Das Leben dümpelt so dahin. Ich habe nicht wirklich Lust in Urlaub zu fahren. Was soll man schon an einem anderen Ort an dem man nichts tun darf? Strange world, wierd times. Außerdem muss jemand hier in meinem kleinen Laden die Stellung halten; Die beiden Mädels hören Ende der Woche auf, die verbliebenen Jungs wollen Urlaub. Aber ein paar Tage Kanalreparatur müssen drin sein. Das ist nur die große Gefühlslage.
Was mir ein wenig Kopfzerbrechen bereitet ist die große Strassensperrung zwischen Schmitten und Dorfweil, die gefühlt bis 2023 laufen soll. Ab dem 17.7. ist die einzige Verbindung zu meinem Elternhaus gekappt. Und das auch für alle Rettungsdienste. /o\ Ich kann nicht glauben, dass niemand darüber nachgedacht hat. Ich werde also morgens mit dem Fahrrad zu meinem Auto fahren, dass ich auf meinem Parkplatz in Schmitten abstellen kann, um auf die Arbeit zu kommen und Abends das Ganze in umgekehrter Reihenfolge, um nach Hause zu kommen. YAY. Sport.

Since Apple Basic has been ported to the KIM-1, there are three working Basic interpreters:

Tiny Basic,
MS Basic and
Apple Basic

I found some old Basic games for old interpreters in the Book
"Basic Computer Games"
and "More Basic Computer games"
by David H. Ahl
(All available on my g.drive)

These games have to be fitted for the KIM-1 and its restrictions, but I got at least 2 working:

Roulette
and
Pinball




So if you own a KIM-1 or a clone and you are able to run MS Basic, go on and try out the games...

Have fun,
webdoktor

... and how to play the original Gameboy Tetris against players in the whole world.

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen, I introduce to you the

USB to GameBoy Link Cable

This little adapter (a 4$ RaspberryPi pico equipped with some levelshifters and the plug for the Link Cable) makes it possible to connect to a server, where players around the globe can compete.
The creator, Stacksmashing, offers prebuild pcb's where you only have to solder the RaspberryPi Pico.


Do I need to say that I ordered the Hardware immediately?
Soldering was straight forward and easy, and would be even for beginners and programming the PiPico is literally just drag and drop.
After connecting the hardware you have to visit the site https://tetris.stacksmashing.net/ with the chrome or edge browser (as they allow webUSB).

Your running Tetris game will automatically be detected, and you can join or create a round. Finding opponents works for example through the inventors discord channel ( https://discord.gg/YASkVQY5Pr ). Really nice people are awaiting other players.

A round can host up to 6 players at once.

It is really a fun toy with hopefully more applications to come.
Ach so: I won,



Stay childish
Yours,
WebDoc

My KIM-1 clone ('PAL-1') is growing fast.
After the fabulous dTR Masss Storage by Willem Aandewiel, I got a real Audio-in/Audio-out Expansion Card from Liu:


You see an newly produced Tape Deck sending Data to the brandnew 32k KIM-1 Clone equipped with a brandnew Cassette Interface Kit.

But we haven't reached the end yet. James 'Jim' McClanahan tinkered a bitbit and build a ROM Board containing the most needed Tools for your PAL-1:
https://github.com/w4jbm/PAL-1-6502-SBC/blob/main/ROM/README.md
And Liu was fast enough to immediately produce this boards :D

IMO, this is definitely a killer application on PAL-1, from Jim with passions, coming soon on Tindie! pic.twitter.com/O57fkYENBo

— Liu Ganning (@LiuGN) May 21, 2021

As of today, the ROM Boards are available on Tindie, just visit Liu's shop:
https://www.tindie.com/stores/tkoak/

BTW: My KIM-1 Archive is growing and growing. If you are looking for software or books, just come over to my g.drive

Stay curious
yours,
webdoktor

Storage devices for your KIM-1 microcomputer were traditional either Tape drives or Punched Paper Tape solutions.
The possibility to connect the KIM's and it's clones via the serial connection to a modern PC helped a lot for transfering the ASCII data of a papertape to the KIM-1.
Yet Tape devices became more and more obsolete and its not that easy to buy cassettes nowadays.
Of course you can serve the wave file over the lineout / linein connection of your computer also, but Willem Andewiel figured out a way to simplify it a lot:

The Kim direct Tape Recorder "dTR"

https://willem.aandewiel.nl/index.php/2021/02/20/digital-tape-recorder-for-the-kim-1-and-clones/

The files are stored on an ESP Microcontroller (with wifi access) and can be played back directly to the Tape I/O Line of the KIM; you can also save files from the KIM on the EPS. This works as well for original KIM-1s as for newer Clones.

Via the microcontrollers webinterface you can upload and download files.

How to get files on to the dTR?
When you load files via Papertape (Terminal) to the KIM, you can store them afterwards on the virtual tape. Another option is to convert the papertape files direct with a program called ptp2hex and upload them via WIFI to the digital Tape Recorder. The Program is available as sourcecode on Willems Github: https://github.com/mrWheel/KIM_TapeDevice/tree/master/papertapeConverter
It was originally written for Mac's, to compile it for windows (cygwin) I needed to adjust it a bit:
Replace Line 24 with "#include <stdlib.h>" ,
in Line 151 replace the "int eol = strlen(lineIn) -5;" by "int eol = strlen(lineIn) -6;" under windows the end of the line is 2 characters long - we need to cut off one more at the end of a papertape line ...
As I am the only one in the world using this tapedevice under windows, it makes no sense to share it, i guess...
anyway: https://netzherpes.de/ptp2hex.zip is the *.exe
Thats it. Place it in your cygwin home folder.

Here is a little demo video of the dTR in action:




So long,
yours, webdoktor