> I got to know this man, whose name was Larry Lang, and he taught me a lot of electronics. He was great. He used to build Heathkits. Heathkits were really great. Heathkits were these products that you would buy in kit form. You actually paid more money for them than if you just went and bought the finished product, if it was available. These Heathkits would come with these detailed manuals about how to put this thing together, and all the parts would be laid out in a certain way and color coded. You’d actually build this thing yourself.
> I would say that gave one several things. It gave one an understanding of what was inside a finished product and how it worked, because it would include a theory of operation. But maybe even more importantly, it gave one the sense that one could build the things that one saw around oneself in the universe. These things were not mysteries anymore. I mean, you looked at a television set, and you would think, “I haven’t built one of those—but I could. There’s one of those in the Heathkit catalog, and I’ve built two other Heathkits, so I could build a television set.” Things became much more clear that they were the results of human creation, not these magical things that just appeared in one’s environment that one had no knowledge of their interiors. It gave a tremendous degree of self-confidence that, through exploration and learning, one could understand seemingly very complex things in one’s environment. My childhood was very fortunate in that way.
> It gave one an understanding of what was inside a finished product and how it worked, because it would include a theory of operation.
My Dad would get Heathkit and I would build them. I even built 3 H-151 (IBM compatible) computers. My soldering skills were pretty good. But I didn't understand how they worked - I just followed the instructions.
When I was a kid, around 5 years old, back in 1976, we got our first home game console. It was a Heathkit Pong clone, with variants for a couple related games, including duck hunt.
> First, it requires a Heathkit TV set to operate because of its composite output. Back in 1976, only monitors and hi-tech equipment had a composite input. To use this system, the user had to open his TV set in order to connect a few wires to its electronic circuits. This is the case with the Heathkit TV sets: the user manual explains how to connect the system to several TV sets released by Heathkit. The system has another interesting feature: the sound does not come from the system itself like most of the other PONG consoles, but comes from the TV set
> I didn't understand how they worked - I just followed the instructions
Indeed, Heath's instructions took a paint-by-numbers approach that did not offer analysis or explanation, so I have to disagree with hypertexthero that more than very basic theory was communicated. As for circuitry explanation, I found out the hard way on one occasion that I hadn't soldered a transistor properly, but there were no instructions on how to test for such a problem within the same "anyone can do this on a kitchen table" kit, so I mailed the board to Heath and they sent it back in working order for a small fee and postage. It is nevertheless a fond memory.
It’s been a looong time since I made a Heathkit (I think the last one was an oscilloscope in the 80s) but I do remember a theory of operation section in the manual, separate from the very clear assembly instructions. It’s true of the ones I randomly checked in the archive [0]. That said, the mail-in repair service for when things go sideways was a fantastic feature that not many kit companies had/have.
The first H-151 I built had a flaw. We went to the Heathkit store, about 45 minutes away, which provided the instructions for the fix. It was something like "scratch this trace off the circuit board and solder a wire between these two points."
"Also, I'm going to do everything I can to stop you from 'making something wonderful' with my own company's products. It was irresponsible for Heathkit to put high-voltage electronic equipment into the hands of the common folk. Someone could get shocked, or burn themselves with a soldering iron. And those Heathkit people didn't even bother to invent proprietary screws, so any kid with a quarter-inch nutdriver could take the cover off and get a face full of X-rays. No, not for us."
It is really interesting to think about what the version of Jobs who talked so reverently about those kits would have thought if he were shown the Apple "what is a computer" ad from a few years ago.
Jobs was certainly an inspirational entrepreneur and CEO but he always talked out of both sides of his mouth. He'd mug for the cameras and say all of that lofty stuff about creativity, bicycles for the mind, etc., and then go back to the office for a knock-down, drag-out fight with Woz about whether the Apple ][ should come with expansion slots or a padlock.
In business terms, Heathkit isn't something that he would have respected as anything but an unscalable niche hobby. Sucks that he would've been right about that.
Be careful what you wish for, Apple Corporate might make a "Tinkering Program" where they ship you a flight case full of $40,000 worth of oscilloscopes and GPIO for a weekend so you may implement your idea. Only if you're okay paying 30% royalties on your invention of course, where would you be without their generous help after all?
My father, a consummate scientist, geologist, and radio geek, hand-built our home component stereo system from Heathkits. That includes speakers, turntable, receiver/tuner and amplifier. He also ran speaker wires through the walls so that the impressively massive speakers could take their rightful place along the long wall of our living room. The stereo was installed in an ornate antique piece of wood furniture which we referred to as "The Commode" for reasons I can't fathom.
