C08926RC@WUVMD.WUSTL.EDU (Rob) (03/07/91)
Hello all... Can someone give me some info on the Zenith Z100 computer? There is a person nearby who has 14 for sale at $100 each, and I'd like to get some info on them... Thanks! Rob Caton C08926RC@WUVMD
todd@toolz.uucp (Todd Merriman) (03/09/91)
C08926RC@WUVMD.WUSTL.EDU (Rob) writes: >Can someone give me some info on the Zenith Z100 computer? It is a dual-processor (8085/8088) non-PC-compatible originally built by the Heath Company (Heathkit) in Beton Harbor, MI. It sports an S100 bus and accepts most third-party S100 boards (it has been popularly used in process control applications). The Z100 was introduced shortly after the IBM PC but was far more advanced. It was designed by the engineers at Heathkit who had gained a well-deserved reputation for superior documentation and hardware design. The Heath Company also sponsored the Heath User Group through which users could get hardware/software discounts, Heath-specific public domain software, and a magazine devoted to the technical aspects of Heath products. The 8085 was clocked at 4MHz, and the 8088 was clocked at 5MHz. The Z100 runs both CP/M (on the 8085) and MSDOS (on the 8088), and the last version of MSDOS available for the Z100 was (I believe) 3.1. CP/M 3.0 was never offered for the Z100. At one time, there were magazines devoted to Heath-only products, ("Buss", "Sextant"), and the Z100 dominated their pages in the late 80's. The Pc-incompatibilities arose in Heath's choice of much higher-technology hardware and a different scheme for color and graphics. Both software and hardware PC compatibility emulators have been offered from third-parties for the Z100. Because the Z100 had such an elegant hardware design, superior documenation, a strong user group, popular 3rd-party bus (in the early 80's), both CP/M and MSDOS, and availability in both kit and built from Heathkit; something akin to a religious computer cult grew around it. But, as they say in the industry, "take your technical superiority and $.75 and buy yourself a cup of coffee!" Heath realized this (after being acquired by Zenith) in 1987 when they introduced their first PC-compatible. The Z100 began slipping into oblivion after that. There were other similar machines with a similar history: the Victor 9000, TI Professional, and the DEC Rainbow (also a dual processor Z80/8088); but none were as extraordinarily innovative as the Z100. My Z100 is sitting in my basement with 768k of memory, two DSDD (1.2M) 8-inch floppy drives, and two 360k 5.25-inch drives. It has been a couple of years since it was powered-up. The Z100 is sad testimony to the fact that excellance does not always result in monetary success. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Todd Merriman - Software Toolz, Inc. * Maintainer of the * * 8030 Pooles Mill Dr., Ball Ground, GA 30107-9610 * Software * * ...emory.edu!toolz.uucp!todd * Entrepreneur's * * V-mail (800) 869-3878, (404) 889-8264 * mailing list * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *