinkered with ones more. They're both important to the history of computers, but modded ones show how people improved upon the technology that was already there and helped make computers the way they are today
I worked for Phillips Electronics in the mid 90's, and they were still using C64's for testing TV's on the assembly lines. They also used older sub/assembly machines to put parts in a tape feed for an automatic insertion machine for the tv boards. Those sub/assembly machines had built in 8 inch floppy drives.
You guys find all the cool stuff out that way. Here in Idaho we never find stuff like that. I was lucky enough to find a C64 and a VIC20 at an electronics reseller a few months ago. Both of them work great, and with cleaning tips from your videos I was able to clean them up and both function just fine. Had to buy a power supply but well worth it to have some nostalgic Commodore stuff other than just my C128.
That squeaky styorofoam reminds me of the time I went on a road trip with my parents and we had a styrofoam cooler in the back that squeaked just like that. At that time my dad really lost his temper pretty easily and he was mad about the noise for the whole trip and I remember him smashing it into pieces after we got home. Never had a cooler on any trips we did after that, we would just buy whatever we needed on route
I'm really glad they didn't end up recycled, a less knowledgeable recycler may have just destroyed them. As for the Kim, I think it's really interesting in its current state, It's such an interesting prototype, and someone probably spent a good deal of time creating that set up to test and to research. Really interesting video.
I absolutely love the music you use in the background of these videos. The track you've been using in this one has such a Knight Rider theme to it. I seriously need all of your tracks to just listen to all day every day.
Cool episode. The 80's was rife with specialised conversions like this. I used to work for a UK company in the mid-80's that converted Epson HX-20's into full blown POS terminals which also carried out inventory control for various retail sectors. We even attached cash-drawers to them which were functional (opened by toggling the cassette stop/start signal through a simple relay).
Seeing that eeprom programmer had me feeling all nostalgic about only 10 years ago when me and my brother were making our own homebrew games for the Sega Genesis / Mega Drive. :) We would sit in my basement, look online for donor cartridges, program games, design label and box art, make labels, make boxes, test the games with an emulator and when we were happy with them we would write the games to new blank roms with the eeprom programmer and then put the donor cart back together, put the new labels on, print out a manual and put everything in our own box with our design on it, wrap it with plastic and put it up for sale. :) At the same time, I was flashing new hacked firmware to Xbox 360 DVD drives and reset glitch hacking and jailbreaking consoles for a living. Best memory I have. Good times.
@@tsakeboya In the early 90's I had an EPROM programmer that lived in a PC--dedicated card and about the same thing as in the video at the end of cable. I was able to upgrade old firmware on gear I was selling (erase the old PROMs in the UV tray deal, burn new ones) and while I did not sell the updated firmware per se, I *could* say that all the units I was offering for sale had the latest firmware which was a major selling point. Those were, in fact, good times. Six figure business out of my bedroom and garage.
When is hear term electric recycling it breaks my heart. My Grandma recently throw out old Olivetti 286 in great shape to garbage because it was taking too much space
Summer before last, I went to a used computer store that has been here forever. I asked them if they ever get older stuff.. “like Windows XP?” No, old stuff.. like DOS and Win9x. “Sometimes, not often.” I asked them what they do with it. He says with a hint of frustration at being bothered: “Wipe the drives and recycle them.” 😫
Cool stuff..... I too use to bring my computer manual to school and read it... As well as computer magazines. I know for sure I was reading my Vic-20 manual in english class on more than one occasion haha. Wow that seems like 4 lifetimes ago, crazy how life seems so long yet so short at the same time. Signed.... 46 year old
It's really cool to see a recycling facility run by guys that understand the historical value of the stuff that comes through and preserve it appropriately.
I had a Commodore Vic 20 when I was a kid. I sure wish I still had it. Channels like this one make me feel happy knowing that there are people out there that love these old machines and give them a another shot at functioning again.
The thing about native lands having casinos reminded me of when I visited the USA for the maximum time, a few of the friends I stayed with always drove out to the nearby petrol station on native land to not pay any fuel taxes on it. Even tho it was 10 minutes out of their way, the tax avoidance savings more than made up for it.
I had an early ceramic chip KIM-1 a long time ago! I loved that thing but I lend it out to a friend and never saw it again :( Great show, as always! Cheers!
I watched Wayne's World II for the first time a couple weeks ago and was surprised to see Dana Carvey wearing a Video Toaster shirt. Turns out his brother was one of the people who developed the Video Toaster.
The "mystery" keyboard at 1:53 is actually part of a Burroughs Corporation terminal setup, probably from around '74-'77 or so. Also, I've been to that Riverwind Casino. I learned some good Roulette strategies from an old man over there. I've also been to the Chickasaw Nation nearby. Great video, by the way.
Awesome, no markings on the thing that I could make much sense of. I figured a few dozen thousands might have a person in the group that might recognize it.
@@o.e.r.3287 Burroughs TD 700 I believe. It's a neat keyboard that might be worth something to collectors of that sort of thing. I can also probably offer some insight into various keyboard related matters if that's something you are looking for.
That brought back some memories, had one of the old style case vic20's with the 2 pin power supply back when I was a kid... and one of the old 'vertical' cassette drives, not the round cornered later style 'wide' ones... The vic actually was really easy to interface through the user port, turning the outputs on and off just by 'poking' them lol
“I just happened to have some vic 20 memory chips laying around” ... and who doesn’t? 😂😂 you’re the main nerd. You live the nerd life I’m too lazy to live. Much respect ✊
Were I you, I wouldn't do anything with the KIM-1. The odds of damaging it or otherwise messing it up are exponentially higher than the odds of improving it.
As an European, I didn't know about this weird law with this loophole. I think South Park had and episode about a casino that was run by Native Americans (7x07). Now I understand the basis of that episode. I must be a dream to work at a place like this if you know what you are dealing with, he might come up to a lot of treasure. Aaaand, just like that, 19 minutes just flew away like it was nothing. That KIM-1 belongs in a museum! :D
It doesn't make sense of calling them native americans since they're born on American soil, but that's not a race, they could be mix or who knows what mix race or white or mongoloid?
@Randomnet anon how were they native american if it wasn't consider America? I & others who are born in the U.S should be consider native americans since we're born here in American soil
I would check out the KIM for originality before putting it into a museum, and perhaps restore it to original condition if the extra connections have no real use without the rest of the test setup. With about an afternoon's work I could reset it to default and build a display to turn it into a hands-on machine code tutorial.