EDIT: apparently, "commode" has been a word for normal furniture way longer than it was a euphemism for "toilet".
It was a long, long time until I truly and deeply appreciated what a labor of love, and what a technical achievement that must have been for my father to build that. I never really liked the stereo because it seemed obsolete before its time and didn't sound all that good, but man, handbuilt. Hats off to you, papa.
Came here to say this. My Dad also built our stereo, as well as our first color television, from Heathkit kits. He built some other stuff too... an aircraft radio receiver I think. He was a mechanical engineer (now retired). I remember hanging out in his workshop as he pieced the projects together. It was my first exposure to real electronics and componentry.
My dad built our color console TV from Heathkit and we had at least one of those remotes. Besides volume and channel rocker buttons, it also had them for the tint and contrast too (?) and that was about it, IIRC.
My dad built a few Heathkit devices like signal generators, etc. for his home electronics repair sideline in the 1960's and 70's, and as I reached max capability at building plastic model kits he asked me to build a Heathkit oscilloscope. It was a whole new universe, but the satisfaction was indescribable. He was a wizard, and I did my best. Between Heathkit, Radio Shack, military surplus, and later Fry's in San Jose, I was in tech doodad heaven.
Wonderful! Had similar experiences, too. My dad and I built the AR1500 receiver together on top of the ping pong table in the basement. My first "transistor radio" as a kid was also a Heathkit. I can recall test equipment like a VTVM and other stuff which we also built together. It was a great introduction to electronics and radio with lifelong benefits.
As a kid, I remember seeing their Hero 2000 on Mr Wizard. It ignited my imagination and I ordered a catalog. Then I saw the price. I went on to get a number of other robots, mostly from Tomy, but they paled in comparison to Hero 2000. When I got a little older, I even started reading about neural networks. Shame I never went further with that!
I put a few pics and videos of my dad's old Hero Jr. up. I barely remember him piecing it together as one of my earliest memories. Still works fine. Had a little Y2K glitch but was no problem. Just thinks it's 1923 now.
Thanks for the offer. TBH, now that I'm older, I have come to realize that some super neat-o things don't really fit into my life and would be sadly neglected. I've contemplated creating a display case in my office of all the gadgets I've bought over the years that are in pristine condition.
I was told that the first versions of Hero had grippers that could crush a pencil. (Or a finger.) And that they soon pushed out a "fix" that force-limited the grippers.
Before there were personal computers if you were a geek you likely studied to get a ham radio license and built Heathkit amateur radios. This was me in the early 70s as a kid and it really helped propel me into a IT career later on when the technology became affordable/available. Heathkit was really something back in the day!
Heathkit was of an era when you could still reasonably build non-toy electronics projects from components without unreasonably expensive test equipment and other tools. It arguably wasn't until Raspberry Pi and Arduinos that we got back to that, albeit at a different level of abstraction.
I'd say between that healthkit and arduino's it was snap-circuits which allowed kids like me to get into electronics, the manual was detailed and looking back it's fairly technical although it unfortunately it always assumed you knew what they meant, the manual would tell you to never short circuit the battery but 7-y/old me was so confused as to why you shouldn't because it never got into things like electron flow.
Way back when I remember having having this kit which consisted of magnetic blocks that were variously switches, diodes, buzzers, etc. that you could snap together to build various types of circuits.
At one point I had something else that was closer to a breadboard (though it wasn't) but as I vaguely recall it had a lot more options but it was hard to actually build a working circuit.
I did briefly get into Heathkit after I graduated school at one point and built a power supply that I still use sometimes but it was pretty much the end of the Heathkit era at that point.
Heathkit products were available in the UK but relatively expensive.
That market niche was taken by a huge electronics hobbyist industry which included ten or so popular stores, a handful of monthly magazines, and various suppliers of project kits. The kits were advertised in the magazines and occasionally a kit would be featured as a project. Bigger projects could be spread over many months, with fairly minimal assembly instructions - often just a board view with component IDs/values - but relatively detailed "How it works" breakdowns.
There would also be regular features about technician/cookbook-level design topics. Not exactly EE grad level engineering, but enough of an overview to glue simple circuits together.
While some kits were complete others required inventive design for packaging, labelling, and board connections.
IMO it was more diverse and DIY-oriented scene with a smaller range of projects, but less hand-holding and more educational background detail.
