1 Jul
2009
1 Jul
'09
9:27 p.m.
I have been fortunate to acquire a Kaypro system that appears to be in
great condition and looks to work.
It looks exactly like this:
http://www.computermuseum.li/Testpage/Kaypro-I-Micro.htm
Thus, it says Kaypro 1 on the artwork
Still, the sticker on the rear says Kaypro 2, so I'm confused.
In any event, I have no system disks for it (There is a slight
possibility they are part of the stash with which the Kaypro was
bundled, but it's 100 sq ft of stuff). Thus, I'm wondering if there is
a kind soul who might be able to ship me a set of disks. (I'll pay
shipping, of course).
I also am the proud owner of 2 Obsorne machines (one works, the other
seems to have drive issues. They are the redesigned units, but (as I
suspected) the systems disks won't work on the Kaypro.
Jim
--
Jim Brain, Brain Innovations (X)
brain at jbrain.com
Dabbling in WWW, Embedded Systems, Old CBM computers, and Good Times!
Home: http://www.jbrain.com
1 Jul
1 Jul
10:46 p.m.
On 1 Jul 2009 at 23:27, Jim Brain wrote:
I have been fortunate to acquire a Kaypro system that
appears to be in
great condition and looks to work.
It looks exactly like this:
http://www.computermuseum.li/Testpage/Kaypro-I-Micro.htm
Thus, it says Kaypro 1 on the artwork
Still, the sticker on the rear says Kaypro 2, so I'm confused.
The Kaypro 1 was actually the end of the line, pretty much--about
1986 and much later than the Kaypro II:
http://www.digibarn.com/collections/systems/kaypro-1/index.html
Dave Dunfield's got some Kaypro images on his site that will probably
work:
http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/img06062/system.htm
--Chuck
2 Jul
2 Jul
8:45 a.m.
Chuck Guzis wrote:
On 1 Jul 2009 at 23:27, Jim Brain wrote:
I saw the pics. Note, though, the sticker says Kaypro 2, not Kaypro
II. I am going on the assumption that the Kayrpo 2 sticker designation
is some attempt to bridge it to the 2X, with which is shares a direct
lineage.
I appreciate the link.
Hmm, the PCs with the 5.25" drives, they not so present around here... :-)
Jim
Still, the sticker on the rear says Kaypro 2, so
I'm confused.
The Kaypro 1 was actually the end of the line, pretty much--about
1986 and much later than the Kaypro II:
10:04 a.m.
Hmm, the PCs with the 5.25" drives, they not so
present around here... :-)
Hmm... but you do have a PC I assume.... and 2 5.25" drives sitting there in
the Kaypro --- there must be a way to do it, Hmm....
--
dave09 (at) Dave Dunfield
dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com
com Collector of vintage computing equipment:
http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/index.html
10:27 a.m.
Dave Dunfield wrote:
Coming from a CBM background, I would not have presumed I could do that.
Is there a document on how to prepare a suitable cable?
I checked the main page:
http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/img/index.htm but a lot of the links
are invalid.
Jim
Hmm, the PCs
with the 5.25" drives, they not so present around here... :-)
Hmm... but you do have a PC I assume.... and 2 5.25" drives sitting there in
the Kaypro --- there must be a way to do it, Hmm....
10:47 a.m.
On 2 Jul 2009 at 12:27, Jim Brain wrote:
Is there a document on how to prepare a suitable
cable?
I checked the main page:
http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/img/index.htm but a lot of the
links are invalid.
For a PC? Basically a 34-pin edge connector crimped onto an existing
floppy cable will do the trick. As to A: or B: drive, you can
select either the twisted or untwisted section. Set the drive select
to the *second* select (either DS1 or DS0, depending on
manufacturer).
I'''ve still got floppy cables that were supplied with BOTH types of
connectors (side by side), so they may still be out there in some
scrapper's hoard...
--Chuck
11:57 a.m.
Dave Dunfield wrote:
Coming from a CBM background, I would not have presumed I could do that.
Unlike Commodore & Apple, the Kaypro uses standard diskette drives, and you
should be able to make them work on a PC.
Hmm, the
PCs with the 5.25" drives, they not so present around here... :-)
Hmm... but you do have a PC I assume.... and 2 5.25" drives sitting there in
the Kaypro --- there must be a way to do it, Hmm....
Is there a document on how to prepare a suitable
cable?
Before IBM decided that users were incapable of understanding drive select
jumpers, a floppy cable was a plain flat 34-conductor cable, and each drive
select was picked via a header on the drive (All cable connectors were
logically the same).