The TVT-6 project appeared on the cover on Popular Electronics in July 1977. The complete kit could be ordered from PAiA Electronics. That is what the expansion slot is for at the top of the board, so yeah a display adapter chip plugged into it. Nice stuff you got there David. Big fan of the old Commodores here.
Since this is in Texas, it would probably be a tank in a septic field. You won't have shit flowing everywhere but the ground will get runny and start to smell bad where your tank is. Eventually it can cause sinkholes n stuff but its not as bad as you probably imagine
Tristan Samuel Tristan, stop and think! Back in the day this thing was far too expensive to be used in a home septic system. This would have been used in an industrial application, where an overflow at a remote location would end up costing a company thousands.
Wow - you have been studying those catalogs with products for the Commodore for so long and you have a memory about this "Promenade" programming device in your head! Human memory is still something incredible sometimes =))) Seeing the KIM-1, I immediately thought about the museum ... and how glad I was that you would donate this computer to the museum without hesitation! =) Thank you for the video!!!
14:15 When I was around 12-13 yo I used to look at some "other" magazines and see pictures of things "I didn't know what exactly it was supposed to do." At the time I also thought "I'd never thought I'd see one in person." LOL!
The JR EPROM burner brings back some memories for me. Still have it somewhere, Used to help my father putting chips in and taking them out back in the day when he was programing software for the C64.
My now-deceased grandparents lived in OKC so I took that trip up there more times than I could count. As soon as you brought it up, the first thing that came to my mind was "he's going to mention the windmills, he's going to mention the windmills, he's going to mention the windmills..." and lo and behold. Also not at all surprised you mentioned the casino either, haha. That was an interesting look into the electronics recycling dealer. In the back of your mind you're just always wondering what it looks like to see what they have collected before it actually gets sent off to be recycled and that was a neat behind-the-scenes peek. And yeah, the unusual VIC-20 was certainly interesting to learn about, but also seems to be another timeless tale that rare =/= remarkable. I mean...it's basically just a VIC-20 with fewer keys. Still neat to see this all covered though and I enjoyed the dive into the other things you ended up with too.
@@The8BitGuy There's a nationally renown fried pie stand right off Turner Falls, and both those things are on that path. One's delicious, the other one's a fried pie stand.
I was at soil testing lab auction back in the mid 90's I picked up a bunch of Vic-20's cheap. One was mounted to a green board along with the datasets. It also had a couple interface adaptors that were homebrewed that plugged into the user port. But just another example how the Vic performed arduino type functions.
Hello from Greece, I don't know why, because of the speed of your speech, the way you speak or the words you use.... but I really understand almost everything without subtitles,... and I am not so good at English. ---- This video was really very good.
10:00 In high school, I ran the electronic scoreboard at basketball games for extra cash. I swear I used something very close to this. Hell, it was decades ago...can't be sure.
7:10 Damn I listened to that sound through my headphones for 3 seconds and my teeth started to hurt, I could've not have standed it for 3 and a half hours
I really like your videos David, specifically your thumbnails, it's always nice to see a new upload from you where it's you smiling with a piece of hardware, you're smile brings some joy to my day, watching your videos of restoring hardware adds even more joy!
ayyy GWAR shirt alright :D i lived about an hour from their hometown (richmond, VA) so you know there were some great shows ;) haven't seen them since dave brockie passed though
the vic 20 as my first computer when i was younger i was also watching a police academy film th e other day and in a scene where they were in like a traffic control room they were all using vic 20s lol
I grew up with a ZX-81, then VIC, then 64, and A500. Long time lover of Commodore. My high school back in the late 80s early 90s had received C64 teleprompting systems which used a proprietary cartridge and came in some of those game bundle C64 system boxes. I thought it was so cool to see the C64 being used that way. Oh, we also had Amigas and the Digi-View camera with the color wheel. Boy, those were different days.
@@Cristasphoto i work in recycling and the stuff i've taken to sell is unreal, well over 100k in gear over the years, tube amps, fender guitars, analogue synths, breaks my heart to think of the stuff i've missed
That's because the world, namely First-world countries, such as the U.S., have become throw-away societies. Most of them can't latch on to stuff that may be old but still in great working condition, or may need just a little bit of love (i.e. repair & maintenance). Instead, these people (not all of them) & their mortal minds do not have eternal satisfaction & must then want to have the latest newest fangled thing. What shall we do with the old stuff? Well, scrap it or donate it, just get it out of my hair so that I can drool over the new model I just bought. Then a few years later, that drooling dries up & they will repeat & rinse, throwing away that latest fangled thing & get another latest model. It's not just end consumers. Manufacturers will build things cheap, so that when it breaks down in the future, the manufacturers are guaranteed repeat customers as buyers to get something else or newer from them. Again, that feeds the model of a throw-away society, a term invented decades ago in the 1950's, due to growing consumerism. If you go to, say, India, you will see tons of people able to figure out broken machinery & make them work again & then sell them. It's not the latest fangled thing, but it gets the job done. And no one invented recycling & conservation in modern times, that philosophy is ages old. It's when plastics & throwing away man-made inorganic unnatural stuff polluting the planet did the modern world realize they were doing things wrong. It's not just on Earth. Just look at beyond the our atmosphere, there is now tons of trash & debris orbiting, from past rocket launches. There is actually a website that tracks these little pieces, because each one can be dangerous for future space launch windows as well as anything that might careen back down. Now back to the regularly scheduled program of finding electronics treasures from trash.
Quasi-related to your video is a past memory of the KIM-1. I'm 56 and one of the cooler places to go as a kid was Long Ridge Mall. The mall was a kid magnet because it had an arcade (where my mother would give my brother and me a roll of quarters to go through while she shopped), but it was better known for various pieces of kinetic and interactive art throughout. And one of the pieces of art was a bunch of colored gas-discharge tubes mounted on the ceiling of one of the entrances. The KIM-1 was mounted on a wall in a glass display, and would drive the gas-discharge tubes in various sequences. If I remember, there were some buttons and maybe a light sensor that could control the display. It also made sounds, but I can't remember if that was intentional from a speaker or accidental from the transformers driving the gas-discharge tubes. The entire mall had all sorts of weird art ranging from electronic to mechanical. As a protogeek, it was one of the things that later led to a career as an embedded systems software engineer.
I remember seeing ads for this Synchronous Systems machine at that time. It was over a grand in those days, which was a TON of money. Only really available for professionals. Interesting to see them at this stage of the game. And God bless those old machines, they STILL work!
Don't understand 99% of what your talking about, yet I love watching these videos and always get a great sense of nostalgia. Love your expertise one these vintage machines... and who doesn't love a good retrobright job?!