I know the US had a similar scene, but some of the UK magazines had an attitude that was irreverent, fun, but still educational. I don't think there was a US equivalent.
I still wish we could have afforded an H11 though.
Wow! I'm 21 now but I wish I had known about this when I was younger and getting into programming, I would have been all over this. I sometimes get a little jealous of the old timers - I think being able to grow up with the evolution of computers and learn as they become more complex is a really wonderful thing.
I took a Nand2Tetris course at my Uni and really enjoyed it, but was disappointed when there was no practical element for physically building any of the circuits. Hoping this can scratch my itch.
> I'm 21 now but I wish I had known about this when I was younger and getting into programming, I would have been all over this.
Unfortunately Heathkit didn't really make kits from 1992 until recently (I think the past year or two, though the Wikipedia article[0] is vague on when it resumed), aside from a brief, failed attempt in 2012.
Retrocomputing continues to increase in popularity. In addition to the Heatkit, you might be interested in kits from RC2014, SmartyKit, Ben Eater, Foenix C256, etc. There’s many more that are based around an RPi or microcontroller if you’re less concerned about authenticity.
These days, the possibilities for hobbyist electronics are endless.
You can still use breadboards and discrete components to experiment with the basics, but now you've got the world of microcontrollers and FPGAs to explore, you can use open-source tools to design custom PCBs and have them manufactured inexpensively, you can 3D print housings or mechanical parts for your projects, you can build inexpensive IOT devices with ESP8266 modules, you can do things with robotics and drones that we could hardly imagine in the 80s, and it's all more affordable then ever (although stock shortages of certain items may still be a problem...)
Relating to the shortages, I'd love to learn to dump and replace the firmware on all the obsolete routers, ip cameras, smartphones, nas, etc. To do whatever I want. There is no reason you couldn't make a modern wifi niu talk zigbee and listen to your electric meter, its all software. We should own our hardware.
Our family TV growing up was a Heathkit. Somewhere in the 20-25” range, with a (wired) remote control. My father built his way up to it.
They kept it around for over 25 years. The reality is if anything went wrong with it, my father still had the instructions and could just refer to it to ultimately perform a repair.
In the mid-70's my dad built a Heathkit-branded DEC PDP-11, with a dumb terminal and a paper tape reader/punch for I/O. Later he got dual 8" floppy drive, and upgraded the memory from 16K to 28K (the maximum!). I learned to program BASIC and Pascal on that machine (with a few nods at Assembler and FORTRAN 4), and never looked back. Still programming today.
When I was a kid in, I think it was 1959, my Dad bought me a Heathkit short wave radio. I did much of the soldering myself, with my Dad supervising. The radio worked and for years afterwards, I listened to long wavelength broadcasts from around the world. I had an antenna in our yard that was 30 feet off the ground, and we lived on a hill. I was amazed at what I could receive.
I hope to be wrong; as an European I know Heathkit only from what was published back in the day on Electronics magazines, the occasional kit that arrived here and the archive of old projects of that era still available online [0,1], however this appears to me as a completely different business with mostly overpriced products; as for now all I see is the name.
I remember getting a Lafayette 3-pickup electric guitar and building a Heathkit guitar amplifier. That thing had a dual-spring reverb too. I got a 4x12" speaker cabinet with Celstion speakers from the newspaper classifieds for $75. That thing was loud, and had a super high-frequency squeal when you turned it up. I think they just used a high-bandwidth amp design from their scopes rather than design a ground-up audio amp. But it taught me about oscillations, shocks from ungrounded chassis voltages, and electronics in general.
One of my first "serious" electronic builds in the 1970s was a variable, current limiting PSU from Heathkit. (Advertised in Practical Electronics). Used that together with a breadboard kit to launch a life long interest in electronics. Still have the PSU in the loft and a handful of old circuits lovingly converted to Veroboard, or homemake PCBs made from copper-clad board etched with ferric chloride (until my mum got the vapours about me "messing around with chemicals" and stopped that route).
My entire ham radio station was built from Heathkits in the sixties. I still have the transceiver and linear amplifier in storage. Been meaning to replace all the capacitors and fire it back up. It would be like restoring a car I drove in my teen age years, reminding me of many good times.
Got on their mailing list when they attempted a comeback but haven't heard a thing from them in years.
The new owner of Heathkit showed up at a wake for the maker movement a few years back. TechShop and Maker Faire people were there, too. The Heathkit guy said that making a new kit was surprisingly hard and took about six months to go from prototype to user-buildable kit.
