Heathkit Hero 1 Manual
I'm a volunteer at the Siuslaw Public Library in Florence, OR (mid-way along the Oregon coast). A long-time resident of our town passed away last year and donated her rather extensive collection of early computer gear to the library. We've been cataloging it, cleaning and restoring hardware to operation, with the intention of placing it for sale on eBay. Among the collection is a Heathkit HERO-1 robot, in now good condition. With new batteries installed, it's fully functional and mobile, with battery charger, teaching pendent, working arm, voice, serial interface, 24K of RAM, UTILITY and BASIC ROMs, and all the original manuals, schematics, illustration booklets, and errata. There's even a cross-assembler for the robot meant to run on a Heathkit H-8 under CP/M (we have two working H-8 systems we'll be listing on eBay as well).
Find best value and selection for your Heathkit-Hero-1-ET-18-Robot-Programming-Manual- search on eBay. World's leading marketplace. Sep 08, 2012 Wireless Upgrade for a Heathkit HERO 1 Robot. Until I find a set of manuals, any help programming my working HERO-1 ‘Bot to do something would be.
Much of this will start being posted on eBay in the near future (a few weeks at most). I just wanted to make forum members aware of the coming opportunity.
Our library depends on donations such as these to cover some of our operating costs; hence, we hope to make as much money as possible, but we're equally interested in fair pricing and providing an honest representation of all the things we'll be selling. We're also somewhat concerned about shipping the robot - not the cost so much, but rather how to maximize the likelihood of it arriving at a buyer's door in the same condition it left ours.
If any forum members have first-hand experience and advice on this topic, we would very much appreciate sharing it with us. If you ship the robot then you MUST remove the arm and pack it separately.
There is just one plug for the wiring and a couple set screws to loosen then it will slide right off. If you don't remove the arm it will get broken and if you need a new pair of arm shells those replacements are expensive. It can also help to remove the batteries and pack those separately too. In the event anything gets broken I have spare parts for the HERO robots and can also do repairs on the boards. Best Regards, Robert. If you ship the robot then you MUST remove the arm and pack it separately. There is just one plug for the wiring and a couple set screws to loosen then it will slide right off.
If you don't remove the arm it will get broken and if you need a new pair of arm shells those replacements are expensive. It can also help to remove the batteries and pack those separately too. In the event anything gets broken I have spare parts for the HERO robots and can also do repairs on the boards. Best Regards, Robert Thanks for the advice Robert. I'm torn between leaving the exterior panels in place or shipping them separately.
I like the thought that they'd provide some protection but I also worry they could get damaged themselves from the robot jostling around normally in its box. I also assume it would be best if the robot remains upright during shipment.
Here's a thought: You might consider adding custom shipping materials for HERO's to your product line(s). Probably not a huge market, but I'd probably buy that product right now.:smile. How much is a Hero-1 worth in good condition? Doc That is the question, isn't it? The person selling a Hero-1 would likely give a very different answer than a prospective buyer might. That's the virtue of eBay.
The buyer community decides what it's worth. Which is not to say we're a disinterested seller. We may be a non-profit organization, but we would like to see our Hero-1 go for a reasonable price as it will help fund the community services of our library - things like internet service for local students and residents. I'll get off my soapbox now. Assuming your question wasn't rhetorical: the most recent eBay HERO-1 sale I found was for $650 + $125 shipping in Oct. I bought one last March for $787.77 + $100 shipping. It was in pretty good condition, but not quite as nice as this one looks from the photos above.
We really appreciate your pricing information. The robot is in good shape. It's been cleaned, the I/O, CPU, and extended memory boards have been pulled, their IC's reseated and contacts cleaned, and questionable solder work touched up. Cable connectors have all been cleaned and reseated. The arm control board had some issues but they've been addressed. The arm's exo-skeleton interior shoulder mount had been badly damaged before we got it.
Luckily, the arm casing can be flipped, so now the interior shoulder mount is good as new though there is some scarring visible now on the exterior shoulder mount - hey, we've all got a few scars after 30 years. The exterior panels and top cover are in very good shape - there's a couple of small scratches on one of the side panels and that's it. The biggest problem was the low-density foam that Heathkit used around the sonar tubes, the battery compartments, and the arm gripper.
The stuff had seriously decomposed; granules were everywhere inside, and the adhesive residue was a mess to clean up. There's now new foam in the battery compartments and I may put new foam around the sonar tubes, but I'm intending to leave the gripper bare for the new owner to address, depending on their application. Everybody from that era used cheap single- or double-sided foam.
