Kenbak-1
![]() A Kenbak-1 at the Computer History Museum | |
Developer | John Blankenbaker |
---|---|
Manufacturer | Kenbak Corporation |
Type | Personal computer |
Release date | 1971 |
Introductory price | US$750 (equivalent to $5,640 in 2023) |
Discontinued | 1973 |
Units sold | 44[1] |
Memory | 256 bytes of memory |
The Kenbak-1 is considered by the Computer History Museum,[2] the Computer Museum of America[3] and the American Computer Museum[4] to be the world's first "personal computer",[5] invented by John Blankenbaker (born 1929) of Kenbak Corporation in 1970 and first sold in early 1971.[6] Less than 50 machines were ever built, using Bud Industries enclosures as a housing.[1] The system first sold for US$750.[7] Today, only 14 machines are known to exist worldwide,[8][9] in the hands of various collectors and museums. Production of the Kenbak-1 stopped in 1973,[10] as Kenbak failed and was taken over by CTI Education Products, Inc. CTI rebranded the inventory and renamed it the 5050, though sales remained elusive.[11]
Since the Kenbak-1 was invented before the first microprocessor, the machine did not have a one-chip CPU but was instead based purely on small-scale integration TTL chips.[12] The 8-bit machine offered 256 bytes of memory,[13] implemented on Intel's type 1404A silicon gate MOS shift registers.[14] The clock signal period was 1 microsecond (equivalent to a clock speed of 1 MHz), but the program speed averaged below 1,000 instructions per second due the many clock cycles needed for each operation and slow access to serial memory.[12]
The machine was programmed in pure machine code using an array of buttons and switches. Output consisted of a row of lights.
Internally, the Kenbak-1 has a serial computer architecture, processing one bit at a time.[15][16]
Technical description
[edit]Registers
[edit]07 | 06 | 05 | 04 | 03 | 02 | 01 | 00 | (bit position) |
Main registers | ||||||||
A | A | |||||||
B | B | |||||||
X | X (Index) | |||||||
P | Program Counter | |||||||
Flags | ||||||||
000000 | C | O | A flags | |||||
000000 | C | O | B flags | |||||
000000 | C | O | X flags | |||||
Input/Output | ||||||||
Output | Lights | |||||||
Input | Switches |
The Kenbak-1 has a total of nine registers. All are memory mapped. It has three general-purpose registers: A, B and X. Register A is the implicit destination of some operations. Register X, also known as the index register, turns the direct and indirect modes into indexed direct and indexed indirect modes. It also has a program counter, called Register P, three "overflow and carry" registers for A, B and X, respectively, as well as an Input Register and an Output Register.[17]
Addressing modes
[edit]Add, Subtract, Load, Store, Load Complement, And, and Or instructions operate between a register and another operand using five addressing modes:
- Immediate (operand is in second byte of instruction)
- Memory (second byte of instruction is the address of the operand)
- Indirect (second byte of instruction is the address of the address of the operand)
- Indexed (second byte of instruction is added to X to form the address of the operand)
- Indirect Indexed (second byte of instruction points to a location which is added to X to form the address of the operand)
