New H8 owner checking

[Rob Foster]

I purchased an H8 from a member here on eBay, it came in yesterday.

I spent the day going from knowing nothing about H8s to having mine booting from a Gotek flashed with FlashFloppy and running Benton Harbor Extended Basic, all due to the resources and information I found here and elsewhere. I currently have a Basic program calculating prime factors of integers up to 10000, should keep it busy overnight.

Looking forward to learning more about this machine, always wanted one since I was a kid, now I finally have one.

[norberto.collado koyado.com]

Congratulations! Can you share a picture of system internals?

Norby

Get Outlook for iOS

---

From: se...@googlegroups.com <se...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Rob Foster <rgfo...@gmail.com>
Sent: Saturday, January 24, 2026 5:21:10 PM
To: SEBHC <se...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: [sebhc] New H8 owner checking

 

I purchased an H8 from a member here on eBay, it came in yesterday.

I spent the day going from knowing nothing about H8s to having mine booting from a Gotek flashed with FlashFloppy and running Benton Harbor Extended Basic, all due to the resources and information I found here and elsewhere. I currently have a Basic program calculating prime factors of integers up to 10000, should keep it busy overnight.

Looking forward to learning more about this machine, always wanted one since I was a kid, now I finally have one.

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "SEBHC" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to sebhc+un...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/sebhc/726c6749-fd3b-40ff-bc35-d7370bae1894n%40googlegroups.com.

[glenn.f...@gmail.com]

Wow. Great news and zero to 60 in one day.  Welcome. Hope to hear more about your setup (and we love pictures if you care to share…)

 

Congrat’s.

 

• Glenn

 

 

From: se...@googlegroups.com <se...@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of Rob Foster
Sent: Saturday, January 24, 2026 8:21 PM
To: SEBHC <se...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: [sebhc] New H8 owner checking

 

I purchased an H8 from a member here on eBay, it came in yesterday.

 

I spent the day going from knowing nothing about H8s to having mine booting from a Gotek flashed with FlashFloppy and running Benton Harbor Extended Basic, all due to the resources and information I found here and elsewhere. I currently have a Basic program calculating prime factors of integers up to 10000, should keep it busy overnight.

 

Looking forward to learning more about this machine, always wanted one since I was a kid, now I finally have one.

--

[Joseph Travis]

Congrats Rob!  That's amazing progress in such a short time.  We look forward to living vicariously through your learning experience and hope to be of some help along the way.

Regards,

Joe

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/sebhc/010f01dc8da4%241fbfd1d0%245f3f7570%24%40gmail.com.

[Rob Foster]

Here are some pics. 

First one extended basic calculating prime factors

second one the H8 booting up HDOS

third the internals, 64KB ram, H17 controller board, 4 port serial, and a small card in the very back that I believe will allow it to boot CP/M. I haven't figured out how to get CP/M booting yet.

I was struggling to get the Gotek working until I found Darrell Pelan's word document that showed a cable mod I needed to do.

[norberto.collado koyado.com]

Beautiful system and a great configuration.

Thank you for sharing such pictures.

Norberto 

Get Outlook for iOS

---

From: se...@googlegroups.com <se...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Rob Foster <rgfo...@gmail.com>

Sent: Sunday, January 25, 2026 2:53:52 AM
To: SEBHC <se...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [sebhc] New H8 owner checking

 

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/sebhc/ede3ac79-fc9c-4882-870e-45d0b49e583dn%40googlegroups.com.

[glenn.f...@gmail.com]

Looks great!

 

The small board in the back is the HA-8-8 “Extended configuration” board (aka “ORG 0” board). documentation here:

https://sebhc.github.io/sebhc/documentation/hardware/H8/H8-8_As_Op_Sc.zip

 

The original H8 architecture had the first 8K of the memory map dedicated to ROM, however CP/M requires RAM all the way down to zero. The ORG 0 board provides a latch, operated under computer control, that allows the CPU to switch on the RAM in the lower 8K. This allows CP/M to run.

 

I haven’t yet been able to try the GoTek with the H17-capable firmware but Darrell may be able to help you with booting CP/M with that configuration.

 

• Glenn

 

 

From: se...@googlegroups.com <se...@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of Rob Foster

Sent: Sunday, January 25, 2026 5:54 AM
To: SEBHC <se...@googlegroups.com>

Subject: Re: [sebhc] New H8 owner checking

 

Here are some pics. 

 

First one extended basic calculating prime factors

second one the H8 booting up HDOS

third the internals, 64KB ram, H17 controller board, 4 port serial, and a small card in the very back that I believe will allow it to boot CP/M. I haven't figured out how to get CP/M booting yet.

I was struggling to get the Gotek working until I found Darrell Pelan's word document that showed a cable mod I needed to do.

 

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/sebhc/ede3ac79-fc9c-4882-870e-45d0b49e583dn%40googlegroups.com.

[Joseph Travis]

Hi Rob,

'Look's good!  I suggest routing the various ribbon cables through the large opening in the rear so you may put the top cover on without harming any of them.  As far as booting CP/M goes, try booting from the gotek, when the disk activity LED goes off, tap the space bar on your terminal a few times to allow CP/M to auto-detect the baud rate.  The disk activity LED should come back on while it finishes the boot up.  Note:  There will be a long pause while CP/M searches to find other drives.  Good luck!

Joe

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/sebhc/ede3ac79-fc9c-4882-870e-45d0b49e583dn%40googlegroups.com.

[Rob Foster]

Thanks Joe, I did end up routing the serial and disk cable through the hole in the back before screwing the top back on.

I will try booting CP/M using your suggestions, thanks!

[Rob Foster]

I was only able to get the CP/M version for BIOS-80 to start all the way, not sure what BIOS-80 is yet.

I tried a couple other CP/M disk images from the software archive, and I would get the CP/M banner on the screen, but even after 20 minutes, it was just hung, so i rebooted the H8

[norberto.collado koyado.com]

Perhaps, they are images for the Z37 controller.

Get Outlook for iOS

---

From: se...@googlegroups.com <se...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Rob Foster <rgfo...@gmail.com>

Sent: Sunday, January 25, 2026 7:00:53 AM
To: SEBHC <se...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [sebhc] New H8 owner checking

 

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/sebhc/5686a11e-a123-44bc-b39d-f5ab4a25b1a8n%40googlegroups.com.