It feels as natural as using freedom units. Um, I mean imperial units.... That being said it is a little annoying in engineering classes to solve for Mpa and Ksi(or Kips) when metric is clearly a better standard. Still, asking us Americans to give up our unit standard is like asking us to give up our guns. We would rather see the rest of the world burn first.(but hopefully wouldn't have too much of a hand in it)
A prior coworker once worked at an HVAC controls company that had deployed modified C64s to control large building systems - saving thousands compared to the solutions from Siemens and others. They had trouble getting customers to replace them once the spare parts for the Commodores dried up!
I wouldn’t even trust it on the fact alone it looks heavily oxidized with that green copper gunk. Maybe he could unsolder the entire plug and add in another, but don’t know if that would mitigate the entire thing blowing up; not that it’s even all original to begin with
The green color is caused by the plasticiser leeching out of the power cord, and corroding the copper wire. I've seen it in a lot of old electronics that used vinyl insulation. The clear vinyl tubing decomposes the same way, leaving a sticky surface that catches every speck of dust that touches it. I have a pile of Harrison Labs/HP power supplies that need all the wiring replaced because of this. EG: HP6236 triple output bench supply. I repaired hundreds of Vic 20, C64, SX64 and C128 computers in the '80s. That KIM was a development system for the 6502 family of MPU. I had one in pristine condition, but it disappeared from my warehouse. I also saw a pre-production at the Dayton Hamfest months before it went on the market. I still have a pile of Commodore equipment in my old shop building, but I can't get to any of it until some repairs are done to the building. One is a 128D that the front of the case was damaged, so I installed a 1581 drive internally in place of the built in 5.25" drive. I repaired the Commodores at the component level for less that others who simply exchanged boards with Commodore.
@@gallgreg It's strange, Commodore machines were really popular around here in Norway compared to other places in the world, but i've never seen any in any sort of thrift shop (plenty of boring and useless electronics from the same time period, however! So I don't think the issue is that they're thrown out). Maybe there are more enthusiasts hoarding them/fighting over them too.
@@Mnnvint that is quite possible... I have seen plenty of local folks trying to sell their untested VIC-20’s for hundreds of dollars! I keep telling them that they really aren’t worth much, especially untested and with the original “time bomb” power supplies, but can’t seem to convince anyone of that... Yet, I am finding them in boxes of miscellaneous cables and stuff, so it seems like the nice ones are indeed being hoarded!!
Hi The 8-Bit Guy - in regards to what to do with the KIM-1 I like your idea of preserving it. I would suggest making a double-sided clear case to house it so both sides of the board can be appreciated and leave the custom slot additions on the board as an example of old school computer customisation. Thanks for all the great history lessons!
My suggestions for the KIM1, recap the power supply or have it fixed by someone, power supplies are pretty common items to repair. I would personally leave it in this state, the way it is found, it shows how people were tinkering with this stuff already right from the beginning. For me as a "maker" this stands for the timelessness of trying new things and experimenting in order to improve. But great find and I applaud your generosity in donating it to the museum.
Those "mystery" boards with the RCA, MIDI and DB25 ports are the internal boards for the rack-mount unit that accompanied the SMPL system. The DIN ports are MIDI, the leftmost two RCA ports are Roland Sync, the next three RCA ports are SMTPE timecode, and the remaining RCA and DB25 ports are interfaces to professional studio tape machines, to control the tape transport and transmit/receive SMTPE timecode to/from them.
Heh... I did suspect that there might be some SMPTE timecode stuff involved there.
This board seems to match the rack-mount device in the advertisement earlier in the video
Pin this!
@@mtewner I have a suspicion that the actual rack-mount unit may even still be at the scrapper in a big pile of other "generic rack mount boxes with plugs on the back" type of devices.
Lots of crazy FracRak stuff in here, since they used it pretty much exclusively.
That's not the styrofoam squeaking on the way home. It's the VIC-20's excitedly chattering to each other about finally having a new loving home.
LOL
😂🖥️🤣
Then being taken from that home into different homes
Yessssss
LOL
I think the only part of that museum piece I would even consider changing is the power cord. Everything else (even the green board) might be potentially significant to someone investigating it later.
If someone was investigating it, wouldn't he need a new power supply(assuming that one doesn't work/looks too sketchy to plug in)
yo you are one of my favorite youtubers here whats up
Probably document the thing through photos and then bring back to stock.
hello atomic shrimp, not expecting you to stop by here
totally agree
Back in the 1980's programmable thermostats were just coming online and were costly. Being handy, I ran my home furnace with an Atari 400. I added a full keyboard & modified it to 65Kb ram. With a real time clock and custom software to accommodate a personalized HVAC schedule it ran until I sold the house. It would also reboot itself after a power outage. It was fun building it.
that's a wise pc🤣
I'm curious what you needed the extra ram for?
@@kimgkomg porn that's what he needed it for simple🤣
@@raven4k998?
I'd keep the MOS KIM-1 as close to it's current state as possible, but of course gently clean it and take required actions to ensure no further degradation. I believe it's better to leave it with all it's modifications as it was clearly being used for something, that history is much more important than returning it to pristine factory condition.
This
@@enemdisk6628 that
@@enossoares6907 the
@@supernt7852 then
*its current state
*its modifications
It's good to see a KIM-1 again. It was my first 'pc'; I purchased one at the computer fair in Chicago late in 1977 while I was attending IBM's base school for new CEs. I remember doing a show-and-tell to the class and instructors pointing out similar features to the IBM 360 we were learning. I also remember the instructors being amazed. They had no idea about the start of personal computing that I was showing them.
We had a KIM-1 in the Engineering Lab I worked at that was used to develop telephone test equipment. During my tenure there we had the opportunity to attend a 6502 programming class that came with a SBC based on the KIM, the Rockwell AIM-65. It came with a 20 char. alphanumeric led display, a 20 column thermal printer and a regular keyboard. We had to buy the AIMs but got to keep them. I still have mine.
There was also a similar SBC called the SYM-1 (I forget which company made it) and we had a "homegrown" lab system that was basically a KIM-1 with extra ram and a serial port for a terminal.
As far as using it, it's probably the absolute best way to teach yourself 6502 at the lowest level machine opcode. I eventually got the Assembler, Basic and Forth roms for my AIM-65.
wasn't the kim 1 just used for programming chips?
@@macgeek21 The KIM-1 was used for all kinds of things. One of the things my dad had programmed his for was a "heartbeat sound generator" to help my sister sleep when she was an infant.
@@macgeek21 No, it was a demo board to introduce the 6502 to industry.
@@rustlebruxz0013 It was a demo board, but hobbyists found all kinds of cool things to do with them.
