[geeks] I'm in a retro state of mind...

[Lionel Peterson]

"Back in the Day" I had a Sym-1 development board that I, regretfully, did very little with - it was just a bit too complex for me to really do anything with (and it was quite limited)...

Fast-forward to the present, and on a recent trip to my local used book store I scored a copy of "The First Book of Kim" and it's got me thinking about those early, early computers, before the IBM PC hit the market.

(A PDF of "The First Book of Kim" is available here: http://archive.6502.org/books/first_book_of_kim.pdf )

Oscar in Sweden has an open-source project to build an emulated Kim-1 based on an Arduino, a handful of switched and a few other discrete components, and I'm thinking of building his project locally.

According to his website ( https://obsolescence.wixsite.com/obsolescence/kim-uno-get-or-build-one ) the PCBs are cheap, and the required components look easy to source. It's not something I'm familiar with, but Oscar says the PCB can be ordered in a small quantity for just a few dollars, and the rest of the components are cheap/easy to source (no Raspberry Pi hardware!).

Given all that, would anyone else be interested in a PCB if I place an order? According to the linked-to page, for $10 I can get 5 boards made up, and since I have no idea what I'd do with 5 Kim-1 clones, I thought folks here might want to throw one together too. I'm *not* assembling kits of all the parts, but I expect to have a BOM suitable for a simple order from Mouser or Digi-Key (and Amazon/eBay) of all the needed parts so you can easily get your own bits to build this.

If anyone is interested, drop me a note off-list at lionel4287 at gmail.com and I'll see what I can do. I'd only ask for actual cost per PCB requested + postage ($3ish figuring 5x for $10).

I think it could be fun, it looks simple enough, and it will inspire me to finally put my 3D printer together so I can print a case for it!

If no one is interested, apologies for the off-topic post, but I figured this might be something a few folks here might be interested in.

PS - The unit can be powered by, and accessed over, a USB cable and terminal emulation program from a PC/Mac/Linux box, so once the novelty of punching the buttons on the PCB wears off...

Come on, you know you want to fire up your soldering iron and roll up your sleeves and rediscover 6502 assembler coding!

Ken
lionel4287 at gmail.com
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