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102-697: Zenith Data Systems Corporation ( ZDS ) was an American computer systems manufacturing company active from 1979 to 1996. It was originally a division of the Zenith Radio Company (later Zenith Electronics), after they had purchased the Heath Company and, by extension, their Heathkit line of electronic kits and kit microcomputers , from Schlumberger in October 1979. ZDS originally operated from Heath's own headquarters in St. Joseph, Michigan . By

204-652: A Z80 processor board and a floppy disk drive into the cabinet of an Heathkit H19 terminal . This model also was sold in fully assembled form as the WH89 . These were later sold by Zenith Electronics with their name on the front as the Zenith Z-89 . MITS announced the Altair 8800 in January 1975 and started selling kits soon after. Marketed to electronics hobbyists through trade magazines like Popular Electronics ,

306-435: A bootstrap ROM that makes it easier to start up, including code for running basic input/output and allowing input through a front-mounted octal keypad and front panel display, instead of the binary switches and lights used on machines like the Altair 8800 . The H8 requires a separate terminal to be truly useful; Heathkit introduced several terminals as well. A successor model, the "All-in-One" Heathkit H89 , combines

408-664: A 1200-baud variant of the Kansas City standard format. Another common accessory is the H9 video terminal, which is also driven by the H8-5 card; although any serial terminal will suffice. The H9 is limited to upper case characters and 12 display lines, and uses a cheap array of switches for its keyboard. It was eventually superseded by the H19 terminal, a more ergonomic design, and capable of lower-case and graphic-like characters. The H19 became

510-425: A 4 KiB ROM occupying through FFF 16 . The ROMs interfere with the operation of standard CP/M, which assumes it can write the memory near location 0, in particular the interrupt handler pointers. PAM8 and portions of HDOS use an unusual address notation called " split octal " where 16-bit numbers are split into two 8-bit numbers printed in octal: the first location was "000.000" and the location after "000.377"

612-656: A bid to supply the Pentagon with 300,000 desktops worth $ 740 million in September 1992, this time beating out CompuAdd and Sysorex. Although ZDS' bid was temporarily voided after the latter two companies raised suspicions that ZDS was financially unstable, ZDS won back the contract in May 1993 on judicial appeal. In 1992, ZDS launched a revamp of their desktop PCs, laptops, and monitors. The redesign extended to their products' case designs, featuring sleek lines meant to instill

714-486: A brand for certain systems manufactured by Packard Bell NEC and marketed in the United States between 1996 and 1999. For a brief period, Packard Bell NEC was the largest PC manufacturer, in terms of units shipped, in the United States, with 15 percent of market share; it was also the third largest PC vendor in the world in terms of sales at the end of 1996. However, Packard Bell NEC's market share would soon slide, and

816-672: A brand of computer systems under the resulting merger, Packard Bell NEC, from 1996 until 1999, when Packard Bell NEC announced that they would withdraw from the American computer market. Zenith Data Systems Corporation (ZDS) was founded in October 1979 following the US$ 64.5-million acquisition of the Heath Company from Schlumberger Limited by the Zenith Radio Company . The company's initial headquarters were located in Heath's own headquarters in St. Joseph, Michigan . Edward J. Roberts, who joined

918-486: A built-in microphone. A Space Phone-enabled television would connect to a telephone jack (using a built-in phone cord), and making a call was performed by pressing a button on the remote to activate the Space Phone (which would mute and begin controlling the program audio going to the speaker). The telephone number is dialed using the numeric keys on the remote, which then displays the digits being dialed on-screen (using

1020-500: A cancelled contract with the Navy and a botched bid to increase its consumer desktop sales. In late 1989, ZDS was purchased by Groupe Bull of France for between $ 511 million and $ 635 million. Following the acquisition, ZDS moved from Michigan to Buffalo Grove, Illinois . In 1991, Enrico Pesatori took over ZDS and attempted to repair their relations with dealers while diversifying their product lineup and modes of sales. ZDS made

1122-593: A change in consumer purchasing behavior favoring superstore outlets (a sales channel in which ZDS had only a limited presence) as a reason for this decline. In an attempt to boost sales into 1993, ZDS restructured its field sales force and began focusing on direct sales to corporate accounts. In August 1992, after having poached CompuAdd executive Jerry Baldwin, ZDS launched the Z-Direct mail order catalog, mailing one million copies of its inaugural issue that year. The catalog offered desktop, server, and notebook products via

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1224-480: A descrambler box mounted on the television set, and plugged into the telephone lead. When a preannounced broadcast was ready to begin, viewers would call an operator at Zenith who would send a signal with the telephone leads to unscramble the video. While the Theatre Owners of America claimed the concept was unsuccessful, Zenith itself claimed the experiment was a success. As Phonevision broadcast films, it

1326-636: A failed bid to sell their computer systems at college bookstores, ZDS found success in marketing to fraternities and sororities directly in 1985. By that year, ZDS was overall the second-largest PC-compatible company, after Compaq . ZDS' CEO that year, Robert Dilworth, attributed its success to recognizing, unlike other computer companies, that the PC compatible was a commodity with falling prices like televisions: "Basically, we move boxes". ZDS' 1985 revenue grew to $ 352 million, and in March 1986 The New York Times called