In the 80s I helped to develop a system to collect, measure, and process vibration signals from some massive machines used in the steel industry. The basis was a ZX 81 and all the programming was done in assembly and believe me, to program FFT on that was a challenge :)
Literal pain in the fingers, I bet.
How much space did you have for lookup tables?
All these 80's industrial adaptations of commercial computers are very interesting.
assembly ? must have been a real nightmare.........
Brave using a ZX81!
How could you resist pressing the middle mouse button
The scroll raises and lowers the garage door :P
@@jonathaningersoll6213 Technically that's possible (mouse wheel is usually an incremental encoder) and awesome if it does that (think of actually having a servo for the door that runs in pulse train mode)
If you put in the right code, it will open the door. Left and right are both wired to buzzer.
right click should show a list of people that you can buzz
@@LloydLynx Just 2 people work here.
The video socket is meant for a video card called the TVT-6. It was created by Don Lancaster who designed the TV Typewriter. It could display up to 4000 characters on a television. A popular configuration was 16 lines by 32 columns of characters. Hope this helps.
Just imagine all of the abandoned buildings that have been sitting for 35+ years loaded up with this kind of stuff.
Commodore factory?
And how many just got heaved in a roll away and totally trashed
Well, this was in Oklahoma, which gets a complete rollover in buildings every 10 or so years because of tornadoes. It's a miracle any of this stuff survived.
That mouse doorbell was brilliant!
Thanks! There is actually a low voltage relay doing the triggering, keeps mains voltage out of the equation when it comes to going through a steel wall panel. I think the landlord likes it best, because when I hear someone playing with it, it's almost always him.
Id have to concur... Now it's time to repurpose an old Mac one button mouse for a doorbell controll lolol
It's amazing
Yea
Yes
If this man is happy by finding old computer parts, then I'm happy too
Dead body reported
Cyan not sus.
Ahh shit, cyan's dead! In retro electronics.I just finished removing a leaky varta battery from a A500 motherboard, turned around and there he was. :)
@@alarmingly_good radioactivetrexx is not the imposter
Guys he sus he has a varta battery that hasnt leaked!
Back in the days, I was 14 and had a Commodore 64. I wanted to program eproms, but buying a factory programmer was way above my budget, so I built my own. Got a design from the 'fidonet' (.512 ) where I was node, and etched the PCB myself using ferrochloride. My mom still remembers all the yellow stains in my clothing and carpet in my room.
Somehow the etching worked and I managed to procure all the parts and built the entire thing. I was really proud of myself.
Then it didn't work. Spent weeks on it, why didn't it work.
It turned out, I printed the PCB layout as is, while I should have mirrored it. So the entire thing was built wrong.
I still have nightmares about ferric chloride, and there is a house I lived at when I was 15 that probably still has a permanent stain on the patio. And yes, my first board, I did the same thing you did. ;-)
That's sad!
I feel for you. I messed around with making electronics at home a lot as a teen. My brother even more than me. We both had our fair share of projects that never worked despite our best efforts.
Did the same first time, also I used a metal container which disolved and made a really bad mess
I'd mount the KIM-1 on a new spunky block of wood with a modern brick frame PSU. It likely contains the original monitor ROM so may boot to a LED and keypad monitor interface.
@@Tadfafty I think David was going to remove all the modifications anyway.
@@Tadfafty He would have to if he was going to donate it to a museum, but I get what you're saying.
That connector may be an S100 buss - does it have 100 contacts? In '79 I taught microprocessor interfacing and programming on the KIM-1. But I really liked the AIM-65 best - printer, full keyboard, and 16 character display.
@@synchronuse not always, museums should cooncentrate on the history of their objects, and the mods are part of that board history, according to a comment by Oklahoma Electronic Recycling they may have boards that could relate to this very KIM-1 and some more computer history so i think it's preferable to keep it in that modified configuration
@@WaltBankes There was a popular video add-on board that used a similar connector and orientation. I think Dan Lancaster developed it, it was featured in an issue of Radio Electronics I think.
The KIM is a piece of history in the condition it's in. It's something of a work of contextual art. Leaving everything fitted to it shows how it was utilized and will help future generations better understand uses for early "micro computer" tech.
The big slot on the KIM-1 is probably an S-100 slot.
The KIM-1 is not very rare but this one is: It's an early one from before Commodore bought MOS. I wonder if the 6502 has the ROR bug.
even if it's not that rare, personally i would clean it up, see if it works, and then just hang it on the wall or something.
that way you're not throwing away some historic item, it's not wasting space, and it looks cool.
Good thinking! That is very likely. Would go with the video card theory too. Maybe it went to a backplane?
An original KIM-1 does not have a "Big Slot", just the two 44 pin slots on the side which were used to connect to the I/O chips, 20ma current loop TTY and connections to tape storage among others.
The Big slot may well have been an S-100 slot, but it was certainly added later, probably for prototyping.
@@davidbonner4556 Indeed it was added. The KIM-1 is featured in a 6502 book I've got.
Your right about the S-100 slot
My dad was an engineer in the UK he retired only 5 years ago, even then they were still using a C64 to control one of the milling machines. I suspect its still being used to this day.
If it works it works.
"no problem, i have a spare working cpu"
Of course you do.
Anything else would be unthinkable!
Apparently there are still descendants of the MOS 6502 with 40 pins still in production for commercial and industrial uses. Even if he didn't have an original OEM processor he could still probably buy one that is compatible. Pretty crazy but it makes sense since these microprocessors were used in a lot of devices more than just the Vic 20. They even sold their 6502 to Apple and Atari. It's probably a more common chip than some realize.
@@danielc9312 Absolutely; a company named Western Design Center is making not only new 65C02 chips, but also a more advanced version with 16-bit functionality: the 65C816.
Well, yeah. The Commander X-16 is being based on the 65c02.
For awhile Vics were hard to give away. Things have changed in the last 20 years wrt vintage computing.
+1 for leaving the KIM-1 exactly the way it is -- it's as important to the history to users build them as it is to know what they looked like new in box. For a museum display, I'd have it on a desk strewn with test equipment and components, with a blurb explaining how the development process is often messy.
It is so nice that there are people like The 8-Bit Guy
, who really do care about all of those old machines, how they evolved what steps did their creators took, their mistakes and success. All of that absolutely needs to be preserved and displayed to show how that technology helped shape man and society, and vice versa. It really puts tears in my eyes to see that it is being done today and they even inspire more people to do so. A truly amazing channel.
