  During the last two years several experimental approaches to strange systems
have been realized at the spectrometer facility of the Mainz Microtron MAMI. An
instrument of central importance for the strangeness electro-production program
is the magnetic spectrometer Kaos that was installed during 2003-8 and is now
operated by the A1 collaboration in (e,e'K) reactions on the proton or light
nuclei. Since 2008 kaon production at low four-momentum transfers off a liquid
hydrogen target was studied. The measurements were sensitive to details of the
phenomenological models describing the reaction. Two very prominent isobar
models, Kaon-Maid and Saclay-Lyon A, differ in the number of contributing
nucleon resonances and their longitudinal couplings at the kinematics measured
at MAMI. In order to use Kaos as a zero-degree double-arm spectrometer a
magnetic chicane comprising two compensating sector magnets was constructed and
a new electron-arm focal-plane detector system was built.
