HERO-1 Project

Why am I doing this?

I was born in the very early 1980s, and I’ve been around computers my whole life.  This was not common for my generation as computers were far from mainstream, and only the occasional “nerd” had one in their house.  Fortunately, my father was that nerd.  An electrician who took electronics classes in his free time, my father built his first computer in the late 1970s and has had at least one in the house at all times since.  To clarify, when I say he built his first computer, I mean he soldered all of the components onto all of the boards following diagrams of circuit boards while working his way through courses on how the whole thing worked.  He finished with a machine that was programmable only in hexadecimal and could be backed up to tape – through the volume had to be set just right for it to work.  This is not to be confused with today’s definition of I build my computer, which typically means I picked out the motherboard, CPU, power supply and graphics card, storage, etc. and plugged them all into a case. While working his way through, he taught himself programming – starting from machine language entered in as hex.  As the year passed and the systems evolved, he soon taught himself BASIC on the early Apple machines and went on to teach others as a BOCES instructor.

There was always a project underway, and when I was only 5, he embarked on what would become one of my life long favorites.  He ordered the Heathkit HERO-1 Robot.  He didn’t just buy it, he bought it like a boss!  A man who often springs for the practical over the eccentric, he went all out on it and purchased the model with the optional arm and the optional speech synthesizer board!  Not only that, but you could buy it assembled, but as he was getting it for the learning experience, he opted for the kit – where again, you’d need to solder every component on to every board, run every cable, and assemble each component.

Funny thing is I intended to write my story… an quickly realized I can’t write my story without writing my fathers.  Don’t worry though – here I come now…   

It’s hard to put into words the joy of being 5 in the 80’s – when packages arriving at the house were not the regular occurrence they are today due to the internet. Now picture those being large boxes filled with robot parts!  I recall sitting with my family on the kitchen floor surrounded by boxes filled with packing peanuts trying to dig through to find something recognizable – a body panel here in this box, and a part of the arm in that one.  It was like Christmas morning… but with a robot!  The anticipation of getting to “play” with a robot only grew over the next several months as my dad descended into the basement each night to go work on the robot.  I don’t remember how long exactly it took for him to assemble it, and I’m pretty sure he doesn’t either – though I really should check with him. What I do remember was seeing it in various stages of construction.   Specifically, I remember one night when my dad had the central drive motors working, and he had it propped up on his workbench, cables everywhere, and wheels turning.  Progress seemed so slow for a 5-year-old, I remember thinking this thing would never be done.  However, like most things in life that you anticipate and can’t imagine ever happening, that moment of completion is about 28 years behind us now as I write this.

The moment it was done, it debuted in my nursery school classroom and went on to present at some of my brother and my early birthday parties.  As the years passed, interest in the robot would wax and wane.  He could sit for 5 years at a time, waiting, anticipating the moment someone would show interest in him again.

As a child, I had never been really interested in the computers around me except for games and occasionally showing a friend the robot.  For me, the computers were a household item, and I was accustomed to them being there.  How they worked and why was never something I had much interest in until I was about 14.  In 8th grade, I had a close friend who was very interested in programming, and the two of us began to feed off of one another’s interest.  This set off the spark in me that would decide my future career, hobby, and primary pursuit in life.  I started with DOS shell scripting (batch files), and as I explained to my father what I was doing, he rewarded my interest by getting me my very first computer!  Well… more like getting himself his very 8th one, but I got his very 7th.  That, of course, came with the disparaging comment, “Batch files aren’t real programming – the computer has QBASIC on it, you should learn that.”  And so I did.

Around this same time is when Hero-1 made a re-appearance in my life.  I found him buried in the basement, dusted him off, and asked if I could move him into my room.  My dream at the time was to program him remotely and ideally in C rather than hex.  I wrote a couple programs for him, but my ultimate goal was never realized.  I went on to become a professional software developer working for companies large and small, even running my own business for a time.  Today, I’m in an architect of a product line as well as director of all development at a software company.  Recently my father, who’s retired and hadn’t tinkered in electronics for several years, had his interest renewed by the Aurdino and it’s potential applications for his model railroad and flight simulator.  Shortly after, he discovered and purchased the ActivityBot Robot Kit by Parallax, Inc.  He began experimenting with it, and one day I was speaking on the phone with him, and we were having a discussion about how far electronics have come. I commented on how cool it’d be if they made something like Hero-1 today.  What he’d be like with modern components and remotely programmable.  That idea spawned this project, to gradually replace Hero’s old parts, and while leaving his core essence intact, upgrade him to be my own creation.  And I am in entirely over my head…

TLDR; I have an old Robot… I want a new Robot.

Interested in learning more? It all starts here