Compukit UK101
A running Compukit UK101
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| Type | microcomputer |
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| Release date | 1979 |
| CPU | 6502 @ 1 MHz |
The Compukit UK101 microcomputer (1979) is a kit clone of the Ohio Scientific Superboard II single-board computer, with a few enhancements for the UK market - notably replacing the 24×24 (add guardband kit to give 32×32) screen display with a more useful 48×16 layout working at UK video frequencies. The video output is black and white with 256 characters generated by a two kilobyte ROM. It has no bit-mapped graphics capability. The video is output through a UHF modulator, designed to connect to a TV set.
The UK101 design was published in Practical Electronics, a popular hobbyists magazine at the time. The August, September, October and November 1979 issues carried the four parts of the article, authored by Dr A. A. Berk. Later issues of the magazine contained information on modifications and additions to the machine, including a series of articles on building an expansion unit.
Kits of parts for building the machine were available from CompShop Ltd of 14 Station Road, New Barnet (North London). It is thought that around 5000 kits were produced.
The Compukit UK101 is powered by a 6502 microprocessor CPU running at 1 MHz, and is equipped with up to 8 kilobytes of RAM using 2114 static RAM chips of 1024×4-bit. An additional memory-mapped 1 KB of RAM is used for the video display. It has the 8K Microsoft BASIC interpreter stored in ROM. In addition to Basic, a 6502 machine code monitor (2Kb) is built into ROM. It allows programming by entering sequences of 6502 operational codes. Later a two pass assembler was available which allows the use of assembly language.
Although the 6502 has two interrupt input pins (NMI and IRQ), neither is used by the UK101.
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