1428-473: A flourishing of companies selling into the S-100 market. The introduction of floppy disk controllers and the disk-based CP/M operating system dramatically improved the system's capabilities and started the process of turning them into practical small-business tools. By the late 1970s they were beginning to displace minicomputers and other systems in a number of roles. Heathkit was a long-established player in

1530-427: A highly directional photo flash tube in the hand held unit that was aimed at sensitive photoreceivers in the four front corners of the television cabinet. However, bright sunlight falling on the television was found to activate the controls. It is worth noting that these remote controls would activate a motor, causing the tuning dial on the television to switch by itself, and this could be used for mischief if someone else

1632-512: A keypad and seven-segment LED display (early S-100 machines like the Altair or IMSAI 8080 contain no ROM and when they are started, the user "keys in" a program via the toggle switches to read a paper tape . Once this "loader" program is ready, a paper tape containing a more complete loader can be read in, allowing the user to load programs from cassette or floppy disk). On the H8, all of this code

1734-510: A major product line of its own. The H17 floppy disk system became available in 1978, normally sold with one drive but expandable with a second (and later to three). Use of the H17 requires at least 16 KiB of RAM. The H8 can run CP/M , and often did, but early machines require either a special version of CP/M that was "org'd" at 8 KiB instead of zero, or a small hardware modification and an updated ROM to do so. Heath also offered HDOS , which

1836-615: A modified OEM version of MS-DOS licensed from MS-DOS that possessed the latter's filesystem but which was not fully compatible on the API level with MS-DOS, leading to compatibility issues with certain applications. While lacking in the PC-compatibility department, the Z-100 proved popular as a bridge machine for CP/M developers who wanted to get a head start on DOS and x86 programming. Later machines in this Z-prefixed line (such as

1938-570: A result, sales started to improve. The company increased their shipments from 194,000 units in 1990 to 228,000 units (down from 445,000 units in 1988). The company also increased their investments in research and development, with expenditures in 1991 being 25 percent higher than the previous year, this trend following apace for 1992. By the middle of 1992, ZDS had additional manufacturing plants in Santa Clara, California ; Billerica, Massachusetts ; and Villeneuve-d'Ascq, France . ZDS remained

2040-585: A sense of modernity. These efforts culminated in the release of the Z-Series laptops in June 1992. The Z-Series were touted as the lightest laptops available at the time, with built-in networking capability and color LCDs. The Z-Lite, the company's second attempt at a subnotebook, was co-designed by Frog of Germany, featuring an 8.5-inch LCD while weighing only 3.9 pounds (1.8 kg). ZDS themselves were commissioned to design and manufacture another company's product,

2142-764: A slow recovery into the early 1990s, helped along by a lucrative contract with the Pentagon in 1993. Pesatori was replaced that year with Jacques Noels of Nokia , who further diversified the company's lineup. ZDS' revenue steadily grew in both their North American and European markets in the beginning of 1994. The company was acquired by Packard Bell in February 1996, in a three-way deal which saw Groupe Bull and Japanese electronics conglomerate NEC increasing their existing stakes in Packard Bell. Later, NEC announced that they would acquire Packard Bell, merging it with NEC's global personal computer operations. ZDS continued as

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2244-412: A statement issued by the company. Furthermore, ZDS revenues were equally divided between North American and European markets, as well as between desktop and notebook products. In February 1996, Packard Bell acquired Zenith Data Systems from Groupe Bull, in a three-way deal which saw Groupe Bull and Japanese electronics conglomerate NEC increasing their existing stakes in Packard Bell. As a consequence of

2346-614: A strong resemblance to the TRS-80 Model III and similar all-in-one computers. The H89 was sold both in kit form for $ 1595, and fully assembled form as the WH89 for $ 2295. Soon after the introduction of the H89, Heathkit was purchased by Zenith, who were looking to enter the microcomputer market. They continued sales of the H89 with their own labeling on the front as the Zenith Z89 . Eventually, Zenith Data Systems (Heathkit plus

2448-667: A television company, ZDS could obtain monitors at cost. Heath had a loyal fanbase comprising computing enthusiasts and scientific engineers by the time Zenith acquired the company in 1979. The first Heathkit computer, the H8 , was released in 1977 and sold in kit form. It was built on Intel 's 8080 processor and ran software on audiotape and punched tape (with the H10 puncher–reader). The H8's operating system, HDOS (Heath Disk Operating System), could only read hard-sectored 5.25-inch floppy diskettes. In around 1980, ZDS began selling systems sold with

2550-601: A toll-free phone number. The catalog also included peripheral equipment from other manufacturers and software products from Microsoft, Novell , and Lotus Development . The company hoped that the direct sales approach would increase brand recognition and reach customers who were not targeted by other marketing channels. Jacques Noels, formerly the head of Nokia Consumer Electronics , replaced Pesatori as CEO in January 1993. Pesatori meanwhile left to helm Digital Equipment Corporation 's PC-compatible systems division. Under Noels' leadership, ZDS launched several new products, including