Instruction table
[edit]The instructions are encoded in 8 bits, with a possible second byte providing an immediate value or address. Some instructions have multiple possible encodings.[17]
Opcode matrix for the Kenbak-1 instruction set | ||||||||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
High octal digits | Low octal digit | |||||||||||||||||
0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | |||||||||||
00 | HALT | SFTR A1 | SET 0 b0 XXX | ADD A #XXX | ADD A XXX | ADD A (XXX) | ADD A XXX, X | ADD A (XXX), X | ||||||||||
01 | HALT | SFTR A2 | SET 0 b1 XXX | SUB A #XXX | SUB A XXX | SUB A (XXX) | SUB A XXX, X | SUB A (XXX), X | ||||||||||
02 | HALT | SFTR A3 | SET 0 b2 XXX | LOAD A #XXX | LOAD A XXX | LOAD A (XXX) | LOAD A XXX, X | LOAD A (XXX), X | ||||||||||
03 | HALT | SFTR A4 | SET 0 b3 XXX | STORE A #XXX | STORE A XXX | STORE A (XXX) | STORE A XXX, X | STORE A (XXX), X | ||||||||||
04 | HALT | SFTR B1 | SET 0 b4 XXX | JPD A ≠0 XXX | JPD A =0 XXX | JPD A <0 XXX | JPD A ≥0 XXX | JPD A >0 XXX | ||||||||||
05 | HALT | SFTR B2 | SET 0 b5 XXX | JPI A ≠0 XXX | JPI A =0 XXX | JPI A <0 XXX | JPI A ≥0 XXX | JPI A >0 XXX | ||||||||||
06 | HALT | SFTR B3 | SET 0 b6 XXX | JMD A ≠0 XXX | JMD A =0 XXX | JMD A <0 XXX | JMD A ≥0 XXX | JMD A >0 XXX | ||||||||||
07 | HALT | SFTR B4 | SET 0 b7 XXX | JMI A ≠0 XXX | JMI A =0 XXX | JMI A <0 XXX | JMI A ≥0 | JMI A >0 XXX | ||||||||||
10 | HALT | ROTR A1 | SET 1 b0 XXX | ADD B #XXX | ADD B XXX | ADD B (XXX) | ADD B XXX, X | ADD B (XXX), X | ||||||||||
11 | HALT | ROTR A2 | SET 1 b1 XXX | SUB B #XXX | SUB B XXX | SUB B (XXX) | SUB B XXX, X | SUB B (XXX), X | ||||||||||
12 | HALT | ROTR A3 | SET 1 b2 XXX | LOAD B #XXX | LOAD B XXX | LOAD B (XXX) | LOAD B XXX, X | LOAD B (XXX), X | ||||||||||
13 | HALT | ROTR A4 | SET 1 b3 XXX | STORE B #XXX | STORE B XXX | STORE B (XXX) | STORE B XXX, X | STORE B (XXX), X | ||||||||||
14 | HALT | ROTR B1 | SET 1 b4 XXX | JPD B ≠0 XXX | JPD B =0 XXX | JPD B <0 XXX | JPD B ≥0 XXX | JPD B >0 XXX | ||||||||||
15 | HALT | ROTR B2 | SET 1 b5 XXX | JPI B ≠0 XXX | JPI B =0 XXX | JPI B <0 XXX | JPI B ≥0 XXX | JPI B >0 XXX | ||||||||||
16 | HALT | ROTR B3 | SET 1 b6 XXX | JMD B ≠0 XXX | JMD B =0 XXX | JMD B <0 XXX | JMD B ≥0 XXX | JMD B >0 XXX | ||||||||||
17 | HALT | ROTR B4 | SET 1 b7 XXX | JMI B ≠0 XXX | JMI B =0 XXX | JMI B <0 XXX | JMI B ≥0 XXX | JMI B >0 XXX | ||||||||||
20 | NOOP | SFTL A1 | SKP 0 b0 XXX | ADD X #XXX | ADD X XXX | ADD X (XXX) | ADD X XXX, X | ADD X (XXX), X | ||||||||||
21 | NOOP | SFTL A2 | SKP 0 b1 XXX | SUB X #XXX | SUB X XXX | SUB X (XXX) | SUB X XXX, X | SUB X (XXX), X | ||||||||||
22 | NOOP | SFTL A3 | SKP 0 b2 XXX | LOAD X #XXX | LOAD X XXX | LOAD X (XXX) | LOAD X (XXX) | LOAD X (XXX), X | ||||||||||
23 | NOOP | SFTL A4 | SKP 0 b3 XXX | STORE X #XXX | STORE X XXX | STORE X (XXX) | STORE X XXX, X | STORE X (XXX), X | ||||||||||
24 | NOOP | SFTL B1 | SKP 0 b4 XXX | JPD X ≠0 XXX | JPD X =0 XXX | JPD X <0 XXX | JPD X ≥0 XXX, X | JPD X >0 XXX | ||||||||||
25 | NOOP | SFTL B2 | SKP 0 b5 XXX | JPI X ≠0 XXX | JPI X =0 XXX | JPI X <0 XXX | JPI X ≥0 XXX | JPI X >0 XXX | ||||||||||
26 | NOOP | SFTL B3 | SKP 0 b6 XXX | JMD X ≠0 XXX | JMD X =0 XXX | JMD X <0 XXX | JMD X ≥0 XXX | JMD X >0 XXX | ||||||||||