What you have is a pre-Commodore MOS KIM-1. It is very valuable. All of the components with the exception of the 6530's are available, should you wish to restore it. The 6530's have a masked ROM which was programmed at MOS technology and contain the KIM Monitor. If either of them are non-functional, then the KIM-1 won't work. There are work arounds, but it requires replacing the defective parts with a daughter board.
This is a very valuable piece of computing equipment. And as Indy said "It belongs in a museum".
It is very capable as it is. For instance, it can connect to a terminal and a cassette. There are still folks building expansion cards for it, including memory expansions which will bring it to 64K.
That said, I would at least try to see if it will function.
Great find and great video!
what thre fuck?
Just please don't cannibalize it David -_-
"I just happened to have some VIC-20 RAM" *has a million VIC-20s*
Truth
Lol
Personally i would just clean up the kim-1, especially if you're donating it to a museum I'd like to see what the original owner did modifying it
I don't even clean it up, just a light dusting with a soft brush, and leave all as is.
@@1tolightradius it really is, i love seeing perfect condition un-modded computer, but i love seeing the modded and tinkered with ones more. They're both important to the history of computers, but modded ones show how people improved upon the technology that was already there and helped make computers the way they are today
I worked for Phillips Electronics in the mid 90's, and they were still using C64's for testing TV's on the assembly lines. They also used older sub/assembly machines to put parts in a tape feed for an automatic insertion machine for the tv boards. Those sub/assembly machines had built in 8 inch floppy drives.
Hey, I saw this laptop thing called the "Canon NoteJet 486" which is essentially a printer built into a laptop, in 1993.
Wow the printer laptop
didnt expect to see you here
Oh hey i thought you were here to greif 😂
@@arazseyfinezhad6037 *grief
I want this.
You guys find all the cool stuff out that way. Here in Idaho we never find stuff like that. I was lucky enough to find a C64 and a VIC20 at an electronics reseller a few months ago. Both of them work great, and with cleaning tips from your videos I was able to clean them up and both function just fine. Had to buy a power supply but well worth it to have some nostalgic Commodore stuff other than just my C128.
That squeaky styorofoam reminds me of the time I went on a road trip with my parents and we had a styrofoam cooler in the back that squeaked just like that. At that time my dad really lost his temper pretty easily and he was mad about the noise for the whole trip and I remember him smashing it into pieces after we got home. Never had a cooler on any trips we did after that, we would just buy whatever we needed on route
I'm really glad they didn't end up recycled, a less knowledgeable recycler may have just destroyed them. As for the Kim, I think it's really interesting in its current state, It's such an interesting prototype, and someone probably spent a good deal of time creating that set up to test and to research. Really interesting video.
I absolutely love the music you use in the background of these videos. The track you've been using in this one has such a Knight Rider theme to it. I seriously need all of your tracks to just listen to all day every day.
Cool episode. The 80's was rife with specialised conversions like this. I used to work for a UK company in the mid-80's that converted Epson HX-20's into full blown POS terminals which also carried out inventory control for various retail sectors. We even attached cash-drawers to them which were functional (opened by toggling the cassette stop/start signal through a simple relay).
3:04: Yeah, there was a TH-camr who dealt in these. He called himself the iBook guy or something. Whatever happened to that guy, I wonder?
Truly a mystery...
The iBook guy is the 8 bit guy
Hahaha!! 🤣
@@DaviLeGOAT wooosh
I think he died or something
Seeing that eeprom programmer had me feeling all nostalgic about only 10 years ago when me and my brother were making our own homebrew games for the Sega Genesis / Mega Drive. :)
We would sit in my basement, look online for donor cartridges, program games, design label and box art, make labels, make boxes, test the games with an emulator and when we were happy with them we would write the games to new blank roms with the eeprom programmer and then put the donor cart back together, put the new labels on, print out a manual and put everything in our own box with our design on it, wrap it with plastic and put it up for sale. :)
At the same time, I was flashing new hacked firmware to Xbox 360 DVD drives and reset glitch hacking and jailbreaking consoles for a living.
Best memory I have. Good times.
Damn that sounds awesome
@@tsakeboya In the early 90's I had an EPROM programmer that lived in a PC--dedicated card and about the same thing as in the video at the end of cable. I was able to upgrade old firmware on gear I was selling (erase the old PROMs in the UV tray deal, burn new ones) and while I did not sell the updated firmware per se, I *could* say that all the units I was offering for sale had the latest firmware which was a major selling point. Those were, in fact, good times. Six figure business out of my bedroom and garage.
I can never pass up these 8bit guy videos, they're so fun to watch.
Great to see these being donated and used to support good causes, and I'll be able to visit the one VIC-20 being shipped to NL :)
Ah the early VIC20 GS…….seriously great on you to donate give away such rare finds allowing them to be enjoyed by others.
VIC 20's were reliable, could run for months without intervention. I made a test system that was used for >10years.
When is hear term electric recycling it breaks my heart. My Grandma recently throw out old Olivetti 286 in great shape to garbage because it was taking too much space
Dang! My uncle used to have an Ollivetti. I believe they break fast, when trying to fix old one’s. So possibly a nightmare for retro enthousiasts.
Čech, tady? Well, I didn't expect that, but I wish I had an older computer.
I didn't get an old Pentium PC years ago, because I wasn't going to pay millions for it, so it's just junk.
I had a C64 when I was a boy, and my mom threw it out few years ago because it was taking up space. I regret not taking it with me when I moved out.
Summer before last, I went to a used computer store that has been here forever. I asked them if they ever get older stuff.. “like Windows XP?” No, old stuff.. like DOS and Win9x. “Sometimes, not often.” I asked them what they do with it. He says with a hint of frustration at being bothered: “Wipe the drives and recycle them.” 😫
Cool stuff..... I too use to bring my computer manual to school and read it... As well as computer magazines. I know for sure I was reading my Vic-20 manual in english class on more than one occasion haha. Wow that seems like 4 lifetimes ago, crazy how life seems so long yet so short at the same time. Signed.... 46 year old
Got a year on ya - I remember reading about sprites in the C-64 manual on the bus to school.
It's really cool to see a recycling facility run by guys that understand the historical value of the stuff that comes through and preserve it appropriately.
I had a Commodore Vic 20 when I was a kid. I sure wish I still had it. Channels like this one make me feel happy knowing that there are people out there that love these old machines and give them a another shot at functioning again.
I love these kind of videos. You're like a tech-Indiana Jones looking for ancient artifacts.
IT BELONGS IN A MUSEUM! 🤣
Indiana, do you know how to use this computer? Turn it on, yes. Turn it off, no!
Thank you for donating a VIC-20 to the museum in the Netherlands, I will be sure to check it out!