2652-571: Is already pre-installed in a 1 KiB ROM in a monitor program known as "PAM8", occupying locations 0 through 3FF 16 and the H17 disk I/O drivers used for booting, occupying a 2 KiB ROM occupying locations 1800 16 through 1FFF 16 The ROM contains code to control the keypad and display, booting it directly into an operable state. Several versions of the PAM-8 ROM were sold as upgrades; at one point Heathkit switched to using 2 KiB ROMs, occupying through 7FF 16 and subsequently to

2754-521: Is an Intel 8080A -based microcomputer sold in kit form starting in 1977. The H8 is similar to the S-100 bus computers of the era, and like those machines is often used with the CP/M operating system on floppy disk . The main difference between the H8 and S-100 machines is the bus ; the H8 uses a 50-pin bus design that was smaller, more robust and better engineered electrically. The machine also includes

2856-521: The Admiral name. Certain products carried the Allegro brand, which had originated in the 1970s as a brand for Zenith speakers and other audio equipment. Their profitable Network Systems division, which produced set-top boxes for cable and satellite TV , was sold to Motorola in the summer of 2000 and became part of Motorola BCS (Broadband Communications Sector). The Zenith headquarters building

2958-597: The Internal Revenue Service (IRS), and a $ 242 million contract—the largest computer contract the U.S. federal government had awarded up to that point—for 90,000 computers to the United States Department of Defense . ZDS introduced a number of innovations in the personal computer industry throughout the 1980s. One unique feature of most ZDS' PC-compatible systems was the key combination Ctrl + Alt + Ins , which would interrupt

3060-691: The Packard Bell Statesman , released in October 1993. The two companies also agreed to collaborate on the design and production of future desktop PCs. ZDS reported a 30 percent increase in worldwide revenues by 1993's end, with North American revenues up 53 percent and European revenues up 22 percent. The number of units shipped also increased, with a rise of 89 percent in the US and 62 percent worldwide. ZDS by this point counted seven major distributors on its roster and had sales networks in over 30 countries. In 1994, ZDS unveiled

3162-632: The ThinkPad 300 — IBM 's second entry in their ThinkPad line of notebook computers. The total sales for 1992 were estimated at $ 900 million—55 percent of which represented sales in Europe, and 40 percent of which represented sales from notebook models. While the company's overall sales slowly recovered, ZDS' retail market share continued to slide, decreasing from 3.4 percent in July 1991 to only 1 percent in July 1992. The company's officials cited

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3264-723: The WH17 . For the CP/M operating system, Heathkit provided the WH67, a 10 MB eight-inch hard drive and the H47 eight-inch floppy disk system. In 1978 Heath introduced the Heathkit H88 which integrated the H19 terminal and a new Zilog Z80 -based single-board processor into the case of the H19. A version with a disk drive incorporated to the right of the terminal screen became the H89 . The machines bear

3366-567: The Z-100 , its first computer not based on a kit design and second 16-bit product after the H11 minicomputer, in 1982. Targeted at business professionals, it had both the Intel 8085 and 8088 microprocessors; five S-100 bus slots for expansion; and an integrated high-resolution graphics chip with color capability. For operating systems, it could boot into either Digital Research 's CP/M -85 or Z-DOS ,

3468-493: The " Trans-Oceanic " series of shortwave portable radios, which were produced from 1942 to 1981. Zenith was the first company to experiment with subscription television, launching their Phonevision system with experimental Chicago station KS2XBS (originally broadcasting on Channel 2 before the Federal Communications Commission forced them to relinquish it to WBBM-TV ). Their experiment involved

3570-474: The 1972 model year. The Space Command 600 remote control had an additional, distinctive feature—this remote control could also adjust color hues. By pressing the mute button on the remote, a relay would be activated at the television in which to transfer the VHF motor drive tuner circuit to the motorized hue control. This would allow the user to adjust the hue in increments by depressing the channel up or down buttons on

3672-514: The Altair but addressing its more obvious shortcomings. The H8 was announced in July 1977 and started selling that fall at a price of $ 379. For full functionality, the system also requires a 4 KiB SRAM card ($ 139) and some form of storage controller; at a minimum this would be the H10 paper tape punch/reader or the H8-5 Serial I/O card ($ 110) which controls a cassette tape , using

3774-640: The Heathkit or Heath name—the equivalent of the ZDS Z-150 IBM PC compatible was the Heathkit H-150, for example. The company opened more Heathkit Electronic Centers while also selling through Zenith dealers and seeking corporate customers. The company also continued Heath's practice of publishing unusually clear product documentation, distributing schematics, and selling the source code to HDOS and other software in printed form. ZDS introduced

3876-551: The Japanese television manufacturers for violation of the Anti- Dumping Act and a conspiracy they alleged violated American antitrust laws. During the pendency of that suit, Zenith Radio Corporation encountered increasing financial difficulty as their market share progressively went to Japanese companies. Zenith joined two other U.S. companies— Sears, Roebuck and Co. and Motorola, Inc .—as co-plaintiffs. The NUE suit

