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From: alan@adept.uucp (Alan Ruffer)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Whatever Happened to Heathkit
Message-ID: <16728@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 6 Feb 91 06:06:38 GMT
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Reply-To: Alan Ruffer <alan@adept.uucp>
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X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 11, Issue 97, Message 2 of 10


In article <16686@accuvax.nwu.edu> jshelton@ads.com (John L. Shelton)
writes:
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 11, Issue 93, Message 3 of 10

 ....text deleted regarding Allied Radio and Radio Shack.

>[Moderator's Note: You are wrong on the 'Allied was mail order only'
>Anerica. Say! Speaking of Heathkit ... what are *they* doing these
>days? Are they still around?  My first terminal was a Zenith Z-19
>which I built from a Heathkit in 1980, meaning it was actually an H-19
>instead.  The last I heard, they closed the Benton Harbor facility.  PAT]

Heathkit IS still alive and well.  They were bought by Zenith
primarily because of their educational courses and computer systems.
A good friend of mine was a technical consultant at the time this
occurred.  During the resulting streamlining process he and many
others lost their jobs.  I still get catalogs from them, though the
last few times I attempted an order, I always wound up with a refund
for this or that because it had been "discontinued".  

Heath is more into selling "assembled" products these days, for
instance their amateur radio equipment is Yeasu with Heaths name plate
on it, much as Sears does with their "Kenmore" products. They still
sell a few kits.  The quality of the construction manuals has declined
however.  By the way I have a vintage H-19 terminal serving STILL as
console to this Unix box!  Those things were huge as you know, but
they are cement mixers!  It was old already when I bought it used,
then I put it thru hundreds of on-off cycles, and finally the last
four years its been running 24 hours a day.

On an unrelated subject I have two questions: Does anyone know when
South Central Bell will be adding caller-ID to the 318 area?  How much
a month is the typical bill for service in areas that already have
this feature?


Alan R. Ruffer      UUCP: {csccat,chinacat!holston}!adept!alan          
Route 1, Box 1745   Amateur Radio Station WB5FKH                        
Sulphur, LA 70663   BBS: (318) 527-6667, 19200(PEP)/9600(V.32)/2400/1200


[Moderator's Note: Many years ago we used to drive over to Benton
Harbor on Saturday to visit the Heathkit surplus outlet store. Talk
about some steals!  Returned kits, merchandise with slight defects, it
was all put out at 70% off retail price. Those were the days! Bell of
Illinois has indicated Caller*ID will cost about $6 per month when
they begin offering it later this year. Of course, you have to buy the
display box from whomever ... figure about $70-100 for that.   PAT]