The worst offender was probably Atari. It's been the bane of my restoration work.
The biggest problem was the low-density foam that Heathkit used around the sonar tubes, the battery compartments, and the arm gripper. The stuff had seriously decomposed; granules were everywhere inside, and the adhesive residue was a mess to clean up. There's now new foam in the battery compartments and I may put new foam around the sonar tubes, but I'm intending to leave the gripper bare for the new owner to address, depending on their application. Everybody from that era used cheap single- or double-sided foam.
The worst offender was probably Atari. It's been the bane of my restoration work. I have replacement foam pad sets for the HERO 1 gripper.
There are two different styles. Either black or orange (to complement the body panels). A while back I had some reproduction foam pads for the sonar. I've been out for a while but do plan on getting some more made up. Could be a fair amount. IIRC, I paid around $400 for mine back in Dec 2004, and I put some $$ into it to get her going nicely.
Still intact, although my twins picked away at the sonar foam when they were crawling around. Nothing I can't get from Robert. I also bought the educational course separately (included in the OP's description here). That material may not be 'state of the art', but it has relevance with the HERO bot, so it's a value-added bonus. Is that a Gemini you're leaning on in your avatar pic, Gordon? Still got it?
I bet your house/shop/garage are even more interesting than mine. Is that a Gemini you're leaning on in your avatar pic, Gordon? Still got it? I bet your house/shop/garage are even more interesting than mine. It's a Gemini, which as you know is pretty rare. But it's not mine. It belongs to my friend John Boisvert, who like Robert is a HERO (and other robot) collector.
John bought out the inventory for the RB5X, and for a while was selling complete and partial new robots. Interestingly enough, I'm not a collector. It's not something I do. I research, buy, enjoy, then set it back out into the wild. So I'm afraid my house/shop/garage is actually pretty boring. Mark Robillard wrote up some of these in this R-E article back in '86: And of course Robert's own well-researched pages. Robert knows more about this stuff than I do, but I think the HERO and HERO Jr.
Used a 680x processor, and code for it won't be compatible with the Beaglebone. I think you'll need to reverse engineer the personality using new code, rather than try to read back and disassemble the ROM. I would think the toughest part is programming the I/O. There are some sites that have some details: but I don't know how complete they are. Some pieces, like the speech synthesizer phonemes, could get pretty hairy For something like this you might have to dig really deep. Fortunately, Radio Shack's old speech synthesizer hardware used the same chip, and they were known to provide some fairly decent technical details. (I'm not talking about the surplus SP0256 chips they sold, but the hardware box that was provided as an add-on to the TRS-80.) Something like this.
I tried acquiring a HERO myself, but it was expensive. I opted to get a HERO - Jr., and it is a great friend.
The original boards contain chips that are obselete; which implies; that if a chip goes bad, you may have to kiss HERO goodbye. I am trying to get the original program off of the control board, in order to be able to program my beaglebone with the same personality.
I would then put the beaglebone in place of the controller, and HERO Jr. Will live on.:) If the HERO Jr ever gives you any trouble let me know. I have all of the parts on hand to repair and rebuild these.
You can get the parts you need to fix it yourself or if you prefer I have test fixtures setup here for working on all the HERO boards so just the boards can be sent in for repairs. Typically the HERO Jr tends to be a very reliable robot once they have been gone through. I even have the latest V1.6 Main ROM set that I patched with a Y2K fix so the robot can say the correct date. The main 5V supply typically runs a bit high closer to 5.5V but there is a fix for that as well by replacing a resistor on the power sense board. OTOH, you wouldn't use an SC-01 with your Beaglebone, anyway. So, nevermind.
It is possible to use a SpeakJet to do a reasonable emulation of an SC-01 speech chip. Back in 2007 I wrote an article for SERVO on that project.
It used a Parallax SX28 processor to handle all the translation. Since it was an early article SERVO gave me permission to post it online on my website: It shows what can be done if any of the special chips like the SC-01 completely run out. Luckily they can still be found. I rarely see those chips go bad.
The only two I have had to replace were on HERO Jr's. One was due to someone connecting the 12V battery backwards and the other was caused by someone who tried two 12V batteries in series (24V total) instead of two 6V batteries in series (12V total). If someone makes a mistake like that then you can smoke that SC-01 chip. There have only been those couple instances so it is pretty rare and usually a user issue that causes it. The HERO Jr uses a Motorola 6808 CPU. This thread has been going for a year or more.
