Zenith Z90

From: Christian Fandt <cfandt_at_servtech.com>
Date: Thu May 7 08:19:28 1998

At 02:34 07-05-98 +0100, ard_at_p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) wrote:

>BTW, is a Z-88 (Zenith, not Sinclair for the UK people here) related to
>this machine? Is it the cassette version or something?

The H-88 (not Z-88) was a converted H-/Z-19 terminal. I never heard of a
'Z'-88. Do you own or have seen a H/Z-89-90-like machine marked Z-88?

Recall I stated that the H-89/Z-90 was built in the same case as the H/Z-19
 essentially making a single-unit computer with terminal. Kind of handy
since the Z-90 machines were often sold to business owners who had
small-size offices or whatever. Anyway, Heath Company offered a kit (have
to lookup the model number in my old Heath catalog collection -think it was
H88-1) consisting of boards, sheet metal, cables, etc. to make a bare-bones
H-89, typicaly dubbed H-88. Yes, a cassette interface was available, maybe
with this bare-bones thing and/or a stipped down actual H-89.

The earliest floppy disk system for the 8-bitters was the model H-17 used
with the H-8. Used the hard sectored Siemens 5.25" floppy drives (1,2 or 3
drives in the case) with an H-17 controller. The H/Z-77 was the
soft-sectored 5.25" floppy disk system with 1 or 2 drives and was offered
first with the H-89 and Z-90.

In addition to the 5.25 systems, and less likely to find because of their
original high cost and lousy reliability, was the H/Z-47 8" drive system. I
can't recall at this time, as I don't own one, the brand of drives but
there was a master floppy drive and a slave floppy drive -used an early
SASI knock-off as interface IIRC. Also, the H/Z-67 fixed disk system was
offered. I think it was only a 5 MB hard disk IIRC. I can check this stuff
if anybody interested as I have most of the manuals for this stuff and some
catalogs and other docs.

Anyway, the H-8 could use any of these drive systems and the H/Z-89/90 the
same. There was quite a bunch of us back in the old days who were a
close-knit users group for the H-8, H/Z-89/90 and H/Z-100 machines. It
supported a cottage industry somewhat smaller than that of the Apple and
Commodore folks, but there were the truly faithful supporters out there and
Heath supported us as well.

--Chris
-- --
Received on Thu May 07 1998 - 08:19:28 BST