5 Nov
2007
5 Nov
'07
10:13 a.m.
I recently acquired a Kaypro 4/84 and I'm in the process of cleaning it
up and getting it happy.
There are a couple of problems with it that maybe someone can shed some
light on:
* one of the keyboard latches is broken. Anyone know a good substitute
and/or workaround? I don't care so much about it, but it'd be nice to
be able to lug it into the kitchen and carry something else at the same
time :)
* They keyboard cable is missing, but I substituted a keyboard cable
from a DEC terminal keyboard and it seems to work. The
tech manual I
found online says that using a phone cord causes dropped characters
due
to the smaller wire gauge, so I'm hoping that this cable will be sturdy
enough.
* There is a screw in the 2nd floppy drive opening. I've tried removing
the drive sled (via the screws on the bottom), but alas it seems like
the drives have to come out of the front individually. The screws are
pretty solidly inserted and I cannot get them loose without stripping
them. I'm not able to get to the inner ones easily without removing the
motherboard and the monitor. Is it possible to take the bezel off of
the drive and then slide the cage backward and then out? The drives are
the shugart ones.
* I'd like to replace the 2nd drive with a 3.5" floppy. I've found a
Sony HD drive along with a power and plug converter. Knowing that PCs
use a twisted cable scheme, what things should I be aware of when
cabling in this new drive? Will it be supported in some manner by the
software? Its not a big deal if it turns out to be a 360K 3.5" floppy,
as long as its readable by my linux box.
5 Nov
5 Nov
11:16 a.m.
On 5 Nov 2007 at 13:13, Brian Wheeler wrote:
* one of the keyboard latches is broken. Anyone know
a good substitute
and/or workaround? I don't care so much about it, but it'd be nice to
be able to lug it into the kitchen and carry something else at the same
time :)
Go to http://www.mcmaster.com and search for "case latches" and
"draw latches". You'll likely find something that will be just the
ticket. In particular, there's a black polypropylene draw latch on
page 2896 that looks to be a close relative to the original.
McMaster-Carr is your friend when it comes to finding bits of
hardware.
Cheers,
Chuck
11:25 a.m.
On Mon, 2007-11-05 at 11:16 -0800, Chuck Guzis wrote:
On 5 Nov 2007 at 13:13, Brian Wheeler wrote:
Cool, I'll check it out!
Brian
* one of the keyboard latches is broken. Anyone
know a good substitute
and/or workaround? I don't care so much about it, but it'd be nice to
be able to lug it into the kitchen and carry something else at the same
time :)
Go to http://www.mcmaster.com and search for "case latches" and
"draw latches". You'll likely find something that will be just the
ticket. In particular, there's a black polypropylene draw latch on
page 2896 that looks to be a close relative to the original.
McMaster-Carr is your friend when it comes to finding bits of
hardware.
Cheers,
Chuck
1:54 p.m.
On Monday 05 November 2007 13:13, Brian Wheeler wrote:
* I'd like to replace the 2nd drive with a
3.5" floppy. I've found a
Sony HD drive along with a power and plug converter. Knowing that PCs
use a twisted cable scheme, what things should I be aware of when
cabling in this new drive?
The twist in the cable was to not have to worry about jumper settings which
you had to deal with prior to that point. Those drive select jumpers are
marked, depending on the brand, either 0-3 or 1-4 on the drive electronics,
with the first two choices being the ones commonly used (0 and 1, or 1 and
2). The cable with the twist setup has both drives set to the second choice,
so you probably won't need to worry about messing with anything there,
selecting the drive should be apparent as Kaypros tend to leave the light on
all the time.
Will it be supported in some manner by the software?
Hm, kinda doubtful, though I couldn't say for sure as it's been a long time
since I dove into those particular interface specs.
Its not a big deal if it turns out to be a 360K
3.5" floppy, as long as its
readable by my linux box.
That might just be what you end up with. Do tell us when you find out, I'd
be curious to know...
