Before conducting my Zoom interview about the Heath Company and Heathkits with Chas Gilmore – formerly the VP of product development, marketing, and sales at Heath – I sent him a written list of questions so he could review and organize his memories of working at Heath. We covered most of my questions during the interview, which appear in the first five parts of this article series, but we … Read More → "The Rise and Fall of Heathkit – Part 6: And Yet More Final Thoughts"
Towards the end of my interview with Chas Gilmore – formerly the VP of product development, marketing, and sales at the Heath Company – I realized we had not touched on a couple of questions I’d sent to him in preparation for our Zoom call in October: whether any particular Heathkits stood out in his mind, and if he remembered the Heathkit Microwave Oven kit I’d built … Read More → "The Rise and Fall of Heathkit – Part 5: Final Thoughts"
Documentation is one of those things that people love or loathe. The people who create it typically loathe doing so. The people who use it can go either way depending on how well it’s written.
I was talking to a friend just a few minutes before I commenced this column. We will call my friend Joe (because that’s his name). Joe … Read More → "AI-Powered Documentation Generator and Understander"
Chas Gilmore joined the Heath Company in 1966 as a design engineer in the company’s Scientific Instruments group. By 1976, he was director of engineering for Heath’s technical products, which included amateur radio, instrumentation, marine, automotive, and weather products. This article, Part 4 of a series based on an interview with Gilmore, discusses the Heath Company’s changes after its acquisition by Zenith and then subsequently by France’ … Read More → "The Rise and Fall of Heathkit – Part 4: The Demise of Heathkit"
Chas Gilmore joined the Heath Company in 1966 as a design engineer in the company’s Scientific Instruments group. By 1976, he was director of engineering for Heath’s technical products, which included amateur radio, instrumentation, marine, automotive, and weather products. This article, Part 3 of a series, includes portions of an interview I conducted with Gilmore in October. This article picks up Gilmore’s narrative starting in 1976 and includes … Read More → "The Rise and Fall of Heathkit – Part 3: The Microcomputer Kit Era"
Chas Gilmore joined the Heath Company in 1966 as a design engineer in the company’s Scientific Instruments group and worked at the Heath Company on and off for more than two decades, eventually becoming VP of product development, marketing, and sales. This article includes portions of an interview I conducted with Gilmore in October. It covers the heyday of pre-computer Heathkits in the 1960s and 1970s.
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Read More → "The Rise and Fall of Heathkit – Part 2: The 1960s through the mid-1970s"