The thing about native lands having casinos reminded me of when I visited the USA for the maximum time, a few of the friends I stayed with always drove out to the nearby petrol station on native land to not pay any fuel taxes on it. Even tho it was 10 minutes out of their way, the tax avoidance savings more than made up for it.
I had an early ceramic chip KIM-1 a long time ago! I loved that thing but I lend it out to a friend and never saw it again :( Great show, as always! Cheers!
Video toaster, wow memories there. More good news your channel is now always on my homepage. so the TH-cam algorithum must be elevating you
I watched Wayne's World II for the first time a couple weeks ago and was surprised to see Dana Carvey wearing a Video Toaster shirt. Turns out his brother was one of the people who developed the Video Toaster.
Video Toasters :)
I'll be honest, it's a little strange seeing a kid's toy channel comment on a video like this
I can't believe I've never heard of this place. I used to live 4 miles from it!! Literally right down the road
The smell of dog food keeps most folks away. Nestle Purina is about 500 meters away.
If you want an enjoyable side hustle, you can post what you see there, and then take orders from people continents away.
Many years ago I bought a book called "The Cheap Video cookbook" by Don Lancaster and it has hardware designs for a Kim 1 based video circuit.
The "mystery" keyboard at 1:53 is actually part of a Burroughs Corporation terminal setup, probably from around '74-'77 or so. Also, I've been to that Riverwind Casino. I learned some good Roulette strategies from an old man over there. I've also been to the Chickasaw Nation nearby. Great video, by the way.
Awesome, no markings on the thing that I could make much sense of. I figured a few dozen thousands might have a person in the group that might recognize it.
@@o.e.r.3287 Burroughs TD 700 I believe. It's a neat keyboard that might be worth something to collectors of that sort of thing. I can also probably offer some insight into various keyboard related matters if that's something you are looking for.
Yes. It's from a Burroughs terminal keyboard. i.imgur.com/x2AkbBq.jpg
That brought back some memories, had one of the old style case vic20's with the 2 pin power supply back when I was a kid... and one of the old 'vertical' cassette drives, not the round cornered later style 'wide' ones... The vic actually was really easy to interface through the user port, turning the outputs on and off just by 'poking' them lol
I love his vlog style videos. He is such a genuinely nice guy.
“I just happened to have some vic 20 memory chips laying around” ... and who doesn’t? 😂😂 you’re the main nerd. You live the nerd life I’m too lazy to live. Much respect ✊
@Mr Guru it might surprise you that this is less common than you think. 😉
Were I you, I wouldn't do anything with the KIM-1. The odds of damaging it or otherwise messing it up are exponentially higher than the odds of improving it.
worth tracing and engineering the PSU though if doxs dont exist
Agreed, a computer museum will have the know-how and supplies to do it properly.
As an European, I didn't know about this weird law with this loophole. I think South Park had and episode about a casino that was run by Native Americans (7x07). Now I understand the basis of that episode.
I must be a dream to work at a place like this if you know what you are dealing with, he might come up to a lot of treasure.
Aaaand, just like that, 19 minutes just flew away like it was nothing. That KIM-1 belongs in a museum! :D
And so do you!
That was an "Indiana Jones" quote, for those who didn't know.
It doesn't make sense of calling them native americans since they're born on American soil, but that's not a race, they could be mix or who knows what mix race or white or mongoloid?
@Randomnet anon how were they native american if it wasn't consider America? I & others who are born in the U.S should be consider native americans since we're born here in American soil
I would check out the KIM for originality before putting it into a museum, and perhaps restore it to original condition if the extra connections have no real use without the rest of the test setup. With about an afternoon's work I could reset it to default and build a display to turn it into a hands-on machine code tutorial.
These machine's would sync two 24 track recorders together(MCI,Studer), VIDEO and MIDI back in the 80's. It Sync's everything up.
Cool. Did you ever see one in real life?
The TVT-6 project appeared on the cover on Popular Electronics in July 1977. The complete kit could be ordered from PAiA Electronics. That is what the expansion slot is for at the top of the board, so yeah a display adapter chip plugged into it. Nice stuff you got there David. Big fan of the old Commodores here.
I love your road trips. Here in the uk we can’t really travel for more than 2 hours without falling in the sea.
Driving from Scotland down to the south coast is definitely longer that 2 hours or you could hop on the euro tunnel and drive all across Europe
Yeah but think of all the sunny beaches you have year round access to!
@@the_kombinator this is England, no sunshine and the beaches are covered in condoms
@@digitaldobbie Yes, that was sarcastic ;) Enjoy the... protection?
2:22 Ah yes, a septic tank alarm for when it overflows. How lovely.
Just imagine the loveliness if said alarm is absent in the event of an overflow
Since this is in Texas, it would probably be a tank in a septic field.
You won't have shit flowing everywhere but the ground will get runny and start to smell bad where your tank is. Eventually it can cause sinkholes n stuff but its not as bad as you probably imagine
It should have had one of those "ah-OO-gah" style klaxons attached.
Tristan Samuel Tristan, stop and think! Back in the day this thing was far too expensive to be used in a home septic system. This would have been used in an industrial application, where an overflow at a remote location would end up costing a company thousands.
It's always there, but I like to have a warning when shit's coming. ;)
I've been there! Jeremiah is a cool guy, and he's a GWAR fan. Cool video, David!
Wow - you have been studying those catalogs with products for the Commodore for so long and you have a memory about this "Promenade" programming device in your head! Human memory is still something incredible sometimes =)))
Seeing the KIM-1, I immediately thought about the museum ... and how glad I was that you would donate this computer to the museum without hesitation! =)
Thank you for the video!!!
"If you were using it to control something, the Vic-20 was a logical choice" I see what you did there.
I missed the joke. Explain, please?
@@KennethSorling The bare code that computers work on is typically called logic
you should send one to "Look mum no computer", he does audio stuff with old computers and retro tech, and this seems pretty fitting
Technically it's still "with computer" ;-) Albeit a bit pocket calculator vs smartphone!
14:15 When I was around 12-13 yo I used to look at some "other" magazines and see pictures of things "I didn't know what exactly it was supposed to do." At the time I also thought "I'd never thought I'd see one in person." LOL!
So, have you seen one in person yet, or are you still waiting?
The JR EPROM burner brings back some memories for me. Still have it somewhere, Used to help my father putting chips in and taking them out back in the day when he was programing software for the C64.
@@harrkev any relation to Woody Harrelson?