--
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space, ?a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed. ?--Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
-
Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James
M Dakin
3:27 p.m.
On Mon, 5 Nov 2007, Roy J. Tellason wrote:
selecting the drive should be apparent as Kaypros tend
to leave the light on
all the time.
There WERE patches available for using 720K (3.5" or 5.25") drives on
Kaypros.
"Advent"?
MicroCornucopia?
Chuck might know.
Will it be supported in some manner by the
software?
Hm, kinda doubtful, though I couldn't say for sure as it's been
a long time
since I dove into those particular interface specs.
3:36 p.m.
On 5 Nov 2007 at 15:27, Fred Cisin wrote:
"Advent"?
MicroCornucopia?
Chuck might know.
I think I've already mentioned the Pro-8 ROM, but yup, the Advent
TurboROM would also do it (in a format incompatible with the Pro-8,
of course...). A check of back issues of MicroC might turn up some
other options, but these are the two that come to mind.
Thank your lucky stars that you don't have a Robie.
--Chuck
7 Nov
7 Nov
8:26 a.m.
On Mon, 2007-11-05 at 17:54 -0400, Roy J. Tellason wrote:
On Monday 05 November 2007 13:13, Brian Wheeler
wrote:
I've got the 3.5" drive installed and cabled and it seems to be working
rather well. I ended up using vice grips to get the screws loose in the
drive cage since the heads kept wanting to strip. As I suspected, it
really thinks its just a DSDD 5.25" drive. I formatted a disk using
mfdisk as an IBM 9 sector DS disk and could read it (as 360K) without
problems on my linux box.
The drive I ended up using was a chinon FZ-357 which has a jumper for
RDY as well as drive select jumpers. It also had the interface pins on
the same side as the original disk so I could use the original cable.
All of my other 3.5" drives had it on the other side, but the cable
wasn't long enough to shift sideways enough.
Its weird when it does a format since it counts tracks from 0 to 79 but
its really counting cylinder 1 as tracks 0 and 1, etc.
However, trying to read a kaypro formatted disk isn't working. It reads
4K and then fails. Anybody used setfdprm on linux to set up reading
kaypro iv/10 disks? They look like they're 10 sector (numbered 0x0a -
0x13), rate=2 disks.
I'll probably mount the 5.25" DSDD drive in my linux box as well, but
it'd be nice to know how to read disks without hassle :)
Now for some more questions:
* is it possible to run CP/M 3.x on it, or am I limited to 2.2G?
* what's the J9 header for? It looks like it has 8 data bits and 8
address bits wired to it (at least according to the schematics I've
found). Seems like it'd be possible to hang a home-made IDE interface
onto it (if I ever get time/inclination)
Thanks to all of the suggestions and advice!
Brian
* I'd like to replace the 2nd drive with a
3.5" floppy. I've found a
Sony HD drive along with a power and plug converter. Knowing that PCs
use a twisted cable scheme, what things should I be aware of when
cabling in this new drive?
The twist in the cable was to not have to worry about jumper settings which
you had to deal with prior to that point. Those drive select jumpers are
marked, depending on the brand, either 0-3 or 1-4 on the drive electronics,
with the first two choices being the ones commonly used (0 and 1, or 1 and
2). The cable with the twist setup has both drives set to the second choice,
so you probably won't need to worry about messing with anything there,
selecting the drive should be apparent as Kaypros tend to leave the light on
all the time.
Will it be supported in some manner by the
software?
Hm, kinda doubtful, though I couldn't say for sure as it's been a long time
since I dove into those particular interface specs.
Its not a big deal if it turns out to be a 360K
3.5" floppy, as long as its
readable by my linux box.
That might just be what you end up with. Do tell us when you find out, I'd
be curious to know...
3:26 p.m.
