Last edit May 7 2011. This page (c) 2011 Herb Johnson except for quotes which are copyright by their authors.
Former Heath/Zenith Microcomputer Product Manager of the 1980's Barry Watzman died in May 2010, according to an on-line article posted in AOL News for June 6 2010 by Tom Dunkel.
Barry provided technical support for Heathkit computer owners of H89's and H/Z-100's for many years, starting with articles in Heath and Zenith publications, and he wrote software as well. He disassembled the Northstar "DOS" and boot code, and provided a copy to me and others. His support continued personally to the present day, with posts to various on-line groups about those systems. He often discussed Cromemco and Sol systems among many other S-100 systems. IN recent years he offered a DVD of accumulated files, scanned documents and programs originating from those systems.
He was also active in other forums and endeavors: the AOL News item discusses his unfortunate and ultimately tragic involvement as a RAMBUS investor.
I corresponded with Barry for many years and we traded documentation and jabs on an occasional basis. Our last correspondence was on Heath Z-100 power supplies, he provided schematics that have since helped a number of people.
I'm sorry that I did not hear of his passing until a Feb 2011 post in SEBHC, a Google Group for 8-bit Heath computers
A Web search will find several email lists (discussion groups) where Barry Watzman participated. He contributed in Usenet newsgroup comp.os.cpm and comp.sys.zenith.z100, among others. Look for discussions of Heath(kit) and Zenith systems of the 1970's and 80's
- Herb Johnson
Copyright © 2011 Herb Johnson