With the PC, IBM decided to jumper all drives as drive 2 (1-4) or B: and
use a twist in the cable to redirect the motor-on and select signals so
that the position on the cable determined the drive selection.
The upshot of this is that it's fairly easy to make any drive and cable
work as the B: drive in a PC (without the twist), but you need the twisted
cable to properly do an A: drive (which still has to be jumpered as drive
2).
So what you need is a flat 34-pin cable, with a pin-header to connect to
the mainboard, and a 34-pin edge connector for the floppy drive - jumper
the drive as drive 2 (assuming you are counting 1-4) and access it with
ImageDisk or whatever other software you are using as drive B:
I checked the main page:
http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/img/index.htm but a lot of the links
are invalid.
Funny - they all check out for me. You might want to flush your browsers
cache, as I do move the pages containing the diskette images on a regular
basis because I want people to link to the main images page so that those
using the links will see the notices contained therein - in fact I moved
them this morning after seeing that someone had posted a link directly to
the system images directory (even though each of those pages has a note
asking people NOT to link directly to the sub-pages).
--
dave09 (at) Dave Dunfield
dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com
com Collector of vintage computing equipment:
http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/index.html
4 Jul
4 Jul
9:51 a.m.
Dave Dunfield wrote:
I saw your warning, and I suspect I was looking at the archive while you
were moving it. The links were all pointing to :
http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/img06062/... at the time I tried to
access.
Jim
I checked the main page:
http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/img/index.htm but a lot of the links
are invalid.
using the links will see the notices contained therein - in fact I moved
them this morning after seeing that someone had posted a link directly to
the system images directory (even though each of those pages has a note
asking people NOT to link directly to the sub-pages).
9:53 a.m.
Dave Dunfield wrote:
Unlike Commodore & Apple, the Kaypro uses standard
diskette drives, and you
should be able to make them work on a PC.
This is an important distinction. Spending so much time in the CBM
world, the mere idea that drive mechs could be re-used would have never
entered my mind. Good to know.
Jim
10:19 p.m.
On Thu, 2 Jul 2009, Geoff Reed wrote:
Kaypro system disks are specific to the version of rom
in it also :(
Here's a point I was never quite clear on... Are disks readable across
different machines? For instance, take a disk that was formatted and
written on using a Kaypro 10. Is that disk readable on a Kaypro IV or
Kaypro 4? How about reading a single-sided Kaypro II disk on one of the
double-sider machines?
--
David Griffith
dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu
A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?
11:20 p.m.
On 2 Jul 2009 at 22:19, David Griffith wrote:
Here's a point I was never quite clear on... Are
disks readable
across different machines? For instance, take a disk that was
formatted and written on using a Kaypro 10. Is that disk readable on
a Kaypro IV or Kaypro 4? How about reading a single-sided Kaypro II
disk on one of the double-sider machines?
Natively, it was highly ROM-dependent as others have noted. However,
I seem to remember a version of one of the interchange programs
(Media Master?) for the Kaypro that could be used to read a wide
range of formats. If you had a 96 tpi drive, the possibilities were
even greater.
Fred might remember...
--Chuck
3 Jul
3 Jul
11:38 a.m.
On Thu, 2 Jul 2009, Chuck Guzis wrote:
Natively, it was highly ROM-dependent as others have
noted. However,
I seem to remember a version of one of the interchange programs
(Media Master?) for the Kaypro that could be used to read a wide
range of formats. If you had a 96 tpi drive, the possibilities were
even greater.
Fred might remember...
I think that you're thinking of Uniform by MicroSolutions (DeKalb?)
They really got going on Kaypro - were they bundled for a while?
When they made their PC product, they talked to the 765 in order to handle
the second side of Kaypro disks (and later, others with similar oddities).
Later on, the nightmares of tech support of incompatabilities caused them
to draw back to the INT13 level. Eventually, the success of their
"Backpack" hardware permitted them to forget all about their earlier
ventures.
I thought that Media Master started on the PC? (and Rainbow!)
XenoCopy started on TRS80, but didn't really get moving well until 8/1981
when I decided to switch to PC. After my experiences with Vertex
distributing it, I have avoided publishers.
Mike Gingel's HyperCross, TRSCross? was a later TRS80 and then PC product.
22Disk was the first (only?) successful shareware conversion product
Flagstaff Engineering, Microtech Export, Discon (1 unit FSOT!) were
hardware and software bundles.
Who else was worthy of note?
--
Fred Cisin cisin at xenosoft.com
XenoSoft http://www.xenosoft.com
1:02 p.m.