27 | NOOP | SFTL B4 | SKP 0 b7 XXX | JMI X ≠0 XXX | JMI X =0 XXX | JMI X <0 XXX | JMI X ≥0 XXX | JMI X >0 XXX | ||||||||||
30 | NOOP | ROTL A1 | SKP 1 b0 XXX | OR #XXX | OR XXX | OR (XXX) | OR XXX, X | OR (XXX), X | ||||||||||
31 | NOOP | ROTL A2 | SKP 1 b1 XXX | — | — | — | — | — | ||||||||||
32 | NOOP | ROTL A3 | SKP 1 b2 XXX | AND #XXX | AND XXX | AND (XXX) | AND XXX, X | AND (XXX), X | ||||||||||
33 | NOOP | ROTL A4 | SKP 1 b3 XXX | LNEG #XXX | LNEG XXX | LNEG (XXX) | LNEG XXX, X | LNEG (XXX), X | ||||||||||
34 | NOOP | ROTL B1 | SKP 1 b4 XXX | JPD UNC XXX | JPD UNC XXX | JPD UNC XXX | JPD UNC XXX | JPD UNC XXX | ||||||||||
35 | NOOP | ROTL B2 | SKP 1 b5 XXX | JPI UNC XXX | JPI UNC XXX | JPI UNC XXX | JPI UNC XXX | JPI UNC XXX | ||||||||||
36 | NOOP | ROTL B3 | SKP 1 b6 XXX | JMD UNC XXX | JMD UNC XXX | JMD UNC XXX | JMD UNC XXX | JMD UNC XXX | ||||||||||
37 | NOOP | ROTL B4 | SKP 1 b7 XXX | JMI UNC XXX | JMI UNC XXX | JMI UNC XXX | JMI UNC XXX | JMI UNC XXX |
See also
[edit]- Datapoint 2200, a contemporary machine with alphanumeric screen and keyboard, suitable to run non-trivial application programs
- Mark-8, designed by graduate student Jonathan A. Titus and announced as a "loose kit" in the July 1974 issue of Radio-Electronics magazine
- Altair 8800, a very popular 1975 microcomputer that provided the inspiration for starting Microsoft
- Gigatron TTL, a 21st-century implementation of a computer using small-scale integration parts
References
[edit]- ^ a b "Oral History of John Blankenbaker" (PDF). Computer History Museum. June 14, 2007.
- ^ "What was the First PC?". Retrieved October 25, 2022.
- ^ "PastExhibits - History of the PC". Retrieved October 13, 2022.
- ^ "The George R. Stibitz Computer Pioneer Award". Archived from the original on September 13, 2008. Retrieved August 5, 2008.
- ^ "Timeline of Computer History". Computer History Museum. Retrieved July 22, 2008.
- ^ "The man who made 'the world's first personal computer'". November 6, 2015 – via www.bbc.com.
- ^ "Kenbak-1 The Training Computer". Computerworld. November 17, 1971. p. 43. Retrieved May 25, 2014.
- ^ "List of Extant Kenbak-1 Computers". Kenbak.com. Retrieved 13 October 2022.
- ^ "Kenbak-1". Computer Museum of Nova Scotia. Retrieved 19 November 2015.
- ^ p. 52, "The First Personal Computer", Popular Mechanics, January 2000.
- ^ Robert R Nielsen, Snr (2005). "Inside the Kenbak-1". YouTube. Archived from the original on 2021-12-13. Retrieved 8 November 2015.
- ^ a b Erik Klein. "Kenbak Computer Company Kenbak-1". Old-computers.com. Retrieved May 25, 2014.
- ^ Bill Wilson (6 November 2015). "The man who made 'the world's first personal computer'". BBC News.
- ^ "Technical". www.kenbak-1.net.
- ^ "Kenbak Theory of Operation Manual". p. 16.
- ^ "Official Kenbak-1 Reproduction Kit".
- ^ a b "Programming Reference Manual KENBAK-l Computer"
External links
[edit]- Kenbak.com Comprehensive Kenbak-1 history and technical information
- KENBAK-1 Computer Article
- KENBAK-1 Computer – Official Kenbak-1 website at www.kenbak-1.info
- Kenbak-1 Emulator – Kenbak-1 Emulator download
- Kenbak 1 – Images and information at www.vintage-computer.com
- Kenbak documentation at bitsavers.org