3978-521: The Korean company GoldStar (now LG Electronics ) as part of a technology-sharing agreement. With their analog line aging (the last major update to the line had been the System³ chassis in 1978) ), and the adoption of HDTV in the United States decades away, Zenith's prospects were poor. In 1995 LG, increased its stake to 55 percent, enough to assume controlling interest . Zenith was too small to compete in

4080-583: The Navy cancelled by the General Services Administration . A ploy to boost sales of its desktop computers by requiring its laptop dealers to also sell their desktop models backfired, with an estimated 1,000 dealers across the United States pulling all ZDS products from their inventory in protest of this policy. After being dealt this blow, Zenith Electronics cut spending to ZDS' research and development operations in preparation for selling

4182-590: The Space Command, developed in 1956. The original television remote control was a wired version, released in 1950, that soon attracted complaints about an unsightly length of cable from the viewer's chair to the television receiver. Eugene F. McDonald , Zenith President and founder, ordered his engineers to develop a wireless version, but the use of radio waves was soon discounted due to poor interference rejection inherent in 1950s radio receivers. The 1955 Flash-Matic remote system, invented by Eugene Polley , used

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4284-589: The Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal from the U.S. District Court of Appeals in Philadelphia that upheld the ruling of the trial court in favor of the Japanese. In 1979, Zenith entered the computer market with the purchase of Heath Company from Schlumberger for $ 64.5 million, forming Zenith Data Systems (ZDS). The company changed its name to Zenith Electronics Corporation in 1984 to reflect its interests in computers and CATV , having left

4386-756: The Z-150 series, the Z-200 series, the Z-300 series, and the Z-400 series) were fully compatible with the IBM PC . The AT -based Z-200 in particular, while not touting many technical improvements over IBM's PC AT, was nonetheless praised for its sturdy construction. ZDS avoided the retail consumer market, instead focusing on business and government customers, such as companies, universities, and government agencies. Government contracts were of paramount importance for ZDS, representing

4488-794: The Z-Lite 425L, an upgraded version of their subnotebook featuring an i486SL processor clocked at 25 MHz; the Z-Notepad, a pen-enabled version of their Z-Note laptop; and the Z-Star V33VL series, a 486-based notebook PC line comprising three models, all featuring Cyrix 's energy-conservant Cx486SLC microprocessor clocked at 33 MHz. ZDS also launched a new series of desktop PCs, the Z-Select 100 line, which came pre-installed with networking software compatible with Novell NetWare , Banyan VINES , and Microsoft LAN Manager . The Z-Select 100

4590-882: The Z-Stor line of wide area network products. The flagship product in the lineup was the Z-Stor Personal Server, a file server co-developed by the Desktop Workgroup Computing Initiative, a joint venture between ZDS and Novell. ZDS in 1994 also introduced the Z-Station 500, a desktop workstation, and the Z-Noteflex, a new line of notebooks. The Z-Station 500 touted improved power management, higher-specification graphics cards (implementing ATI 's PCI -based Mach 32 card), and increased system performance. The Z-Noteflex meanwhile

4692-583: The Zenith Radio Company in 1971, was named ZDS' first president. Heath was a manufacturer of microcomputers and do-it-yourself electronics kits , the latter sold under the Heathkit brand; meanwhile, Zenith Radio Company (later Zenith Electronics) had been long a market leader in the American electronics industry, particularly with radios and television sets. ZDS' first computers were preassembled versions of Heathkit computers. As subsidiary of

4794-479: The boards to crumble if one attempts to remove a tube. Zenith, and to a lesser extent Motorola , avoided this problem by continuing to use hand wired chassis in all their vacuum tube equipment. Zenith kept circuit boards out of their televisions until the Chromacolor line of the early 1970s, and even then used them only with solid state components, mounting the four tubes used in the Chromacolor "4 tube hybrid" on

4896-445: The bulk of the company's sales efforts. John Frank, ZDS' vice president of marketing, explained: "We'd like to have [retailers], but we don't need them". ZDS' president Donald Moffett in 1982 further stated: "We have no expectations of being first or second in the desktop market". Regardless, in fiscal year 1984, ZDS sold 16 percent of the 37,000 computers that the United States government purchased, second to IBM 's 27 percent. After

4998-467: The case to be reduced in height. Each card contains its own voltage regulators, using the Z-shaped mounting bracket as a heat-sink. (Power distribution on the backplane is unregulated +8V and +/-18V; the cards regulate these to their requirements, typically +5V and +/-12V.) Another notable change is the replacement of the front-panel toggle switches and lights of a standard early-model S-100 system with

5100-553: The company between 1997 and 1998 posted losses totaling more than $ 1 billion. In 1999, NEC withdrew Packard Bell NEC from the American market, while keeping it in Europe. Acer Inc. of Taiwan eventually acquired Packard Bell in 2008. Some Zenith Data Systems computer models, by year of introduction: Zenith Electronics Zenith-branded products were sold in North America , Germany , Thailand (to 1983), Cambodia , Laos , Vietnam , India , and Myanmar . The company