My now-deceased grandparents lived in OKC so I took that trip up there more times than I could count. As soon as you brought it up, the first thing that came to my mind was "he's going to mention the windmills, he's going to mention the windmills, he's going to mention the windmills..." and lo and behold. Also not at all surprised you mentioned the casino either, haha.
That was an interesting look into the electronics recycling dealer. In the back of your mind you're just always wondering what it looks like to see what they have collected before it actually gets sent off to be recycled and that was a neat behind-the-scenes peek. And yeah, the unusual VIC-20 was certainly interesting to learn about, but also seems to be another timeless tale that rare =/= remarkable. I mean...it's basically just a VIC-20 with fewer keys. Still neat to see this all covered though and I enjoyed the dive into the other things you ended up with too.
Well, like I said. There isn't a whole lot else in between Dallas and OKC to talk about! haha
@@The8BitGuy There's a nationally renown fried pie stand right off Turner Falls, and both those things are on that path. One's delicious, the other one's a fried pie stand.
I was at soil testing lab auction back in the mid 90's I picked up a bunch of Vic-20's cheap. One was mounted to a green board along with the datasets. It also had a couple interface adaptors that were homebrewed that plugged into the user port. But just another example how the Vic performed arduino type functions.
Hello from Greece, I don't know why, because of the speed of your speech, the way you speak or the words you use.... but I really understand almost everything without subtitles,... and I am not so good at English. ---- This video was really very good.
That's because 8 bit guy speaks 8 bit English...
Keep going and soon you will be watching everything without subs. I started with AVGN some years ago and now I don't need subs anymore.
Γειά σου ρε μάγκα!
10:00 In high school, I ran the electronic scoreboard at basketball games for extra cash. I swear I used something very close to this. Hell, it was decades ago...can't be sure.
OKC is my hometown. Glad to see you found some treasures here.
Same. When he shown those little VICs I remembered seeing them when I was in high school, here in OKC.
Nice to see it's being donated to the Home Computer Museum in the Netherlands, I look forward to seeing it on my next visit!
I presume a couple of suitcases full are coming on the next euro trip
Where in the Nederland ?
7:10 Damn I listened to that sound through my headphones for 3 seconds and my teeth started to hurt, I could've not have standed it for 3 and a half hours
I really like your videos David, specifically your thumbnails, it's always nice to see a new upload from you where it's you smiling with a piece of hardware, you're smile brings some joy to my day, watching your videos of restoring hardware adds even more joy!
omg the styrofoam noise... I would've lost my damned mind. 🤣
(squeaky) (squeaky) (squeaky) (squeaky) (squeaky) (squeaky) (squeaky) (squeaky) (squeaky) (squeaky) (squeaky) (squeaky) (squeaky) (squeaky) (squeaky) (squeaky) (squeaky) (squeaky) (squeaky) (squeaky) (squeaky) (squeaky) (squeaky) (squeaky) (squeaky) (squeaky) (squeaky) (squeaky) (squeaky) (squeaky) (squeaky) (squeaky) (squeaky) (squeaky) (squeaky) (squeaky) (squeaky) (squeaky) (squeaky) (squeaky) (squeaky) (squeaky) (squeaky)
That's why you play some metal over it :)
Put some paper between them or put each one in a plastic bag.
My wife will leave things in the back of our jeep that rattle around like that. I can stand it.
You have to turn up the Gwar tunes to drown it out
ayyy GWAR shirt alright :D i lived about an hour from their hometown (richmond, VA) so you know there were some great shows ;) haven't seen them since dave brockie passed though
the vic 20 as my first computer when i was younger i was also watching a police academy film th e other day and in a scene where they were in like a traffic control room they were all using vic 20s lol
It was my second. My first was a TI-99/4a
Long ago I worked a job that involved finding unlocked rooms at the u of Mn. Lots of cool junk sitting in closets and halls of some of the buildings.
I grew up with a ZX-81, then VIC, then 64, and A500. Long time lover of Commodore.
My high school back in the late 80s early 90s had received C64 teleprompting systems which used a proprietary cartridge and came in some of those game bundle C64 system boxes. I thought it was so cool to see the C64 being used that way.
Oh, we also had Amigas and the Digi-View camera with the color wheel. Boy, those were different days.
After all those years it's still alive.
I doubt my modern PC would still work in 35+ years
Well you can't keep Johnny 5 down :_:
Yeah my old windows pc died after 2 years and my dads old Atari 2600 still kicks!
@@pleasedontwatchthese9593 same
My a pc has 12 years. I'm trying to keep it alive (unfortunately my other pc with almost 20 years died and my mom threw in the garbage)
Hey-hey-hey, ask him if he has an IBM 5100, our future may depend on this guy!
OH MY GOD IN THE BACK OF THE RECYCLING GUYS VAN THERE WAS A MODULAR SYNTHESIZER MISSING 2 MODULES THATS PROBABLY WORTH ABOUT 1-2K OMFG
People are sooo wasteful
@@Cristasphoto i work in recycling and the stuff i've taken to sell is unreal, well over 100k in gear over the years, tube amps, fender guitars, analogue synths, breaks my heart to think of the stuff i've missed
Looks like an MFOS or PAIA home build
That's because the world, namely First-world countries, such as the U.S., have become throw-away societies. Most of them can't latch on to stuff that may be old but still in great working condition, or may need just a little bit of love (i.e. repair & maintenance). Instead, these people (not all of them) & their mortal minds do not have eternal satisfaction & must then want to have the latest newest fangled thing. What shall we do with the old stuff? Well, scrap it or donate it, just get it out of my hair so that I can drool over the new model I just bought. Then a few years later, that drooling dries up & they will repeat & rinse, throwing away that latest fangled thing & get another latest model. It's not just end consumers. Manufacturers will build things cheap, so that when it breaks down in the future, the manufacturers are guaranteed repeat customers as buyers to get something else or newer from them. Again, that feeds the model of a throw-away society, a term invented decades ago in the 1950's, due to growing consumerism. If you go to, say, India, you will see tons of people able to figure out broken machinery & make them work again & then sell them. It's not the latest fangled thing, but it gets the job done. And no one invented recycling & conservation in modern times, that philosophy is ages old. It's when plastics & throwing away man-made inorganic unnatural stuff polluting the planet did the modern world realize they were doing things wrong. It's not just on Earth. Just look at beyond the our atmosphere, there is now tons of trash & debris orbiting, from past rocket launches. There is actually a website that tracks these little pieces, because each one can be dangerous for future space launch windows as well as anything that might careen back down. Now back to the regularly scheduled program of finding electronics treasures from trash.
