Heath Zenith Z-100 computers

[ianoid]

I picked up one of these and I haven’t been able to find the community for them to get some help. Does anyone have any suggestions? Forums or weirdly named Facebook groups?

 

This beast has a 9 pin out, probably CGA. I don’t have a CGA monitor handy to test it, but I did use a couple of CGA to VGA boards and neither worked. The thing powers up and beeps. Not at all sure how to get it to read a disk or do anything. I figure it will be fun to get to know it a little and CP/M or HDOS my way to excitement. Even have a few games on disks. 

[Krebizfan]

Not a weirdly named facebook group or forum but the archive of the very old Z-100 lifeline can be seen

http://kuanbutts.com/z100-preserved/data/Z100Begin.html 

https://z100lifeline.swvagts.com/index.php

Bitsavers has a number of manuals. Those may be necessary to figure out what options are installed and where to find the key jumper that makes the video work with an IBM PC compatible CGA monitor. 

Also, many of the Heath/Zenith magazines are online. Helpful to figure out what normal software can be made to run on the Z-100.

 

Good luck. It is a fun little machine. 

[ianoid]

I remembered one of the best forums for vintage computing, namely obscure stuff, is the vcfed.org forums. 

 

But before I could click ‘post’, I got deep enough into the unit to find an unplugged cable from the motherboard to the video daughterboard. It gives me video, but I can’t get it to recognize a disk yet. Could be not having the right boot disk, but I have tried several ZH and MS-DOS disks. Will keep working on it.