Heathkit H89 Intro

From: Bob Mason <knightstalkerbob_at_netscape.net>
Date: Wed Feb 12 16:47:00 2003

"Jason J. Gullickson" <mr_at_jasongullickson.com> wrote:

>I recently acquired what I believe to be a Heathkit H89. It was
>assembled a long time ago by my friend's father, contains a single disk
>drive and a monochrome terminal.
>
>My ultimate goal would be to get this thing running CPM and a C
>compiler, but first I need to figure out if it's working.
>
>I've yet to determine if it has a hard or soft-sectored disk controller,
>but I have some general questions since I don't have any documentation.
>
>First, where can I get some documentation? ; )

I have all the original documentation, including the assembly manual and schematics. My first question is; has Heath/Zenith released H89 docs to P.D.?

>
>Second, when I turn the machine on, all I get is a blinking cursor. If
>I depress the "offline" key, I can type characters on the terminal
>accompanied by a short beep; if the "offline" key is not depressed, I
>get long beeps and nothing on the display. What "should" it do when I
>turn it on with no disk in the drive?
>

IIRC, on power-up, you only have about 4 options as to what keys you can press. Pressing "B" should respond with "oot" (to boot the machine). I don't remember what the other options were.

I also remember a space bar tapping ritual, to syncronize the serial comm between the two boards. Don't remember when that was applicable, though.

>I'll be happy to provide more info as I dig it up, but any introductory
>details on this system or references to websites, etc. would be greatly
>appreciated.
>
>
>Jason J. Gullickson
>mr_at_jasongullickson.com
>


-- 
Bob Mason
2x Amiga 500's, GVP A530 (40mhz 68030/68882, 8meg Fast, SCSI), 1.3/3.1, 2meg Chip, full ECS chipset, EZ135, 1084S, big harddrives, 2.2xCD
Gateway Performance 500 Piece 'o Crap, 'ME, 384meg, 20Gig & 40Gig, flatbed.
Heathkit H-89A, 64K RAM, hard and soft-sectored floppies, SigmaSoft and Systems 256K RAM Drive/Print Spooler/Graphics board HDOS 2 & CP/M 2.2.03/2.2.04
Received on Wed Feb 12 2003 - 16:47:00 GMT

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