5202-416: The company founders felt there would be limited appeal and expected to sell only a few hundred systems. Instead, they received orders for thousands in the first month. Sales were so much greater than expected that MITS was unable to clear the order backlog for the better part of the year. The Altair sparked off such intense interest in the microcomputer world that a number of other companies jumped in to fill

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5304-447: The company made headlines when it beat out IBM for a contract with the Internal Revenue Service to supply a portable computer . ZDS' SupersPort laptop was released in 1988 to high demand, and it soon cornered roughly a quarter of the entire American laptop market that year. The company reached a peak in terms of revenue in 1988, generating US$ 1.4 billion that year. The following year saw ZDS floundering in multiple ways, including

5406-526: The company released the SupersPort line of laptops and the TurbosPort 386 portable computer, the latter being one of the first computers to have a "paper-white" monochrome LCD, owing to the use of a special STN display technology and a cold-cathode backlight. The SupersPort was very successful for ZDS, with the company reportedly selling over 173,000 units, cornering between 23 and 25 percent of

5508-433: The company relocated from Michigan to Buffalo Grove, Illinois, after leasing 140,000 square feet (13,000 m) of office space at a newly built 12-story office building at Lake-Cook Road and Milwaukee Avenue. ZDS retained their old St. Joseph headquarters, refactoring it into a full-on engineering facility and manufacturing plant for the company's desktop computers. After shuffling its executive team in 1990, Enrico Pesatori

5610-436: The computer division of Zenith) was purchased by Bull HN (CII Bull, Honeywell and Nippon Electric) because they needed a US maker of microcomputers to comply with government purchase requirements. Kit sales were ended soon after that purchase. Heath chose not to implement the S-100 bus and instead created their own, known as "Benton Harbor Bus" after their home town. The bus is based on a 50-pin connector and laid out to avoid

5712-516: The consumer electronics industry, which had become global in nature, and its high-quality products made it attractive for acquisition. Zenith filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1999, and in exchange for its debts, LG bought the remaining 45 percent of the company, converting about $ 200 million of debt owed to it by Zenith into common stock in the revamped company. The shares of existing stockholders were rendered worthless. During this period, some of Zenith's products were being rebadged as OEM under

5814-489: The division's success one of Zenith Electronics' "proudest accomplishments", amid the parent company's losses in the television market against Japanese competition. In October 1983, the United States Navy and Air Force awarded a $ 27-million computer contract to ZDS. In 1984 ZDS won a $ 100-million contract with the United States military for "eavesdrop-proof" computers compliant with the Tempest standard. In 1986 it won two other large contracts, one for portable computers for

5916-490: The earliest FM multiplex stereo stations, first broadcasting in stereo in June 1961. The station was sold in the early 1970s and is now WUSN . Zenith pioneered the development of high-contrast and flat-face picture tubes , and the multichannel television sound (MTS) stereo system used on analog television broadcasts in the United States and Canada (as opposed to the BBC -developed NICAM digital stereo sound system for analog television broadcasts, used in many places around

6018-479: The early 1980s. ZDS followed up the Z-150 with the heavier, less-elegant Z-138 portable computer in 1985. They quickly followed this up with the Z-160 portable, which featured pop-up 5.25-inch disk drives. Also in 1985, the company introduced the Z-148, one of the most inexpensive IBM PC-compatibles on the market at the time, with a suggested retail price of $ 2,200 (with typical resellers discounts lowering this figure substantially, according to InfoWorld ). The Z-148

6120-441: The electrical problems of the S-100 system (like +5V and ground being placed beside each other). The H8 is packaged in a box-like chassis with pressboard sides and metal sheeting for the rest of the case. The top sheet is heavily perforated to form cooling vents. The machine is built up from the backplane mounted on the right-hand side panel of the case, with ten 50-pin card slots. The first and last slots are spaced differently from

6222-406: The electronics market, making kits for products that had proven themselves in the market. Some of these were quite complex, including a color television . The company had considered designing a kit computer as early as 1974, but concluded that it was not a good fit for their traditional market. The successful launch of the Altair changed things, and in 1977 Heathkit decided to design a kit similar to

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6324-623: The entire laptop market at the time. Contracts to sell fleets of computers to the United States Air Force and the IRS further increased ZDS' status as a leading computer manufacturer. By 1988's end, the company grossed $ 1.4 billion in revenues. ZDS' success allowed them to sponsor the Full Members' Cup , a football competition in the United Kingdom, starting in 1989 until the latter's discontinuation in 1992. Despite having what Byte described in 1989 as "an excellent reputation for making quality hardware" with good customer support, that year first-quarter revenue fell roughly 41 percent compared to

6426-432: The first portable radio in 1924, the first mass-produced AC radio in 1926, and push-button tuning in 1927. It added automobile radios in the 1930s with its Model 460 , promoting the fact that it needed no separate generator or battery, selling at US$ 59.95. The first Zenith television set appeared in 1939, with its first commercial sets sold to the public in 1948. The company is credited with having invented such things as