On 3 Jul 2009 at 11:38, Fred Cisin wrote:
I thought that Media Master started on the PC? (and
Rainbow!)
Yeah, things get pretty fuzzy after a couple of decades. It probably
was Uniform that I was thinking of for the Kaypro.
Another shareware conversion package for the PC was PC-Alien out of
(ISTR) Australia.
--Chuck
23 Apr
23 Apr
8:10 p.m.
On 7/2/2009 12:04 PM, Dave Dunfield wrote:
I know this resurrects a truly ancient thread, but I am steadily working
through my Kaypro machines and I have an update that is relevant to this
ancient response.
First off, Gene, thanks for the disks, and I have not forgotten about
you and our offline conversation. It's on my list.
To recap:
Kapyro 1, working drives, boots. Many thanks for Gene and Mike Loewen
for boot disks and app disks.
Kaypro 4. A drive does not work, B marginally works. I got it to boot!
4-84: Neither TM100 works, and A must have a short as no voltage when
connected. With disconnected, and B set up as A, no boot.
10: I *think* the drive works, as the universal Kaypro 1 boot disk
continues to cycle from the 1.93 boot screen to a cursor in the top left
corner, and back.
So, I dug out the PC and attached 2 1.2MB 5.25" floppies and got Dave's
utils over there, along with a K10 CPM 2.2F boot disk img (in td0 format).
Converted to IMD format.
That was the end of my successes.
testfdc sees the drive, but only 300kB DD seems to work. I tried making
an image with the 1.2MB drive, but every sector said write error: no
data, so I gave up.
Then, I took a working Kaypro drive and put it in the PC, and tried
testfdc. I overrode it as 360kb 5.25 drive, and testfdc finds the
drive, but it immediately gives up stating "!No FDC Interrupt"
So, if there is "a way to do it...", it continues to elude me.
Jim
--
Jim Brain
brain at jbrain.com
www.jbrain.com
Hmm, the PCs
with the 5.25" drives, they not so present around here... :-)
Hmm... but you
do have a PC I assume.... and 2 5.25" drives sitting there in
the Kaypro --- there must be a way to do it, Hmm....
8:55 p.m.
On Tue, 23 Apr 2013, Jim Brain wrote:
Kapyro 1, working drives, boots. Many thanks for Gene
and Mike Loewen for
boot disks and app disks.
Kaypro 4. A drive does not work, B marginally works. I got it to boot!
4-84: Neither TM100 works, and A must have a short as no voltage when
connected. With disconnected, and B set up as A, no boot.
10: I *think* the drive works, as the universal Kaypro 1 boot disk continues
to cycle from the 1.93 boot screen to a cursor in the top left corner, and
back.
So, I dug out the PC and attached 2 1.2MB 5.25" floppies and got Dave's utils
over there, along with a K10 CPM 2.2F boot disk img (in td0 format).
Converted to IMD format.
That was the end of my successes.
testfdc sees the drive, but only 300kB DD seems to work. I tried making an
image with the 1.2MB drive, but every sector said write error: no data, so I
gave up.
Then, I took a working Kaypro drive and put it in the PC, and tried testfdc.
I overrode it as 360kb 5.25 drive, and testfdc finds the drive, but it
immediately gives up stating "!No FDC Interrupt"
So, if there is "a way to do it...", it continues to elude me.
While I'm not a Kaypro expert, I seem to remember that the Kaypro uses a
true Shugart interface for the floppy drives, so you aren't going to be
able to connect a Shugart type floppy drive directly to a PC-compatible
floppy interface without moving some signals around on the cable. I ran
into this last year while troubleshooting another type of Shugart
interface floppy drive, which I was originally expecting to be
PC-compatible.
Is it even possible to write reliable 360K disk using a 1.2MB drive? It
had been ages since I worked with some of these drives since a lot of my
stuff is packed away, but I seem to remember that I always had to use a
360K drive when /writing/ 360K disks, while I could still read 360K disks
in a 1.2MB drive just fine. (The tracks written by a 1.2MB drive are
narrower than those written by a 360K drive?)
9:40 p.m.
Yes, it's possible to write a 360k disk in a 1.2MB drive. See
http://www.classic-computers.org.nz/blog/2010-02-18-writing-cpm-from-1.2mb-…
Terry (Tez)
On Wed, Apr 24, 2013 at 3:55 PM, Tothwolf <tothwolf at concentric.net> wrote:
On Tue, 23 Apr 2013, Jim Brain wrote:
Kapyro 1, working drives, boots. Many thanks for Gene and Mike Loewen
for boot disks and app disks.
