Heath Company

I was already trying to figure out how to get the parts.

They're the Heathkit people.

Heathkit, yeah.

But the difference between Microsoft and Macintosh is Microsoft made their stuff open.

Apple tried to be all secretive and stuff.

Yes, sir.

The old Heathkit-style sets.

Yeah.

So those are a little more, a little better than what we used to make.

Yeah, it just came on exactly at the right moment in my life.

We had a 12-inch black and white Heathkit TV that my dad had soldered together, and whenever time came around...

Heathkit is a...

Please, do it yourself.

It was a do-it-yourself kit for nerdy families.

It was a case of keep your fingers out.

But it, the, again, the circuit of that one was based upon a Heathkit VFO, which covered top band of the 40 meters.

So I copied that VFO so I could switch between 160 and 40.

And then I could double to either 80 or, to 20 or i could triple to 15 or quadruple up to 10 meters so i got four switchable bands and i could program those internally by moving a few jumpers

I was not able to get specifics on shipment dates or any additional developer resources at the show, but we should try to keep an eye on their next moves.

There were also some really good displays for the early wave systems of the 1970s, including a very nice display of Heathkit DIY computers and an area called S100 Projects, which is a team that continues to develop both processor boards and expansion boards for the classic Z80 so-called S100 bus systems that first were coalesced around the Altair.

There was a, we'll call it a clever tongue-in-cheek text-based strategic warfare simulator.

Basically, the idea was it gives you the scenario that the Soviets want to bomb Chicago and you're put in charge of that effort.

This is not a thing.

But to put it in context, last weekend or just a few days ago, I was recording this.

I'm looking around at the 100,000 square foot retrocomputing event in the heart of America and asking myself, well, gosh, how much bigger and better could this show have been if Americans really were interested in home computers in the 70s and 80s? I mean, can you hear me rolling my eyes from here? Audio listeners, do you feel the warm glow of my sarcasm? Looking at that display of Heathkit computers, one of many build your own computer kits popular in the mid to late 70s, along with the modern teeny tiny board replica of same, I'm like, huh, Look at all this effort and all the time and energy being put in by people to build them.

And they didn't even like home computers.

Oh, yeah.

There, there are actually Heathkits for sale again.

So mommy and daddy can get their child a Heathkit, and they can build a radio receiver or transmitter.

Is that cool or what? Jerry on Skype, you're on the air.

The tomato plants my mom had out by the pool were the size of grapefruits, but when you tried to eat them, they were so acidic the skin on your lips would peel off, and the vines were as big as around as my forearms.

The leaves on a patch of trees behind the mark withered, turned brown, and fell off, and the power lines above the mark shorted out and blew a transformer, melted the wiring, and blew out the tubes on the Heathkit ham radios in the basement of the house, which was right next to the place in the yard." And that's not all.

Debbie later found out that her neighbors saw literally hundreds of orbs of light in the trees that night.

And again, her case was investigated by Budd Hopkins, who Debbie says spent an enormous amount of time and money doing a very thorough investigation.