On Wed, 7 Nov 2007, Brian Wheeler wrote:
However, trying to read a kaypro formatted disk
isn't working. It reads
4K and then fails. Anybody used setfdprm on linux to set up reading
kaypro iv/10 disks? They look like they're 10 sector (numbered 0x0a -
0x13), rate=2 disks.
Sure that isn't 5K before failure?
Notice that side "B" of a disk formatted by Kaypro does NOT have the
correct value for "head number" in the sector headers. With a PC (NEC765
type chip), you will have to go below the BIOS (Int13h) for reading those
sectors. It is not very hard to do, but can introduce some additional
fun, particularly with relatively new machines.
I'll probably mount the 5.25" DSDD drive in
my linux box as well, but
it'd be nice to know how to read disks without hassle :)
TRY formatting the disk IN KAYPRO FORMAT on the PC. The good news (what
little there is) is that the Kaypro (WD type chip) although it puts the
wrong value for "head number" in the sector headers, does not object to
finding the correct value there.
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com
6 p.m.
On Wed, 2007-11-07 at 15:26 -0800, Fred Cisin wrote:
nifty. I'll give that a try as well.
Brian
On Wed, 7 Nov 2007, Brian Wheeler wrote:
It hit 4K exactly -- the linux driver started complaining when trying to
read sector 9, which meant that 8 worked...
However, trying to read a kaypro formatted disk
isn't working. It reads
4K and then fails. Anybody used setfdprm on linux to set up reading
kaypro iv/10 disks? They look like they're 10 sector (numbered 0x0a -
0x13), rate=2 disks.
Sure that isn't 5K before failure? Notice that side "B" of a disk formatted by
Kaypro does NOT have the
correct value for "head number" in the sector headers. With a PC (NEC765
type chip), you will have to go below the BIOS (Int13h) for reading those
sectors. It is not very hard to do, but can introduce some additional
fun, particularly with relatively new machines.
Interesting. I'll look at the setfdprm documentation to see if its
possible to fudge the sector number.
I'll probably mount the 5.25" DSDD drive
in my linux box as well, but
it'd be nice to know how to read disks without hassle :)
TRY formatting the disk IN KAYPRO FORMAT on the PC. The good news (what
little there is) is that the Kaypro (WD type chip) although it puts the
wrong value for "head number" in the sector headers, does not object to
finding the correct value there.
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com
6:37 p.m.
On Wed, 7 Nov 2007, Brian Wheeler wrote:
Interesting. I'll look at the setfdprm
documentation to see if its
possible to fudge the sector number.
Of the "C H R N" header fields, "Sector number" is the easiest for
programs to handle, even at the BIOS level.
> > I'll probably mount the 5.25" DSDD
drive in my linux box as well, but
> > it'd be nice to know how to read disks without hassle :)
. . . for various relative values of "hassle"
5 Nov
5 Nov
2:20 p.m.
On 5 Nov 2007 at 13:13, Brian Wheeler wrote:
* I'd like to replace the 2nd drive with a
3.5" floppy. I've found a
Sony HD drive along with a power and plug converter. Knowing that PCs
use a twisted cable scheme, what things should I be aware of when
cabling in this new drive? Will it be supported in some manner by the
software? Its not a big deal if it turns out to be a 360K 3.5" floppy,
as long as its readable by my linux box.
I'd recommend a 2D drive, such as a Teac FD235F that will produce a
READY signal. IIRC, I don't remember if the 4 requires it, but it
wouldn't surprise me if it did. Also, since the 2D drives are
"blind" to the HD indicator aperture, you can use HD media without
taping over the HD hole. If this is the B: drive, just use a
straight cable and make sure the drive select is set to DS1--most
drives used in PeeCees are set that way because of the twisted cable.
The PRO-8 ROM supported an 80 cylinder format according to my notes.
Cheers,
Chuck
6255
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10 comments
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bdwheele＠indiana.edu -
cclist＠sydex.com -
cisin＠xenosoft.com -
rtellason＠verizon.net