6528-489: The fourth-largest PC seller in the United States (behind Apple, IBM, and Compaq ), representing an undisclosed price. While Packard Bell had an overall market share in the United States of 37 percent, only five percent of this figure represented notebook sales—much lower than the industry average of roughly 20 percent. As part of the acquisition, ZDS agreed to provide Packard Bell with rebadged versions of its notebook and subnotebook PCs, eventually manufacturing for them

6630-448: The hybrid Heath/Zenith branding; the CP/M operating system was adapted to the entirety of ZDS' computers under this branding scheme by 1981. The early Heath/Zenith computers (the H88, H89 and Z-89 ) were based on the Z80 processors and ran either HDOS or CP/M operating systems. Long after products bearing only the Zenith name had accounted for the majority of the company's sales, ZDS continued selling their computers in kit form under

6732-458: The largest supplier of computers to the federal government into 1991. In November that year, they and several other large computer companies, including Apple , lost a bid to supply the Department of Defense with 300,000 desktop computers, the winning bid valuated at $ 1 billion split between rival manufacturer CompuAdd Corporation of Austin, Texas , and systems integrator Sysorex Information Systems of Falls Church, Virginia . ZDS however won

6834-423: The lawsuits. Plaintiffs appealed, and the appellate court affirmed the summary judgment for Sears, Roebuck and Co., Motorola, Inc., and Sony. The case was appealed, and in March 1986 the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in favor of the defendants on Zenith's antitrust claims. Zenith's hopes to salvage a victory on the claims that the defendants violated the Antidumping Act of 1916 ended in April 1987, when

6936-485: The merger, 570 jobs were eliminated from ZDS' plant in St. Joseph. Shortly after, in June 1996, NEC announced that they would acquire Packard Bell, merging it with NEC's global personal computer operations. The merger was finalized in July 1996; the resulting division became known as Packard Bell NEC , selling computer systems under both NEC and Packard Bell faceplates. Select ZDS employees moved to Packard Bell NEC's headquarters in Sacramento, California , and ZDS lived on as

7038-415: The mid '60's, Rauland produced the RCA 21" round color CRT; in 1965 it added a 21" rectangular 21" color CRT. In 1966, Rauland bought the Keebler cookie plant in Melrose Park, Illinois for production of color CRTs. Rauland's Niles, Illinois , plant made flat-face radar picture tubes, night vision microchannel image tubes for the military, and many specialty tubes. The other Zenith subsidiary in Chicago

7140-401: The most basic commands and lacked string variables, and Extended Benton Harbor BASIC which required at least 24 kB of memory and added string variables, integer types, and commands for working directly with the floppy disk without having to exit to CP/M or the monitor. Modelled on Dartmouth BASIC , as opposed to popular later variations like HP Time-Shared BASIC or Microsoft BASIC ,

7242-420: The on-screen display features of the System 3 line). The user could then converse with another caller hands-free, much like a regular speakerphone. In the late 1940s, Zenith entered the television market. These sets were all-round tube sets. The main feature was that the entire round screen was exposed. They were available in 12-inch, 16-inch and 19-inch sizes. Later round-tube models had a switch that would show

7344-539: The optional Flexshow docking station . ZDS saw considerable growth in revenue in both their North American and European markets in the beginning of 1994. Comparing year-to-year first quarter profits between 1993 and 1994, there was an increase of 132 percent in North America and an increase of 42 percent in Europe. ZDS' annual sales revenues of roughly $ 1 billion made up around 40 percent of their Groupe Bull's total hardware revenues, according to

7446-797: The picture in the 4:3 ratio, or have the entire round screen exposed. These sets are very desirable among television collectors. Many porthole sets used metal-cone CRTs, which are now scarce. It is not uncommon for collectors to replace a bad metal-cone tube with an all-glass tube. Zenith porthole sets came in tabletop models, stand-alone consoles and television/radio/phono combos. In the late 1950s, many electronic manufacturers, such as RCA , General Electric and Admiral , were changing from hand-wired metal chassis in their radios and televisions to printed circuit boards . While circuit boards save time and errors in assembly, they are not well suited for use with vacuum tube equipment, in which high temperatures are generated that can break down boards, eventually causing

7548-415: The previous year, dropping to $ 1.7 million. Its MinisPort subnotebook , which made use of a special 2-inch floppy disk format as the primary means of transferring data to and from the machine, sold more slowly than anticipated. Further, Unisys beat out ZDS in a $ 700-million bid to supply the military with desktop computer systems. The company soon after had a $ 534-million computer upgrade contract for

7650-411: The radio business two years earlier. By the late 1980s, ZDS's profits were sustaining Zenith, while its television business continued to lose money. To raise money for HDTV research efforts and reduce debt, Zenith sold ZDS to Groupe Bull in October 1989 for $ 635 million. By 1990, Zenith was in trouble and looking more attractive to a hostile takeover. To avoid this, Zenith sold a five-percent stake to

7752-412: The remote control, and restore the television to normal tuning operation when the mute button was pressed again (mute off). Some models of Zenith's System 3 line of televisions made from the late 1970s to the early 1990s had a feature called the Space Phone by Zenith. It was basically a hands-free speakerphone built into the television set. It used the set's speaker and remote control, in addition to