There is one thing that disturbs me about it. When all the interesting and historical artefacts have been sold off to keep the place running, what interesting and historical artefacts are left to attract anyone to visit? As it says in the opening post '.donated her rather extensive collection of early computer gear to the library.'
Was her idea that all that stuff ends up in private hands. Flogged off on ebay? As a practical matter if the odd 300 bucks raised by such a sale is a desperate attempt to raise money the whole operation is doomed anyway. What am I missing here? This thread has been going for a year or more. There is one thing that disturbs me about it.
When all the interesting and historical artefacts have been sold off to keep the place running, what interesting and historical artefacts are left to attract anyone to visit? As it says in the opening post '.donated her rather extensive collection of early computer gear to the library.' Was her idea that all that stuff ends up in private hands. Flogged off on ebay? As a practical matter if the odd 300 bucks raised by such a sale is a desperate attempt to raise money the whole operation is doomed anyway. What am I missing here?
It's a new poster, and he/she should have started a new thread.
HERO ( Heathkit Educational RObot) is the name of several educational sold by during the. The Heath Company began the HERO 1 project in October 1979. The first units were available in 1982. Models included the HERO 1, HERO Jr., and HERO 2000. Heathkit supported the HERO robot line up until 1995.
All three were available as kits, or for more money, prebuilt by Heathkit. Since 2013 the 1980s models are considered collectors items, due to their apparent rarity. For the most part, they cannot perform practical tasks, but are more geared toward and education above all. (with optional remote control) Manufacturer Type Release date 1984 Introductory price Kit US$599.95, Assembled US$1000 Discontinued Before Oct 1987 (Assembled) 1995 (Kit) Units sold 4,000(Sold over 8 years) 1 MHz Memory RAM: 2 kB, expandable to 24 kB Monitor ROM: 32 kB Display 9 LEDs Sound speech synthesizer Input Hex keypad with 17 keys Power Batteries:6 V 3.8 Ah x2, x4 optional Dimensions 19 inch high Weight 21.5 pounds A smaller version of HERO was released later, called HERO Jr. Heathkit intended it for the home market, and therefore made it less complex, and more self-contained. Like HERO 1, HERO Jr.
Had a 6808 processor, but only 2 kB of RAM. As well, it sported onboard, a sonar range sensor, a light sensor, and a sound sensor. An optional infrared sensor was available as well. Other optional components included 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. It included a motion sensor that caused the robot to croak 'SOM-THING-MOVE' when it detected a source of. Heathkit released several add-ons to increase the robot's capabilities, including a transmitter to activate a home security system in the event it sensed movement while on 'guard duty'. Also, additional cartridges with programs and games were available, as well as a components to allow the user to directly program the robot.
Heathkit Hero 2000 For Sale
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, acting as an alarm clock, and making its own combinations of phonemes to create a robotic gibberish. HE-RObot is a version of the 914 PC-Bot (pictured). Developer Manufacturer Type Release date 2007 Introductory price as much as $8000 Discontinued 2012 Units sold approximately 50 Windows XP Pro Memory 1 GB DDR2 RAM Storage 80 GB 2½in.
SATA Hard drive Power Batteries: 2 x 12V 9Ah Lead Acid Battery Charger: SONEIL 12V Intelligent Battery Charger (3A) Dimensions Height 21 inches (53 cm) Weight 25 kg (55 lb) Website (Historical) index at the. The HE-RObot was the result of a strategic partnership between Heathkit and. When available, it cost as much as $8000. The HE-RObot was marketed to the educational market.
Heathkit Hero-1 Basic
Heathkit sold approximately 50 of these robots before their bankruptcy in 2012. Howard Boyet: Heath's robot 'HERO': 68 experiments: fundamentals and applications, Microprocessor Training 1983. Robillard: HERO 1 - Advanced Programming and Interfacing, H.W. Howard Boyet: Hero 1 - Advanced Programming Experiments, Heathkit/Zenith 1984. Hubbard, Lawrence P. Larsen: Hero 2000 - Programming and Interfacing, Heathkit/Zenith 1986.
Heathkit Hero 1 Robot Et 18
External links General. HERO 1 (ET-18). HERO Jr. (RT-1). on HERO 2000 (ET-19). User Group. Yahoo Groups.