@@Verminator151029 ... True yeah, a lot of complaining, but it's also a word of warning. Call it "tough love". :)
I’m so glad that I subscribe to and support a person who does good for our community. Thank you David.
Quasi-related to your video is a past memory of the KIM-1. I'm 56 and one of the cooler places to go as a kid was Long Ridge Mall. The mall was a kid magnet because it had an arcade (where my mother would give my brother and me a roll of quarters to go through while she shopped), but it was better known for various pieces of kinetic and interactive art throughout. And one of the pieces of art was a bunch of colored gas-discharge tubes mounted on the ceiling of one of the entrances. The KIM-1 was mounted on a wall in a glass display, and would drive the gas-discharge tubes in various sequences. If I remember, there were some buttons and maybe a light sensor that could control the display. It also made sounds, but I can't remember if that was intentional from a speaker or accidental from the transformers driving the gas-discharge tubes. The entire mall had all sorts of weird art ranging from electronic to mechanical. As a protogeek, it was one of the things that later led to a career as an embedded systems software engineer.
If they are for audio editing maybe Look Mum No Computer wants one for his museum of everything else.
He might be mad enough to bring it back to life
That Dude, works really hard on his equipment, I think it's a good idea to send him one of these...
Please make a detailed video about Kim-1, it's history, what it does, how it works etc. :)
This guy has the best into on the entire TH-cam!
I remember seeing ads for this Synchronous Systems machine at that time. It was over a grand in those days, which was a TON of money. Only really available for professionals. Interesting to see them at this stage of the game. And God bless those old machines, they STILL work!
Don't understand 99% of what your talking about, yet I love watching these videos and always get a great sense of nostalgia. Love your expertise one these vintage machines... and who doesn't love a good retrobright job?!
a few things i remember as a kid growing up playing gorf on a vic 20 now im 43 and still gaming
Being from Europe, the driving in the left lane with an empty right one enfuriates me.
But better as driving on the left driveway like these "island-donkeys" ... ^^
Ruben b I know that in Washington state, the left (fast) lane is for passing only. If you're caught driving in the left lane, you WILL be ticketed.
Many states do not require driving in the right lane when not passing, but some do!
Being from New Zealand, it's all on the wrong side of the road anyway, plus the steering wheel is on the wrong side of the car to me.
It feels as natural as using freedom units. Um, I mean imperial units.... That being said it is a little annoying in engineering classes to solve for Mpa and Ksi(or Kips) when metric is clearly a better standard. Still, asking us Americans to give up our unit standard is like asking us to give up our guns. We would rather see the rest of the world burn first.(but hopefully wouldn't have too much of a hand in it)
The Recyclers GWAR t-shirt is awesome, rock on brother...
A prior coworker once worked at an HVAC controls company that had deployed modified C64s to control large building systems - saving thousands compared to the solutions from Siemens and others. They had trouble getting customers to replace them once the spare parts for the Commodores dried up!
The KIM-1's power cord appears to be partially melted, I would actually remove it before donating just to make sure nobody tries to plug it in.
I wouldn’t even trust it on the fact alone it looks heavily oxidized with that green copper gunk. Maybe he could unsolder the entire plug and add in another, but don’t know if that would mitigate the entire thing blowing up; not that it’s even all original to begin with
The green color is caused by the plasticiser leeching out of the power cord, and corroding the copper wire. I've seen it in a lot of old electronics that used vinyl insulation. The clear vinyl tubing decomposes the same way, leaving a sticky surface that catches every speck of dust that touches it. I have a pile of Harrison Labs/HP power supplies that need all the wiring replaced because of this. EG: HP6236 triple output bench supply. I repaired hundreds of Vic 20, C64, SX64 and C128 computers in the '80s.
That KIM was a development system for the 6502 family of MPU. I had one in pristine condition, but it disappeared from my warehouse.
I also saw a pre-production at the Dayton Hamfest months before it went on the market. I still have a pile of Commodore equipment in my old shop building, but I can't get to any of it until some repairs are done to the building. One is a 128D that the front of the case was damaged, so I installed a 1581 drive internally in place of the built in 5.25" drive. I repaired the Commodores at the component level for less that others who simply exchanged boards with Commodore.
Dude's wearing a Gwar shirt. Awesome.
HAIL SADDAM A GOOOO GOOO
After I accepted the idea that I'll never have a vic 20 I see a recycler find them abandoned in a building I still have hope
VIC-20’s are definitely not rare around Calgary, Alberta! I keep finding them in the bottoms of boxes of junk! Unfortunately not well-loved machines!
@@gallgreg i am far from Alberta (Greece) here although one day I found an XEGS I never saw anything Commodore in the trash
the company that did the c64 mini and maxi is doing a vic-20 clone.
@@gallgreg It's strange, Commodore machines were really popular around here in Norway compared to other places in the world, but i've never seen any in any sort of thrift shop (plenty of boring and useless electronics from the same time period, however! So I don't think the issue is that they're thrown out). Maybe there are more enthusiasts hoarding them/fighting over them too.
@@Mnnvint that is quite possible... I have seen plenty of local folks trying to sell their untested VIC-20’s for hundreds of dollars! I keep telling them that they really aren’t worth much, especially untested and with the original “time bomb” power supplies, but can’t seem to convince anyone of that... Yet, I am finding them in boxes of miscellaneous cables and stuff, so it seems like the nice ones are indeed being hoarded!!
I just love the aesthetic of this channel.
Awesome that you're donating one to the home computer museum here in the Netherlands! Greetings from a long time fan from NL :)
Hi The 8-Bit Guy - in regards to what to do with the KIM-1 I like your idea of preserving it. I would suggest making a double-sided clear case to house it so both sides of the board can be appreciated and leave the custom slot additions on the board as an example of old school computer customisation. Thanks for all the great history lessons!
5:32 - "Rattle canned them". hahaha I have never heard that phrase used for spray painting. I'm from PA....maybe that's why.
It seems to mostly be a north/south or urban/rural difference
I thought it was a brilliant phrase.
I'm from eastern Ohio (45 miles from Pittsburgh) and I've heard it before. Heard shaker canned as well.
Used to work in auto parts and I love adopting the old timers' language, always a hoot.
Me too!
The squeaking styrofoam had me rolling
7:10 man, that thing sounds like a bunch of squirrels squished in a box
My suggestions for the KIM1, recap the power supply or have it fixed by someone, power supplies are pretty common items to repair.
I would personally leave it in this state, the way it is found, it shows how people were tinkering with this stuff already right from the beginning.
For me as a "maker" this stands for the timelessness of trying new things and experimenting in order to improve.
But great find and I applaud your generosity in donating it to the museum.