7854-473: The rest, and the power supplies occupy some of the space needed for the last card. This means that the last card not only has to accommodate the narrow spacing but also cannot be full-length, leaving eight "standard" slots available for full-length cards. The front panel plugs into the first slot and the CPU plugs into the second, leaving seven for further expansion. The card slots are arranged on an angle, which allows

7956-427: The retail consumer market, instead focusing on selling directly to businesses, educational institutions, and government agencies. By the late 1980s, the company had won several lucrative government contracts worth several hundreds of millions of dollars combined, including a US$ 242-million contract with the United States Department of Defense —the largest such computer-related government contract up to that date. In 1986,

8058-512: The running program and break into a machine-language monitor . This monitor program originated with the Heathkit H8 computer; PAM-8 (Panel Monitor-8), included in ROM , allowed the user to trace or resume program execution, change machine settings, run diagnostic routines, and boot from a specific device. ZDS' ZP-150 laptop, released in 1984, was an early entry in the first wave of laptops of

8160-415: The sales backlog, building machines that were clones of the Altair. The primary component of this design is the S-100 bus, so named because it uses a 100-pin edge connector that MITS found at bargain prices when they were designing the machine. Unfortunately, the pins are connected from the backplane with a disorganized layout, and it has a number of problems that make it unreliable. Standardization led to

8262-407: The sounds were produced in the remote unit electronically; however, the operating principle remained in use until the 1980s, when it was superseded by the infrared light system. The photograph is of a Space Command 600, which was the remote control designed for use with their color television receivers. The Space Command 600 was introduced in 1965 and this particular design was in use until the end of

8364-497: The steel chassis. Zenith began using circuit boards in radios when they converted to solid-state in the late 1960s, but even Zenith's early transistor radios were completely hand wired with socketed transistors. Due to the use of this chassis construction (and the high quality components), Zenith televisions and radios of the 1950s to 1970s found today are often still working well, needing little work to restore them to like-new operating condition. Heathkit H8 Heathkit 's H8

8466-680: The subsidiary to the highest bidder. This had the effect of eliminating new product releases, causing sales to free fall as its existing offerings soon became obsolete. An interested buyer was found at the very end of the decade; in November 1989, Groupe Bull announced that they would acquire ZDS from Zenith Electronics for between $ 511 million and $ 635 million. The deal was finalized in December 1989. ZDS' workforce peaked in number in 1990 with 3,800 workers, 1,800 of which were from their St. Joseph, Michigan, headquarters. Under new ownership,

8568-439: The time Zenith acquired Heathkit, their H8 kit computer already had an installed fanbase of scientific engineers and computing enthusiasts. ZDS' first offerings were merely preassembled versions of existing Heathkit computers, but within a few years, the company began selling bespoke systems, including the Z-100 , which was a hybrid 8085 - and 8088 -based computer capable of running both CP/M and MS-DOS . ZDS largely avoided

8670-450: The wireless remote control and FM multiplex stereo . For many years Zenith used the slogan "the quality goes in before the name goes on". This phrase was used by the Geo. P. Bent Piano Company of Chicago as early as 1906. Zenith established one of the first FM stations in the country in 1940 (Chicago's WWZR, later called WEFM, named for Zenith executive Eugene F. McDonald), which was among

8772-606: The world.) Zenith was one of the first companies to introduce a digital HDTV system implementation, parts of which were included in the ATSC standard , starting with the 1993 model Grand Alliance . They were one of the first American manufacturers to market a home VCR , selling a Sony -built Betamax video recorder starting in 1977. The 1962 Illinois Manufacturers Directory (50th Anniversary edition) lists Zenith Radio Corporation as having 11,000 employees, of which at least 6,460 were employed in seven Chicago plants. The corporate office

8874-474: Was "001.000". In order to distinguish numbers in split-octal notation from 16-bit octal numbers, the two digit groups are often separated by a special symbol. Most mini- and micro-computers use either straight octal (377 was followed by 400) or hexadecimal.) With the introduction of the optional HA8-6 Z-80 processor replacement for the 8080 board, the front-panel keyboard got a new set of labels and hexadecimal notation replaced octal. The 50-pin "Benton Harbor Bus"

8976-543: Was Central Electronics, Incorporated, located at 1247 West Belmont Ave., where 100 employees made amateur radio equipment and performed auditory training. Another Central Electronics plant was located at State Route 133 and Grandview in Paris, Illinois , where 500 employees made radio receivers, with the total Zenith work force in Illinois being thus at least 6,960. In December 1970, National Union Electric ("NUE") sued most of

9078-515: Was attempting to tune the television. Lead engineer Robert Adler then suggested that ultrasonic sound be used as a trigger mechanism. This was produced in the hand held unit by mechanically struck aluminum rods of carefully constructed dimensions—a receiver in the television responded to the different frequencies this action produced. Enough audible noise was produced by pressing the buttons that consumers began calling remote controls "clickers". The miniaturization of electronics meant that, eventually,

