During the 1980s, Heathkit sold a number of educational robots used the name of HERO (Heathkit Educational RObot). Heath Company began the HERO 1 project in October 1979 with he first units were available in 1982. Three models where engineered including the HERO 1, HERO Jr., and HERO 2000. All three were available as kits, or as wired and tested from Heathkit. Heathkit continued to supported the HERO robot line up until 1995. Since 2013 the 1980s models are considered collectors items, due to their apparent rarity.
HERO Jr. (RT-1)
Intended for the home market, Heathkit released the smaller HERO Jr. This less complex and more self-contained unit like HERO 1 contained a 6808 processor, but only 2 kB of RAM. There was also an onboard speech synthesis, a Polaroid sonar range sensor, a light sensor, and a sound sensor.
Several optional add-on devices could be purchased and included an infrared sensor, a pair of extra batteries to double the operational time between charges, from an estimated 4 hours to 8 hours, a remote control accessory allowed users to drive the robot around.
Also, additional cartridges with programs and games were available, as well as a components to allow the user to directly program the robot.
The drive mechanism is backward compared to the HERO 1, with the drive and steering wheel in the back of the robot. The head section featured an indentation to allow the robot to transport up to 10 pounds (4.5 kg). The robot could speak several phrases from various films that either involved robots or computers. It was also capable of remembering and repeating back its masters name, as well as singing songs, reciting poems, and making its own combinations of phonemes to create a robotic gibberish.
ddThe MITS Altair 8800 is considered by many to be the first “personal computer.” The Altair was designed by Ed Roberts, the owner and president of Micro Instrumentation Telemetry Systems (MITS), in 1974 and sold as a kit for the cost of $439. The core of the Altair was the use of the Intel 8080 microprocessor. The 8080 normally sold for over $300 each but Roberts was able to acquire cosmetically blemished versions of 8080 for $75 each in large volumes. These versions worked just as well as the more expensive ones, allowing the Altair 8800 to be released more affordable price. At first the popularity of the Altair was limited. This all changed with the release of the January 1975 issue of Popular Electronics magazine. Within a month orders for the Altair jump dramatically. MITS couldn’t keep up with demand and some buyers camped in the company’s car park waiting for their machines.
While in 1975 the Altair was considered the cutting edge, by today’s standard, the Altair was limited. The 8080 microprocessor ran at a clock speed of only 2MHz. The unit shipped with only 256 bytes of RAM but was expandable to 64K bytes. Storage was punched paper tape, cassette tape or as show here 8 inch floppy drive. When first released, programming and data input/output on the Altair was via the many switches and LEDs on the front panel.
The MITS Altair 8800 is considered by many to be the first “personal computer.” The Altair was designed by Ed Roberts, the owner and president of Micro Instrumentation Telemetry Systems (MITS), in 1974 and sold as a kit for the cost of $439. The core of the Altair was the use of the Intel 8080 microprocessor. The 8080 normally sold for over $300 each but Roberts was able to acquire cosmetically blemished versions of 8080 for $75 each in large volumes. These versions worked just as well as the more expensive ones, allowing the Altair 8800 to be released more affordable price. At first the popularity of the Altair was limited. This all changed with the release of the January 1975 issue of Popular Electronics magazine. Within a month orders for the Altair jump dramatically. MITS couldn’t keep up with demand and some buyers camped in the company’s car park waiting for their machines.
While in 1975 the Altair was considered the cutting edge, by today’s standard, the Altair was limited. The 8080 microprocessor ran at a clock speed of only 2MHz. The unit shipped with only 256 bytes of RAM but was expandable to 64K bytes. Storage was punched paper tape, cassette tape or as show here 8 inch floppy drive. When first released, programming and data input/output on the Altair was via the many switches and LEDs on the front panel.
The MITS Altair 8800 is considered by many to be the first “personal computer.” The Altair was designed by Ed Roberts, the owner and president of Micro Instrumentation Telemetry Systems (MITS), in 1974 and sold as a kit for the cost of $439. The core of the Altair was the use of the Intel 8080 microprocessor. The 8080 normally sold for over $300 each but Roberts was able to acquire cosmetically blemished versions of 8080 for $75 each in large volumes. These versions worked just as well as the more expensive ones, allowing the Altair 8800 to be released more affordable price. At first the popularity of the Altair was limited. This all changed with the release of the January 1975 issue of Popular Electronics magazine. Within a month orders for the Altair jump dramatically. MITS couldn’t keep up with demand and some buyers camped in the company’s car park waiting for their machines.
While in 1975 the Altair was considered the cutting edge, by today’s standard, the Altair was limited. The 8080 microprocessor ran at a clock speed of only 2MHz. The unit shipped with only 256 bytes of RAM but was expandable to 64K bytes. Storage was punched paper tape, cassette tape or as show here 8 inch floppy drive. When first released, programming and data input/output on the Altair was via the many switches and LEDs on the front panel
