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Gimix 6809
Southwest developed the SS-50/SS-30 bus system, but they weren't the only company to use it. Several companies, including Midwest Scientific Instruments (MSI - not to be confused with the modern MSI of Taiwan), Smoke Signal Broadcasting, and
Gimix, used it also. Gimix, of Chicago, IL, was founded by Robert C. Phillips, a
hard core electronics enthusiast who managed to automate his entire apartment, similar to the fictional Miles Harding in 1984's Electric Dreams. The name Gimix was chosen to represent the original product line of home automation products. In 1979, Gimix introduced the
System 68, also known
My personal Gimix 6809, once used at Simon Fraser University!
as the Gimix Ghost. This machine was designed for process control applications, in home and industrial settings. One model offered specifically for home automation retailed for over $10,000 in 1980 and allowed for appliance operation and energy use monitoring. The Ghost utilized SWTPC's SS-50 bus, but offered more slots with pins that were gold plated, and ran a Motorola 6800 CPU clocked at 1MHz. Sometime around 1982, the Gimix 6809 was introduced, which was a bit more conventional in design, sporting a Motorola 6809 running at 2MHz
I very recently acquired a 6809 system which David C. Wiens' research suggests had been in use at Simon Fraser University to "to automatically track the movement (speed and direction) of nematodes when exposed to various stimuli." I have no idea what any of that means, but it sounds
awesome! To say this thing is beefy is an understatement. The original SWTPC 6800 to which the Ghost and6809 traces their lineage was mainly a hobbyist, home machine. The Gimix machine is an industrial beast! The transformer is massive! Despite being a massive SWTPC fan, to be honest, I've never much liked Molex pins used for the SS-50 bus. I've found
Check out those gold pins!!
after 50 years the Molex pins become 'sticky' (rusty) and removing cards is an arduous process that involves a lot of uncomfortable torquing on the card to pry it loose. The gold pins on the Gimix don't seem to have any oxidation issues and removing cards still involved some strength,
but not as much as my old
Disk controller
6800 needed. Speaking of industrial builds, I'm really glad I was able to acquire this one locally for a change. Shipping has gotten really expensive and that massive transformer almost requires a forklift! Agh, my back!
Today Gimix equipment is extremely rare. In 20
years keeping an eye on places like eBay, I have only ever seen one or two complete-ish Ghost systems, and a handful of boards. A rare beast for sure and I can't wait to clean this one up and see it run, if I can find the OS-9/Flex software it requires. Thanks to Dave Wiens for connecting me
with this unique machine!
