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From: rstevew@armory.com (Richard Steven Walz)
Subject: Re: Is Heathkit still alive
Organization: The Armory
Date: Fri, 14 Oct 1994 13:57:31 GMT
Message-ID: <Cxo1Fw.8vs@armory.com>
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In article <37ca9u$o9b@tabloid.amoco.com>,
Jack Coats <jocoats@amoco.com> wrote:
>In article mft@eve.atm.com, newager@hebron.connected.com (Ron) writes:
>>>G'day all,
>>>
>>>I'm looking for a hero 2000, and wondering if Heathkit is still alive or
>>>1. who took them over and 2. is there any ideas about where to pick one up. ?
>>>
>>>Tks, will look for response here, because my Mail provider is down. or 
>>>Kinita@aol.com
>
>yes heathkit is alive, but the kit is basically gone except for their educational
>stuff.  they started to notice the demographics of their customers was getting
>one year older each year.  not a good sign for a business that wants to keep
>going for many years.
>
>i don't think that the robots are available any longer.  you might try
>800- information to see if they exist there (800-555-1212).
>
>to bad... I really liked heath...
>---
>#include(standard-disclaimer.h);
>E-mail: jocoats@amoco.com   Fax: 713/366-7570   Voice: 713/366-7120
>Personal: 73670.2476@compuserve.com -or- jcoats@hounix.org
------------------------------------------------------------
Indeed, but they still make some really dandy electronics trainer boards
for their courses, if anyone wants to start an electronics school off
right! I have their address, I think:
-Steve Walz   rstevew@armory.com

Heath Company
Benton Harbor, Michigan, USA
1-800 253-0570

They still have courses and trainers suitable for instructor led or home
study and they seem like real quality courses! They sell test equipment,
DMM's, scopes, dual power supplies, hand tools, laser technology kits and
courses, AM-FM courses and kit, TV servicing course, VCR servicing course,
camcorder servicing course, Master courses with credit in their CEU
(continuing education credit system), in all branches of electronics, from
basic DC and AC courses to Ethernet communications Master courses. Their
equipment looks VERY well made and exciting to use! If I were rich, I'd
easily want their whole line of trainers and books, the stuff really does
look THAT GOOD!! They are reluctant to give out their catalog to people who
either already know electronics at a professional level or else people who
are not electronics teachers, but they will if you insist. They are
careful to warn people that they are not the old HeathKit, even though they
retain the name for their HeathKitEducational Systems! They don't have low
level projects anymore, but they sure do have a complete and extremely
attractive product line, such as preetched PC Boards for their trainers
which allow you to build up your own sections as you progress with
modularity divisions on each board and easy interconnects for experiments,
and a multi-usable power supply in the base frame that stands the circuit
board in a rack slide frame at a comfortable anglren front of you! Very
ergonomic, no more leaning over a table surface at another board parallel
to the table or nearly! And their catalog DOES list all their prices in the
center section for every item on every page. You don't play "guess this
week's price". I almost wish I'd stayed home and spent my college grant on
this system than having gone to school!! It really looks like I'd have
learned more, and having sampled their products for education by having
used their previous line of trainers when I taught electronics for the
government JTPA program, if the look of this stuff and the books, VHS
tapes, and computer graphic instruction they have built into their courses
at the high level, in their gorgeous full color glossy catalog is any
example, it almost seems like this stuff is well worth the price!!! You
could use it all your life as a development system for countless other
things you are working on and designing!!! It's a complete home shop in
containers, and GOOD ones at that!!! Their CAI Computer Aided Instruction
in full SVGA color graphics with motion is so compelling that one can see
it move in their STILL photographs!!! It's better than those courses that
TVI Ontario made for the sciences! It even has draggable test leads on
their sample circuits and O-scope screens that you can click to to see that
node of the circuit behavior! The color and graphics are about as complete
as we can today imagine for interactive computer training as we might
imagine it for electronics in the foreseeable future. No, I am not and
never have been or to my knowledge will be paid to say this about HeathKit,
but if I won the lottery today, they would be at the top of my wishlist, or
else I'd gladly trade my complete Star Trek and all other of my video tape
collection for just their video and computer graphics for electronics!It's
THAT GOOD! And they even have bundled test material ON LINE for
instructors, they advertise, "Good Bye to Piles of Paper", and that all
testing of students in class is completely on computer and automated and
available to the instructor over their classroom network!! I am sickly
green with envy at the instructor lucky enough to get to use that system
to use in taking a class all the way from DC to master-level courses. And
they indicate that they will sell any part of these courses, or simpiflied
doses of them to anyone for the stated component price! I had not noticed
all that was available till I just began reading through the catalog and
seeing those pictures! It's every bit as good as any graphics you've ever
seen on the most advanced PC, and the trainers are highly imaginative and
dynamic for classroom or even home use. The classroom versions even have
the DMM's built into the base power supply to prevent theft of DMM's or
breakage! Altogether with their books to follow literally everything they
teach, step by step, I am amazed at what they have put together! I can
easily forgive them for deserting the hobby kit business for this endeavor
now that I have read it, despite the fact that they still sell in the back
of the catalog, their clock, radio, and weather computer kits for the night
stand or table top. In addition they sell just parts kits for those on a
limited budget to accompany their books for each course! Ask for the
catalog and tell them that you have been meaning to spend the money to get
educated in electronics at home, or that you are interested in starting an
electronics school! Then see what *I* saw! And they use both 6811 and 8085
in their types of micrprocessor training. The only thing I see is a lack of
PLD and microcontroller training, but they advertised that any instructor
should contact them about other needs, and that not all their line is
represented in this catalog, so maybe they just might!
-Steve Walz   rstevew@armory.com

