From: "Ethan Dicks" <ethan.dicks at gmail.com>
Sent: Wednesday, May 18, 2005 2:17 PM
On 5/18/05, Randy McLaughlin <cctalk at
randy482.com> wrote:
The Kaypro '84 is different from the earlier
(often refered to as '83)
and
the ROMs & boot disks are not compatible between them.
I have a dim memory of searching my Kaypro for a differentiating
factor when I was talking with Don Maslin years ago. He was able to
help me ID which disk was appropriate, and send me one. which is,
unfortunately, not with the Kaypro :-(
I haven't had much to say about the CP/M archive, but as I do have a
few machines (Kaypro and S-100), I have an interest in what happens.
Personally, I don't see why we shouldn't start a parallel archive,
just in case, at least of some of the more common formats. It would
be a life's work (literally) to build an archive as extensive as
Don's, but for most of us here, I would think that a dozen or two
disks would meet most of our needs (Kaypro, Osbourne, NorthStar...)
I have no strong opinion about disk archiving format, as long as
there's a way to reconstitute disks. Yes, I know that one might have
to keep around an ancient DOS box, but in the grand scheme of things,
I don't see why one can't/shouldn't keep around one mini-tower with a
network card and a sub-gig disk and a 5.25" floppy. If one is
dabbling in CP/M, one probably has space for one commodity PC to
remake disks. If nothing else, I will keep one around for the
existing base of teledisk-imaged DECmate II and Pro3xx RX50s.
-ethan
For Kaypro's there are two factors in finding the right boot disk: Boot rom
number and whether it is single or double sided. For early Kaypros it
requires removing the cover, later they included version info in the startup
screen.
Randy