Nov 16, 2022
Heathkit Hero 2000 - the motherlode of kit robots from the 1980s.
Large Scale Systems Museum (LSSM) - mact.io - Pittsburgh, PA
seen from Germany
seen from United States
seen from Netherlands
seen from Türkiye
seen from Algeria
seen from United States
seen from Algeria
seen from Türkiye
seen from Germany
seen from China
seen from United States
seen from United Kingdom
seen from United States
seen from Pakistan
seen from Russia
seen from Argentina
seen from China
seen from Türkiye
seen from Algeria
seen from United States
Heathkit Hero 2000 - the motherlode of kit robots from the 1980s.
Large Scale Systems Museum (LSSM) - mact.io - Pittsburgh, PA
Heathkit-Zenith Hero Jr Robot
Note the rust stain in the storage area within the head. Makes me wonder what else is wrong with this poor little robot.
Computer History Museum - Mountain View, CA
Banished to the basement for robot crimes.
I find it hard to believe that Heathkit really expected people to trust the security of their homes to Hero Jr. robots back in ‘84.
Heathkit/Zenith recommended a radio transmitter add-on that would send a signal to your home security system, should the robot discover an intruder while in guard mode. It was a prospective feature so important that it’s included in demo mode, has its own dedicated button on the control keypad, and a blank spot on the chassis specifically design to accept a common transmitter module from the era. The icing on the cake is the sticker, which I finally was able to acquire.
However, a guard robot that can barely navigate a hallway or see where its going is going to be a poor excuse for home security. Not to mention, the battery life of a Hero Jr. in its base configuration is insufficient to run for more than 5 hours, especially if it’s doing a lot of driving. Maybe it would be alright if it included the extended battery option? Still, I’m skeptical that anyone actually used this thing to protect their homes.
Heathkit H8 & H89
Alex Bodnar is a fellow H89 geek, and the one area he likes to play is with floppy disks. Name a floppy tape for the H8 or H89, and he can write to it. Soft sector, or Hard sector? Single Side or Double Side? Single Density or Double Density?
I dig that Wintek Branded H19 with the amber picture tube, which was how he interfaced with the H8.
Heathkit Hero Jr. schematics, or how to make a serial port work in a pre-Max232 world.
Huh. So my Hero Jr. does have a working serial connection. I thought it was toast... maybe I tested incorrectly back when I was diagnosing issues with it.
It doesn’t seem to want to correctly display characters on my Libretto 70CT. 9600 7-E-1 just spits out garbage on screen, even when I try a variety of ASCII modes. So I opened up the H89, bypassed the CPU board, and sure enough, I got the Wintek BASIC prompt.
During Hero Jr’s diagnostics, the drive motor spun, but didn’t pass the startup test. I knew the front wheel encoder wasn’t entirely working, but I didn’t think that was the sole method of testing the drive system. So I think Hero Jr. is probably at 95% functionality now. I would call that progress!
Good news! After working on Hero Jr. all day, I’m happy to report that he is back to 100% functionality. The wheel encoder disk wasn’t correctly spinning with the front right wheel. A bit of gorilla glue later, and it’s back in action. Add to that, precision distance driving tests by way of the BASIC prompt via my desktop, and Hero Jr. is a happy robot once more.