• Please review our updated Terms and Rules here
  • From now on we will require that a prefix is set for any items in the sales area. We have created regions and locations for this. We also require that you select a delivery option before posting your listing. This will hopefully help us streamline the things that get listed for sales here and help local people better advertise their items, especially for local only sales. New sales rules are also coming, so stay tuned.

Mid Atlantic HealthKit H11 Total Repair Wanted

Covers: New York, Pensylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Virginia, Maryland and Washington DC.
C

Captain Retro

Member
Joined
Aug 7, 2019
Messages
12
Hello, everyone!

I am located in the Allentown-Lehigh Valley region of Pennsylvania.

I have a very rusty and dirty H11 with matching Disk Drives and a Terminal. Unfortunately the terminal was destroyed by the previous owner, needs a new case and possibly keyboard. It also seems to have some capacitor or general PSU issues (magic smoke). The H11 and Disk Drive appear to work, but I haven’t done any sort of IO with it; just powered it on.

Your job would be to clean and restore the system and the chassis/case, and the accessories etc, whatever needs to be done to repair it. Ideally I’d like to have this done in pieces over time, one part at a time. Maybe we can start with the terminal first and move to the disk drive, and so on. We can work out price and arrangements.

I’ll supply photos to interested individuals. Phone number and email can be given upon request.

Thanks, looking forward to your replies.

Michael (Cap’n Retro)
 
I'm working on one myself. It's a fun project. They're pretty simple and the troubleshooting info in the Heathkit manuals is pretty good. May I ask why it's not something you want to embark on yourself? Not trying to be snarky, just genuinely curious.

Which terminal is it, the H9? I have an H19 (well, technically a Z19, but they're the same thing), but no spare parts to share. :(

I'd offer to help you out, but to be honest this H11 of mine is the first PDP-11 I've restored, so I suspect that there are others around here who would be a better choice.

(If your terminal is an H9 or H19 and deemed too far gone to fix, I'd buy it from you. I want to build a more modern >9600 baud serial terminal inside a vintage enclosure, but I don't want to destroy anything even remotely repairable to do it. And an H9 or H19 shell would certainly match my H11.)

Re-edit: I just looked through your previous posts and saw your photos. My reaction is "Oh jeez, some doofus cut the keyboard off that H19. :(" It's supposed to be an all in one unit with keyboard. It looks like some monkey actually took a hacksaw to the thing. It infuriates me when the mechanical keyboard bois destroy decent vintage hardware just for the keyboards. :( :( :(

I'm not sure what to suggest as far as fixing that. If you can find a parts terminal it will probably be better than what you've got and the one you have will become the parts machine. I guess it might be possible to hook an atmega32 or something up to the keyboard connector (or maybe into the keymap ROM socket) and rig up something to plug in a PS/2 keyboard or something, but that would be a whole lot of work and you might just be better off using an old laptop and a usb-serial dongle for a terminal. :(
 
Last edited:
Well on second thought, if nobody else volunteers to help you, I'd be willing to test your qbus cards with my qbone in my test rig (as long as you'll buy me new driver ICs if a card smokes them, which is pretty unlikely, but stranger things have happened) once I get around to building the power supply signal generation thinger to start the CPU cards. It's my next project once I get time to work on the H11 some more. I'll have it all out and put together to test my own cards, so it wouldn't be any trouble to test yours while I'm at it. But if we were to decide to get into anything serious after that, that required a soldering iron or servicing those disk drives, we'd have to come to some kind of arrangement. And like I said, I would most certainly not call myself anything even close to a PDP-11 expert. I am sure that if there is anyone else willing to help you, they'd probably be more qualified than I.
 
Hi, thanks for replying. I’ve not had to time do anything with this machine, at all. I’ve simply powered it on once or twice, but that was futile do to the exploding capacitors and terminal.

Are you looking to sell the H19? I have an extremely damaged H19, I’m guessing you figured that out already. I would consider buying it if you’re selling a working piece.

Anyway, I have absolutely zero time to work on this at all. I’m swamped with work hours and other responsibilities.

Thanks,

Capn’ Retro
 
I may end up with an extra Z-19 here in a week or two. Let me get back to you after I evaluate the condition of the "new" one and give it a good burn-in period. To make it an H-19 you'd just need to swap the faceplates. I'd want your damaged one as part of the trade, as parts in case my good one ever flakes out.

Did you find anyone to help you? I have my qbus card test rig going at the moment. I would be happy to test your cards for you if you paid shipping both ways and don't mind shipping your stuff to an unknown internet weirdo lol. I don't have any good way to test the disk controller, but I can test cpu/ram/serial/parallel cards.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top