Consider posts in comp.sys.zenith.z100

[Herbert Johnson]

Usenet newsgroup "comp.sys.zenith.z100" has not seen much traffic in
the last few years. I mention this here, to encourage people to post
there when appropriate. WHY mention this to H-8 owners? Well, a few
more years ago, the Usenet newsgroup comp.sys.zenith was CANCELLED
because it had NO traffic; but after discussion and cajoling, the
"purpose" of c.s.z.z100 was expanded to cover ALL Heath/Zenith
computer systems. (You can check this from Google Groups by looking up
that group by name and clicking "about this group".)

My recent post in c.s.z.z100 is about...Z-100 systems, oddly enough.
But I thought I'd plug the group today, here in SEBHC. A post about
this group would be appropriate there, seems to me. While comp.os.cpm
gets a lot of 8-bit Heath/Zenith traffic, throwing a bone to
c.s.z.z100 on occasion may help to preserve the newsgroup and show
others that Heath computing traffic is acceptable there.

Herb Johnson
retrotechnology.com

[Bob Groh]

Hummmm.  Instead of trying to track yet another computer group (YACG - that a Unix joke) maybe we should allow the Z-100 folks to post here on SEBHC?  After all, the Z100 family is Heath and it does use (at least one) 8-bit processor. Other than HDOS, it also shares much of the same software!

Did enjoy your Z-100 page and I had a thought - it would certainly be nice to have a little 'how to bring up an old H-8/H-89/Z-100 computer for the first time in a long time'.  By this I mean a short check list of the steps one could take to bring our old war horse back to life in the safest possible manner.

Example 1: floppy drives.  Reading your notes on Z-100s, I think a through mechanical inspection, cleaning (e.g. head surfaces with alchohol (??)) and lube might be a wise first step.

Example 2: bring up that PS independently (watch out for switchers and necessary minimum load).

Example 3: simple resistance check of the card's power connectors looking for shorts or lowZ.

Bob Groh