9180-481: Was awarded a contract to sell 20,000 Z-171s worth $ 27 million to the IRS, beating out IBM and their PC Convertible . In 1987, Microsoft chose ZDS to be the first pack-in distributor of its variant of OS/2 1.0 , co-developed with IBM; that same year, Microsoft developed a character-based windowing file manager for ZDS' all-in-one Eazy PC called MS-DOS Manager, a precursor to Microsoft's later DOS Shell . In 1988,

9282-525: Was co-founded by Ralph Matthews and Karl Hassel in Chicago, Illinois , as Chicago Radio Labs in 1918 as a small producer of amateur radio equipment. The name "Zenith" came from ZN'th, a contraction of its founders' ham radio call sign , 9ZN. They were joined in 1921 by Eugene F. McDonald , and Zenith Radio Company was incorporated in 1923. The fledgling company soon became known for its high-quality radios and electronic innovations. Zenith introduced

9384-542: Was considered an improvement on the S-100 bus . The 50-pin bus of the H8 contains sixteen address lines, eight data lines, five interrupt lines, and the system control lines. Like the S-100 bus, it does not supply +5 V; each card is expected to have its own local +5 V regulator powered from "unregulated" +8 V on the bus. Heathkit also introduced their own dialect of the BASIC programming language . Two versions were available, Benton Harbor BASIC that supported

9486-402: Was designed to be modular, allowing users to swap the top housing of the laptop to switch between different display technologies (passive-matrix monochrome, passive-matrix color, and active-matrix, TFT color) and remove hard disk drives toollessly. The Z-Noteflex also possessed an internal VESA local bus , allowing expansion cards based on this architecture to be installed into the computer with

9588-404: Was in plant number 1, located at 6001 West Dickens Avenue (north of the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific railroad tracks), where 2,500 workers made radio and television sets and Hi-Fi stereophonic phonographs. Plant number 2 was located at 1500 North Kostner Ave., where 2,100 employees made government electronics, radio and television components, transistors and hearing aids. Plant number 3

9690-619: Was kept inexpensive by its small footprint; one sacrifice was the lack of any ISA expansion slots. The company's Z-171 portable was built into a lunchbox form factor. This computer was originally developed by Morrow Designs and sold as the Morrow Pivot II in May 1985. ZDS acquired the rights to co-manufacture the Pivot II rebadged as the Z-171 and unveiled the latter in November 1985. ZDS shocked industry observers in early 1986 when it

9792-634: Was located at 5801 West Dickens Ave. (also north of the Milwaukee Road tracks), where 300 employees made electronics and did servicing. Plant number 4 was located at 3501 West Potomac Ave., where 60 employees handled warehousing. Plant number 5, located at 6501 West Grand Ave., employed 500-600 workers and manufactured government Hi-Fi equipment. A subsidiary of Zenith, the Rauland Corporation, located at 4245 North Knox Avenue, employed 850 workers who produced television picture tubes. In

9894-548: Was named the first permanent CEO of ZDS under Bull's ownership in January 1991. Tasked with correcting course and rehabilitating ZDS' public image, Pesatori spearheaded the creation of a new lineup of laptops and put an end to the requirement that dealers stock desktops as well as laptops. Pesatori's new team meanwhile increased the company's advertising budget by half and launched a new advertising campaign targeting business users. ZDS also continued to expand their distribution channels and renewed their relationship with ComputerLand. As

9996-465: Was occupied by Aon and subsequently demolished in 2018 to create room for nearby Abt Electronics to expand. LG produced the Zenith DTT-900 and Zenith DTT-901 ATSC digital television converter box. LG offered some Zenith-branded plasma, LCD, and direct-view televisions through selected retail outlets. Among Zenith's early famous products were the "Royal" series of transistor radios and

10098-496: Was powered by a 25-MHz i486SX processor and featured 4 MB of RAM and a 170-MB hard drive. ZDS touted the power-saving capabilities of the Z-Select 100, including its idle power consumption of 60 watts and advanced power management capabilities, including user-definable time intervals on which the computer halts the processor to conserve power. In 1993, Groupe Bull purchased a 19.9 percent stake in Packard Bell , then

10200-445: Was seen as a potential competitor for traditional theatres. In spite of the fact that the three films initially available to the first 300 test households were more than two years old, about 18 percent of Phonevision viewers had seen them at the movies, and 92 percent of Phonevision households reported that they would prefer to see films at home. Zenith is, perhaps, best known for the first practical wireless television remote control ,

10302-505: Was transferred to the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, and the two suits were consolidated for pretrial proceedings and trial. The suit, styled In re Japanese Electric Products Antitrust Litigation , sought $ 900 million in damages. By the end of 1983, Zenith had spent millions of dollars in connection with the litigation. In 1981, the trial court entered summary judgment on the antitrust and antidumping claims and dismissed

10404-581: Was written by Gordon Letwin . Letwin later went to Microsoft and was chief architect of OS/2 . At the time the H8 was introduced, the computer market was in the midst of a shift from the hobby market that had spawned it to a "user" market that purchased pre-assembled machines. Heath followed this trend and introduced the WH8 in fully assembled form for $ 475. Like the H8, the WH8 requires several other cards for functionality. The disk drive system came fully assembled as

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