Heathkit Model ET-3400

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At the Goodwill thrift store last week, I picked up a Heathkit Model ET-3400 for $24.50! It was sitting high up on the top shelf barely visible. I could see the blue case and immediately pulled it down at the very least expecting some vintage calculator... to my surprise, it was a Heathkit computer from 1977! This computer comes with a Motorola 6800 cpu. The 6800 was the precursor to the 6502.

After making the purchase, I went to my car and plugged it in to my Jackery. The thing powered on! Pressing RESET brought up the monitor program message "CPU UP." Wow! This thing outputs text on a 1x6 7 segment display. I then, still sitting in the parking lot downloaded some old manuals and started keying in examples. They worked and the computer functions. Awesome!

The computer has a built in ROM with a 1k monitor program that essentially serves as the OS. This allows the user to enter, view, and run machine code in hex.

I want to write more about this, but time is limited. I am writing this minutes before going into my job.

For now, I have this video I made of keying in and playing hilo. The video didn't come out right, so I will remake it later. I will make more videos too.

https://youtu.be/Ezm_3HmNIZU?si=lgRmRj5cl1-QleZt