Kaypro 4. A drive does not work, B marginally works. I got it to boot!
4-84: Neither TM100 works, and A must have a short as no voltage when
connected. With disconnected, and B set up as A, no boot.
10: I *think* the drive works, as the universal Kaypro 1 boot disk
continues to cycle from the 1.93 boot screen to a cursor in the top left
corner, and back.
So, I dug out the PC and attached 2 1.2MB 5.25" floppies and got Dave's
utils over there, along with a K10 CPM 2.2F boot disk img (in td0 format).
Converted to IMD format.
That was the end of my successes.
testfdc sees the drive, but only 300kB DD seems to work. I tried making
an image with the 1.2MB drive, but every sector said write error: no data,
so I gave up.
Then, I took a working Kaypro drive and put it in the PC, and tried
testfdc. I overrode it as 360kb 5.25 drive, and testfdc finds the drive,
but it immediately gives up stating "!No FDC Interrupt"
So, if there is "a way to do it...", it continues to elude me.
While I'm not a Kaypro expert, I seem to remember that the Kaypro uses a
true Shugart interface for the floppy drives, so you aren't going to be
able to connect a Shugart type floppy drive directly to a PC-compatible
floppy interface without moving some signals around on the cable. I ran
into this last year while troubleshooting another type of Shugart interface
floppy drive, which I was originally expecting to be PC-compatible.
Is it even possible to write reliable 360K disk using a 1.2MB drive? It
had been ages since I worked with some of these drives since a lot of my
stuff is packed away, but I seem to remember that I always had to use a
360K drive when /writing/ 360K disks, while I could still read 360K disks
in a 1.2MB drive just fine. (The tracks written by a 1.2MB drive are
narrower than those written by a 360K drive?)
10:22 p.m.
On Wed, 24 Apr 2013, Terry Stewart wrote:
On Wed, Apr 24, 2013 at 3:55 PM, Tothwolf <tothwolf
at concentric.net> wrote:
Is this reliable in the long-term though? If you then read/write a 360K
disk in a true 360K drive that was written to in a 1.2MB drive, won't you
have odd issues with the track widths? What I seem to remember from years
ago was a 1.2MB drive could not reliably overwrite data on a 360K disk
because the tracks written by a 1.2MB drive were narrower, so when you
would then work with that disk in a 360K drive, the 360K drive would pick
up data from the original wider 360K drive track and the narrower 1.2MB
drive track. Maybe this would work ok to a limited degree with a 360K
floppy that had been bulk-erased prior to writing in a 1.2MB drive, which
was then never written to again in a 1.2MB drive after being written to in
a 360K drive?
Is it even possible to write reliable 360K disk
using a 1.2MB drive? It
had been ages since I worked with some of these drives since a lot of my
stuff is packed away, but I seem to remember that I always had to use a
360K drive when /writing/ 360K disks, while I could still read 360K disks
in a 1.2MB drive just fine. (The tracks written by a 1.2MB drive are
narrower than those written by a 360K drive?)
Yes, it's possible to write a 360k disk in a 1.2MB drive. See
http://www.classic-computers.org.nz/blog/2010-02-18-writing-cpm-from-1.2mb-…
10:57 p.m.
On 04/23/2013 10:22 PM, Tothwolf wrote:
Is this reliable in the long-term though? If you then read/write a 360K
disk in a true 360K drive that was written to in a 1.2MB drive, won't
you have odd issues with the track widths? What I seem to remember from
years ago was a 1.2MB drive could not reliably overwrite data on a 360K
disk because the tracks written by a 1.2MB drive were narrower, so when
you would then work with that disk in a 360K drive, the 360K drive would
pick up data from the original wider 360K drive track and the narrower
1.2MB drive track. Maybe this would work ok to a limited degree with a
360K floppy that had been bulk-erased prior to writing in a 1.2MB drive,
which was then never written to again in a 1.2MB drive after being
written to in a 360K drive?
Yes, it's reliable. I've been doing it for years and have my VHS bulk
eraser to prove it.
All the narrower track affects (on properly aligned drives) is the S/N
ratio. But in any case, it's no worse than any other 96 tpi drive.
Note that 100 tpi drives are almost as old as 48 tpi ones.
--Chuck
11:11 p.m.
On 4/24/2013 12:22 AM, Tothwolf wrote:
On Wed, 24 Apr 2013, Terry Stewart wrote:
At this point, I wasn't so much
worried about long term usage. If I can
boot the unit with the disk, I'd load some utility and create an image
on the unit itself.
