My first Z80 love...

[J.B. Langston]

The first computer I ever used, circa age 7, was a Heathkit H89 that my dad had used to run his pharmacy.  After he upgraded to a PC at work, he brought the Heathkit home and taught me to run games and educational software on CP/M.  I've had a soft spot for CP/M and the Z80 since then.  It's the reason I joined the RC2014 community, and why I used the Z80 when I wanted to experiment with designing my own computer (z80ctrl).

Fast forward almost 40 years and the H89 and I have been reunited.  If you're interested, see my ongoing inventory and project log. Hope you enjoy!

- J.B.

[kurt....@web.de]

Hi,

I like it very much.
I was already admiring this product around 1980.
In order to keep this computer active, it needs a specialist.
A nice calculator.

I'm a Kaypro 484 fan and I also have two Kaypro's

I converted a Kaypro with Gotek and a new power supply.

http://www.forumcpm.gaby.de/viewtopic.php?t=50

greetings from Germany
Kurt

[Spencer Owen]

That is great! I love a reunion story like that.

My story is similar but a bit different.  The first computer I ever saw was a Sinclair ZX80, probably in 1980, and it belonged to a friend of my dads.  I didn't appreciate really what it was at the time though, but a couple of years later my dad bought a Sinclair ZX Spectrum, which was our first computer.

Just over 10 years ago when I wanted to get back to the old hardware the ZX80 was the machine I really wanted, and it was simple enough to build a clone of, so I kind of started down that route. What I ended up making turned out to become the RC2014 though.  This lead on to me making a video for the Computerphile YouTube channel about the Sinclair range of computers where I mentioned my dads friends ZX80 that I first saw and really wished I owned one.

My dad sent the video to his friend, who said he still had it in a box in the loft and he would happily give it to me.

So, in 2013 I started this because I wanted something like the first computer I ever saw, and by 2018 I owned the actual first computer I ever saw!

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[J.B. Langston]

Nice! I haven’t met a ZX80 or a speech in person but I have a Timex Sinclair 1000 which is the American equivalent of a ZX81. I understand the ZX81 was very similar to the ZX80 but fixed the screen flicker when pressing keys. I converted this one to output composite video and it works. I haven’t been able to get the tape port to output any audio so I’m not able to save anything though. It just makes a really low pitched hum like it’s got a ground loop. I did play around with the demos in the manual long enough to get it to plot a sine wave. 

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[J.B. Langston]

speech, er… speccy.

[J.B. Langston]

I have been playing around with some Kaypro games on my RC2014. The wyse WY-50 terminal I got uses the same ADM-3A control codes as the kaypro so most of them work onit. The file from here called kpgames.zip is the one I’ve been playing with: 

http://www.retroarchive.org/maslin/disks/kaypro/

My HealthKit is interesting in that it uses hard sector disks that have an index hole per sector. Going to be tough finding compatible disks for that. Some members of the Heathkit community have designed add in boards that let it use a CF disk like a hard drive similar to the RC2014 so once I get it working I will probably try building one of those. 

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[Samuel Falvo II]

On Monday, July 3, 2023 at 9:30:53 PM UTC-7 J.B. Langston wrote:

The first computer I ever used, circa age 7, was a Heathkit H89 that my dad had used to run his pharmacy.  After he upgraded to a PC at work, he brought the Heathkit home and taught me to run games and educational software on CP/M.  I've had a soft spot for CP/M and the Z80 since then.  It's the reason I joined the RC2014 community, and why I used the Z80 when I wanted to experiment with designing my own computer (z80ctrl).

Although my very first computer exposure was with my dad's TRS-80 Model I, I've always had a sweeter spot for the 6502 family in later years.  But, that TRS-80 Model I basically was what launched both my interest in computers, and therefore, my current career.  To this day, when I see a Z80 assembly program listing, I still strongly desire reading it with the TRS-80's screen font.  It just doesn't *look* right otherwise.  :)

As things would turn out, years later, I would make a number of peripheral devices for my C64 and Amiga; however, none of them actually sat on the processor's local bus.  They were always attachments to the parallel port.  It wasn't until I got my RC2014 Zed Pro that I managed to make my very first peripheral (1) that actually sat on the processor's local bus.

So, the Z80 has something of a special place for me as well: my first exposure to home computing as well as my first exposure to building bus-resident peripherals.

Note 1: The still-incomplete but otherwise functional/usable MOS8563 clone that I dubbed VDC-II.  I'm hoping to return to this project next year to finish it up.

 

Fast forward almost 40 years and the H89 and I have been reunited.  If you're interested, see my ongoing inventory and project log. Hope you enjoy!

Congrats on the reunion!

 

[J.B. Langston]

I also have a soft spot for the C64 and 6502. The Heathkit was the first computer I used but the C64 was the first computer I programmed, in 6th grade class while I was pretending to be sick so I didn't have to play dodgeball. I asked my dad for one and he gave me a hand-me-down PC with QuickBASIC on it instead. 

I never got over not having a C64 of my own so as an adult I have bought several. I have an American one that had the original bread bin case, but it's an old model that didn't have separate luma/chroma signal so the video is really muddy. The American C64s also can't play all the cool demos that people still write today.  So I imported one from the UK (newer C64C style case), which I can use with a LCD monitor.  Eventually I got an Ultimate 64 and put this in the original case from the American C64. The original motherboard is framed and hanging on my wall.  I asked the creator of Ultimate 64 if it would be possible to run the video at 50Hz and use an NTSC color burst, and it turns out that works. Now I can watch C64 demos in color on the Ultimate 64 using my american 1702 CRT! :)

I also have an Apple II for more 6502 goodness, pictured alongside the Ultimate 64 and the actual PC (120MHz Pentium) that I had in high school.

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[J.B. Langston]

Sadly this story doesn't have a happy ending (yet).  The computer turned out to be a basket case (especially the high-voltage CRT driver board). I tried everything I could to get it up and running again, but to no avail.  I did get the CPU board to boot using a borrowed 5.25" drive and sending the output to a terminal emulator on my PC rather than the integrated monitor. Working on the high voltage stresses me out and eventually I realized that working on it was causing me more frustration than joy, so I have put it back in the closet for now. Maybe someday I will try to take another crack at it. On the plus side it did get me back into retro computing and working on my RCBus boards after several years of hiatus.