[vcf-midatlantic] Received H11-a shipping mess!

[Richard Cini]

Project update —

Good news is that the power supply appears to be OK and stable. Initial readings of the 5v was 4.65v (a tad low) and 12v was 12.12v. A minor tweak to the adjustment pots brought them right back in-line. Yea!

I need to work on the side panels, reanchoring the threaded inserts that broke loose. I’d also really like to remove the flat black paint that was smeared on the front sheet metal. I still need to figure out what the extra front panel switch is for.

Rich

--
Rich Cini
Collector of Classic Computers
Build Master and lead engineer, Altair32 Emulator
http://www.classiccmp.org/cini
http://www.classiccmp.org/altair32

From:  Richard A Cini <rich.cini at verizon.net>
Date:  Wednesday, February 10, 2016 at 8:46 PM
To:  VCF-Midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic at lists.vintagecomputerfederation.org>
Subject:  Received H11-a shipping mess!

All —

I got a hold of a Heathkit H11, which arrived today and the person I got it from did everything wrong when shipping it. First, the good…it actually has more boards than I thought it did. It has the M7270 CPU, an H11-5 serial board, and two WHA-11-16 16kw x 16bit memory boards.

Now, the bad…there was inadequate packaging so it got bounced around by UPS. The CPU board was dislodged and the other three were shoved down one notch in the cage so that a board was plugged into row 1 but it sat in row 2’s card edge guide. It must have been dropped or thrown because the side panel threaded inserts cracked the case. Looks like I need some epoxy to as to re-anchor the threaded screw inserts.

The chassis has serial #00744 but no other serial number stickers. No console cable was provided but I have the manual for the serial board, so I’ll make one up (looks like 3-wire plus two for a paper tape). There is a massive Sprague capacitor on the PS, so I removed all boards and disconnected the PS from the backplane. I’m going to put it on a variac with lightbulb current limiter and bring it up over a few hours — maybe 15v/hour or something like that.

It’s a two-switch front panel with a 3rd toggle switch connected to two posts on the power supply board — function unknown since I don’t have the manual. The front panel was painted with flat black paint, but it’s chipping in spots so I might be able to get it off (would need recommendations for non-damaging paint remover).

The CPU has 5 40-pin chips (two purple ceramic and three PDIP). Supposedly the H11 has a monitor PROM or something like it, but I don’t see anything like a PROM on the board. Guess I have to wait until I get it running!

Is there anything else I should know about the H11 while bringing it up?

Thanks!

Rich
--
Rich Cini
Collector of Classic Computers
Build Master and lead engineer, Altair32 Emulator
http://www.classiccmp.org/cini
http://www.classiccmp.org/altair32