Heathkit today is very retro. If you want to look forward, there's Adafruit and Seeed Studio.
I remember my dad building the depth-finder/fish-finder. We always had it in the boat with us. Who knows if it ever really helped us find fish, but we sure had fun with it.
Side note - I really miss that you can barely buy RC car "kits" anymore. Everything now comes RTR (ready-to-run). And that takes most of the fun out of it, for me at least.
Beside traxxas, nearly all manufacturer propose kit, especially for high end rc car :)
For plane and quadcopter it’s way harder though :\ submarines is still a more open field though !
Then there’s the hydraulics model. None are in kit, which saddens me a lot. Maybe too dangerous for common folk (like building a tube amp)
I still have a pair of robot arms form the Hero 2000 robot. Nice and robust. Not too fast, yet it wouldn't be too hard to update them to use DC brushless motors, etc.
I have to agree that Heathkit instructions often carried completely bogus theories of operation. I remember my 3-transistor experimental circuits set. When the manual tried to explain transistors it had a little guy at the top of the stairway which was the emitter waiting at a door that was opened and closed by a guy from the base wire and when they went through the door they went out through the collector (PNP transistor). Semiconductors are so simple that it would have been easier to give a real explanation than this ridiculous piece of bologne!
In the early to mid-60s I built a shortwave radio and a digital clock. Unfortunately neither survived. I still think about that clock sitting by my bed, glowing reddish orange. Sigh....
> So the time stays accurate and the alarm stays active with no line power--for weeks.
> Batteries: 6 AA cells required (not included).
Seems strange to brag about 6 AA batteries keeping time for a few weeks, when there are watches that run for 10 years on a coin cell. Maybe the batteries actually power the LEDs?
Different processes. The watches run at 32768 Hz. And they have crazy efficient electronics. A couple of gates in your clock likely exceed the entire power budget of a watch.
Growing up as a (young? future? wannabe?) engineer kid in the 90s, I immediately knew who the powerful old engineering wizards were upon walking into their house, because of the 'Heathkit' logos on inconspicuous devices. On more than one occasion, I would end up at a house party of people I didn't know, and then start hunting for whomever made those Heathkits, because I knew they would be an amazing person to meet, that could teach me something.
Back in the 1950s and '60s my dad built a few EICO kit devices. They were another supplier of build-it-yourself electronic testing equipment to go along with Heathkit:
I put together the Heathkit HW-101 SSB/CW ham radio transceiver in the summer of 1977. It was one of the happiest times of my life. Now that I think about it, that probably explains a lot about me.
I still use my Heathkit power supply that I built in the 90's. I should give my dad a call and thank him for buying it for me. Between that and the TI 99/4A, it led me to my career in software development.
I bought a morse code keyer from Heathkit when I was a kid. It was the only thing I could afford at the time but I spent many hours reading their catalog and lusting over their ham radio kits.
I might pay $130 for a reliable clock AND AM AND FM-stereo radio in one box. But no, the statement that "AM broadcast radio is the best band for learning about radio" is just about as wrong as it can get, kids.
Except then they say "you might hear stations from half-way across the continent". Well, in that case, if you like Talk radio, 7MHz might be your best choice. (Antenna's a lot shorter too.)
> I got to know this man, whose name was Larry Lang, and he taught me a lot of electronics. He was great. He used to build Heathkits. Heathkits were really great. Heathkits were these products that you would buy in kit form. You actually paid more money for them than if you just went and bought the finished product, if it was available. These Heathkits would come with these detailed manuals about how to put this thing together, and all the parts would be laid out in a certain way and color coded. You’d actually build this thing yourself.
> I would say that gave one several things. It gave one an understanding of what was inside a finished product and how it worked, because it would include a theory of operation. But maybe even more importantly, it gave one the sense that one could build the things that one saw around oneself in the universe. These things were not mysteries anymore. I mean, you looked at a television set, and you would think, “I haven’t built one of those—but I could. There’s one of those in the Heathkit catalog, and I’ve built two other Heathkits, so I could build a television set.” Things became much more clear that they were the results of human creation, not these magical things that just appeared in one’s environment that one had no knowledge of their interiors. It gave a tremendous degree of self-confidence that, through exploration and learning, one could understand seemingly very complex things in one’s environment. My childhood was very fortunate in that way.
— https://stevejobsarchive.com/book