• Please review our updated Terms and Rules here

KIM-1 Boards of the Past

glitch

Veteran Member
Joined
Feb 1, 2010
Messages
5,051
Location
Central VA
I finally herded together the extant pictures of the KIM-1s I've had in the past and did a writeup:


TL;DR is that during college I found a KIM-1 in an employer's warehouse. Later, I found a box with five more! These were all Virginia Tech surplus, and one of them is likely the first KIM-1 used for classroom instruction there. I'd intended to sell some of them, since who needs six, right? Unfortunately, I was forced to sell all of them, including the one I'd intended to keep for myself, due to economic/financial situations after graduation.

I've never seen anyone post about these particular machines, and I haven't seen them exhibited at VCF East, VCF Midwest, or HOPE. None of the sellers contacted me about them after the sale concluded. Is anyone here the owner of one of these particular KIM-1s? Do you know the owner? Did you use KIM-1s while at Virginia Tech? Please let me know!
 
Hmmm, I know how you feel. That is a familiar story. I had to sell some items I really would rather have kept, but as a penniless student back in the late 70's & early 80's, due to financial and space issues they had to go. I tried to track them down 20 years later but had no luck.

One fellow I met had a similar problem, but it was more extreme and he developed an adjustment disorder. What happened he was travelling around a lot and needed money and had a young family, so he sold his vintage Aston Martin car (like the one used in early James Bond movies and the one Prince Charles has) After this the price of the car skyrocketed and he could never get another. Not dissimilar to the price of an Apple 1 computer. It was hard for him to stop talking about it, it bothered him every day.
 
In an ideal world, I'd have been able to keep the one I wanted and distribute the others to friends :p I don't lose sleep over it, but I do often wonder just where these ended up! I'd have expected especially the no-rev and rev A boards to end up discussed online, or to have shown up at a VCF. Hopefully they're not hanging on a wall in a frame or something, heh.
 
I think that would be better than being in a landfill.
Oh, certainly! Even in the best-case disposal scenario, with the board having been ground up and precious metals recovered, would be way worse :p I'm just hoping they're getting run.

I suppose the dead one might be a static display somewhere. Maybe it became a donor for another KIM-1 with a bad RRIOT or other missing parts? That'd be a good fate for it.
 
Back
Top