page_title: Heathkit
section_title: Diversification and the digital era
hierarchical_section_title: Heathkit / Diversification and the digital era
caption_attribution_description: English: Heathkit Aircraft Navigation Computer OCW-1401 (1978).
context_page_description: Heathkit is the brand name of kits and other electronic products produced and marketed by the Heath Company. The products over the decades have included electronic test equipment, high fidelity home audio equipment, television receivers, amateur radio equipment, robots, electronic ignition conversion modules for early model cars with point style ignitions, and the influential Heath H-8, H-89, and H-11 hobbyist computers, which were sold in kit form for assembly by the purchaser.
  Heathkit manufactured electronic kits from 1947 until 1992. After closing that business, the Heath Company continued with its products for education, and motion-sensor lighting controls. The lighting control business was sold around 2000. The company announced in 2011 that they were reentering the kit business after a 20-year hiatus but then filed for bankruptcy in 2012, and under new ownership began restructuring in 2013. As of 2019, the company has a live website with newly-designed products, services, vintage kits, and replacement parts for sale.
context_section_description: After the death of Howard Anthony in 1954, Heath was bought by Daystrom Company, a management holding company that also owned several other electronics companies. Daystrom was absorbed by oilfield service company Schlumberger Limited in 1962, and the Daystrom/Schlumberger days were Heathkit's most successful. Those years saw some "firsts" in the general consumer market. The early 1960s saw the introduction of the AA-100 integrated amplifier. The early 1970s saw Heath introduce the AJ-1510, an FM tuner using digital synthesis, and the GC-1005 digital clock. In 1974, Heathkit started "Heathkit Educational Systems", which expanded their manuals into general electronics and computer training materials. Heathkit also expanded their expertise into digital and, eventually, computerized equipment, producing among other things digital clocks and weather stations with the new technology.
  Kits were compiled in small batches mostly by hand, using roller assembly lines. These lines were put up and taken down as needed. Some kits were sold completely "assembled and tested" in the factory. These models were differentiated with a "W" suffix after the model number.
  In 1978 Heathkit introduced the Heathkit H8 computer. The H8 was very successful, as were the H19 and H29 terminals, and the H89 "All in One" computer. The H8 and H89 ran their custom operating system, HDOS, and the popular CP/M operating system. The H89 contained two Zilog Z80 processors, one for the computer and one for the built-in H-19 terminal. The H11, a low-end DEC PDP-11 16-bit computer, was less successful; probably because it was substantially more expensive than the 8-bit computer line.
  Seeing the potential in personal computers, Zenith Radio Company bought Heath Company from Schlumberger in 1979 for $63 million, renaming the computer division Zenith Data Systems (ZDS). Zenith purchased Heath for the flexible assembly line infrastructure at the nearby St. Joseph facility as well as the R&D assets.
  Heath/Zenith was in the vanguard of companies to start selling personal computers to small business. The H89 kit was re-branded as the Zenith Z-89/Z-90, an assembled all in one system with a monitor and a floppy disk drive. They had agreements with Peachtree software to sell a customized "turn-key" version of their accounting, CPA and real estate management software. Shortly after the release of the Z-90, they released a 5MB hard disk unit and double density external floppy disk drives.
  While the H11 was popular with hard-core hobbyists, Heath engineers realized that DEC's low-end PDP microprocessors would not be able to get Heath up the road to more powerful systems at an affordable price. Heath/Zenith then designed a dual Intel 8085/8088-based system dubbed the H100 (or Z-100, in preassembled form, sold by ZDS). The machine featured advanced (for the day) bit mapped video that allowed up to 640 x 512 pixels of 8 color graphics. The H100 was interesting in that it could run either the CP/M operating system, or their OEM version of MS-DOS named Z-DOS, which were the two leading business PC operating systems at the time. Although the machine had to be rebooted to change modes, the competing operating systems could read each other's disks.
  In 1982 Heath introduced the Hero-1 robot kit to teach principles of industrial robotics. The robot included a Motorola 6808 processor, ultrasonic sensor, and optionally a manipulator arm; the complete robot could be purchased assembled for $2495 or a basic kit without the arm purchased for $999.  This was the first in a popular series of HeathKit robot kits sold to educational and hobbyist users.
caption: Heathkit Aircraft Navigation Computer OC-1401/OCW-1401 (1978)
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