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Outside the windows of our monitors, the seventies of the last century leisurely swim, the years are solid and exponential ... they are only supposed to walk stately. The words "rapidly swept" simply do not apply to such a leisurely era. The sixties dreamers matured and began to embody their shaky illusory youthful fantasies in dense silicon matter. Computers have not yet settled in every home and office, but they have already been spoken about more and more. Among his fellow counterparts, in 1977, Rockwell AIM 65 was born, to which our today's historical page is dedicated. A unique computer born at the junction of high technology and fashion trends of its time.
We begin traditionally, with technical details that are able to tell a knowledgeable person much more than kilometers, filled with a multitude of letters combined into beautiful, but meaningless, words. This computer was based on the Rockwell 6502 processor (clock speed: 1 megahertz). RAM could be from one to four kilobytes. Present two ports for expansion cards. Rockwell AIM 65 had a twenty-bit alphanumeric liquid crystal (LCD, LED) display, as well as an integrated thermal printing device (thermal printer). The data carrier was (in the best traditions of its time) audio tapes. Accordingly, the drive served as an external tape recorder. The operating system “Monitor” was flashed into permanent memory. The price of the version with one kilobyte of RAM was $ 375.
The company Rockwell sought to occupy its niche in the emerging microcomputer industry and decided to explore the budget segment of this promising direction. Its microcomputers cost less than $ 500 and at the same time have a keyboard, a display, and even some kind of printer, not to mention pretty good extensibility.
Rockwell AIM 65 was preceded by the “blue collar” system, single boards characteristic of its time, a kind of “semi-finished product”, on the basis of which a craftsman could build his computer. But the time of the "designers" was gone, the time required finished products and computer companies, capturing the trend of the moment, hastily searched for such solutions.
Then Rockwell showed the world AIM 65, which was different from the “blue collar” by the presence of the case and power supply. That is, it was a “ready-to-use” computer right out of the box, as they say in our day. Regardless of the tasks that users were going to impose on Rockwell AIM 65, it was a very economical solution, which determined its further popularity.
Let us turn to his instructions (user manual) and simply list the tasks for which he intended the manufacturer. It could be used as a storage for production data; controller tools and navigation; data logger; power line monitor; energy monitor; fault or alarm recorder; means of data consumption; controller of transformers and motors; solar heat controller; security monitor.
Quite a multi-tasking little thing, but as you can see from the list of tasks that he had to perform, it was a computer, primarily for the production department, and not for entertainment.
There were many different enclosures for the Rockwell AIM 65. It could fit in an inexpensive plastic case or in a metal case with a built-in power supply. A kind of portable option.
As mentioned above, AIM 65 could have either one kilobyte of RAM, or four. It was necessary to use only static RAM-modules R2114.
The computer had five slots for permanent memory modules (ROM, ROM) with software. In a typical configuration, two of them were already occupied. One operating system "Monitor", and the second - a text editor. Yes, the success of computers began precisely when the broad masses of office workers learned how to replace them with a typewriter and evaluated their practical usefulness.
And again, pay attention to the metal case, made in the style characteristic of the male "diplomats" of those years. I must say that such a “diplomat” suitcase was a very fashionable accessory in those years. They went to work with them, and high school students went to school, thereby emphasizing their “adulthood”. Perhaps it was the first computer in history that became not only a functional device, but also, as they would say today, a “fashionable gadget”.
We re-emphasize the solidity and thoroughness that pervaded everything in the seventies of the last century. It is not yet time for backpacks and lightweight bags over the shoulder. It is a weighty, though compact enough against the background of the road, a small suitcase in hand, befitting a respectable man then. However, the technology that allows you to put all the power of a computer in the body of a modern smartphone then also did not exist.
Let's go back to the slots for the permanent memory modules. With their help, it was possible to install additional programs. In particular, the programming languages BASIC, PASCAL, FORTH, as well as assembler / disassembler.
Rockwell AIM 65's two 8-bit bidirectional parallel ports allowed external peripherals to be connected. In addition, there was a serial port (speed: 9 thousand 600 baud, that is, bits per second), 4 control buses and 2 timers. Two cassette recorders could be connected to the computer.
Now about the data transfer. Yes, yes, this ancient unit was able to do it, but in a slightly different way, which seems familiar to us today. For the TTY, a four-wire, 20-millimeter current loop interface was provided. The transmitted information was printed on the built-in thermal printer with an amazing speed of 40 characters per second. But here it should be noted that the Rockwell AIM 65 was not the first computer with telecommunication capabilities.
Let's talk about extensions. For this purpose, special modules Microflex 65 from Rockwell were used, which were inserted into three available connectors. Here you should list all such modules: single board computer; 8 kilobyte static RAM module; 16-kilobyte programmable program memory; floppy disk controller (magnetic diskette drive); controller of the electron-beam monitor; general-purpose input-output controller and timer; asynchronous communication interface adapter; IEEE 488 bus controller.
The AIM 65 expandable motherboard supported any expansion modules designed for System 65 from Rockwell and Motorola Exorcisor, as well as a number of other expansion modules from Rockwell, Motorola, Burr-Brown and other manufacturers. AIM 65 was not a “thing in itself” and had excellent compatibility. Moreover, its capabilities could be increased many times.
Initially, the computer had only one or four kilobytes of RAM, but it was enough to install the RMS-122 module and the total AIM 65 RAM increased to 64 kilobytes. This memory was non-volatile.
But the most interesting thing to come. In the socket Z9, located on the motherboard and designed for the central processing unit (CPU), it was possible to install the “RACO little board - circuit lab” board.
It was developed by RACO (Rockwell Anaheim Computer Organization) and was a kind of auxiliary high-performance microcomputer operating under the control of the operating system CP / M. This “small board” was compatible with almost all 6502 systems that had the appropriate I / O capabilities.
This board already contained 64 kilobytes of dynamic RAM, fully accessible to the user (that is, some of this memory was not allocated for the service tasks of the computer itself), as well as 256 bytes of programmable permanent memory used for loading the system.
The small card came with software for AIM 65 or Commodore PET based on BASIC 3.0 or 4.0 and support for 4040 magnetic disk drives.
Below the AIM 65 expandable motherboard, there was another motherboard that was even larger than the main one. This engineering marvel was a VIDEO-1 video card developed by Rines Engineering.
And it was not just a video card, but a real storehouse of possibilities. She supported 11 alphanumeric, semi-graphic and graphic modes. Supported transmission on the display screen or standard TV up to eight colors, as well as input using a light pen, the predecessor of the stylus, which was used on displays with a cathode ray tube, but gave way to a familiar and cozy computer mouse.
VIDEO-1 also had space for expanding external memory up to 34 kilobytes (including 6 kilobytes for video). As well as the video card had two kilobytes of programmable permanent memory 82S2708, designed for system tasks and additional user programs.
AIM 65 progressed through the years. Four years later, in 1981, it gave way to the new AIM 65/40, which in many ways was a modification of its predecessor.
Source: Oldcomputers.net
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