On Wed, Apr 24, 2013 at 3:55 PM, Tothwolf
<tothwolf at concentric.net>
wrote:
Is this reliable in the long-term though? Is it even possible to write reliable 360K disk
using a 1.2MB drive? It
had been ages since I worked with some of these drives since a lot
of my
stuff is packed away, but I seem to remember that I always had to use a
360K drive when /writing/ 360K disks, while I could still read 360K
disks
in a 1.2MB drive just fine. (The tracks written by a 1.2MB drive are
narrower than those written by a 360K drive?)
Yes, it's possible to write a 360k disk in a 1.2MB drive. See
http://www.classic-computers.org.nz/blog/2010-02-18-writing-cpm-from-1.2mb-…
If you then read/write a 360K disk in a true 360K
drive that was
written to in a 1.2MB drive, won't you have odd issues with the track
widths? What I seem to remember from years ago was a 1.2MB drive could
not reliably overwrite data on a 360K disk because the tracks written
by a 1.2MB drive were narrower, so when you would then work with that
disk in a 360K drive, the 360K drive would pick up data from the
original wider 360K drive track and the narrower 1.2MB drive track.
Maybe this would work ok to a limited degree with a 360K floppy that
had been bulk-erased prior to writing in a 1.2MB drive, which was then
never written to again in a 1.2MB drive after being written to in a
360K drive?
I am using truly blank diskettes, and I'm not intending to write to
the
disks after creation.
Jim
--
Jim Brain
brain at jbrain.com
www.jbrain.com
24 Apr
24 Apr
9:44 p.m.
If I can be of any help, I have a Kaypro 10 here that is booting reliably
from an internal 10MB HD.
No system disks here, but I do have modems and one very effective hardware
telephone line emulator.
On Wed, Apr 24, 2013 at 1:11 AM, Jim Brain <brain at jbrain.com> wrote:
On 4/24/2013 12:22 AM, Tothwolf wrote:
On Wed, 24 Apr 2013, Terry Stewart wrote:
At this point, I wasn't so much worried about long term usage. If I can
boot the unit with the disk, I'd load some utility and create an image on
the unit itself.
If you then read/write a 360K disk in a true 360K drive that was written
On Wed, Apr 24, 2013 at 3:55 PM, Tothwolf
<tothwolf at concentric.net>
wrote:
Is it even possible to write reliable 360K disk using a 1.2MB drive? It
Is this reliable in the long-term though?
had been ages since I worked with some of these
drives since a lot of my
stuff is packed away, but I seem to remember that I always had to use a
360K drive when /writing/ 360K disks, while I could still read 360K
disks
in a 1.2MB drive just fine. (The tracks written by a 1.2MB drive are
narrower than those written by a 360K drive?)
Yes, it's possible to write a 360k disk in a 1.2MB drive. See
http://www.classic-computers.**org.nz/blog/2010-02-18-**
writing-cpm-from-1.2mb-disks.**htm<http://www.classic-computers.org.nz/blog/2010-02-18-writing-cpm-from-1.2mb-disks.htm>
to in a 1.2MB drive, won't you have odd
issues with the track widths? What
I seem to remember from years ago was a 1.2MB drive could not reliably
overwrite data on a 360K disk because the tracks written by a 1.2MB drive
were narrower, so when you would then work with that disk in a 360K drive,
the 360K drive would pick up data from the original wider 360K drive track
and the narrower 1.2MB drive track. Maybe this would work ok to a limited
degree with a 360K floppy that had been bulk-erased prior to writing in a
1.2MB drive, which was then never written to again in a 1.2MB drive after
being written to in a 360K drive?
I am using truly blank diskettes, and I'm not intending to write to the
disks after creation.
Jim
--
Jim Brain
brain at jbrain.com
www.jbrain.com
7:03 a.m.
On 7/2/09, Jim Brain <brain at jbrain.com> wrote:
I have been fortunate to acquire a Kaypro system that
appears to be in
great condition and looks to work.
Congrats!
In any event, I have no system disks for it (There is
a slight
possibility they are part of the stash with which the Kaypro was
bundled, but it's 100 sq ft of stuff). Thus, I'm wondering if there is
a kind soul who might be able to ship me a set of disks. (I'll pay
shipping, of course).
Something you should probably do is take the lid off and record the
number from the sticker on the boot ROM. Long ago, when I got Kaypro
disks directly from Don Maslin, he needed that number from me to know
exactly what disk to send me. My experience with CP/M and Kaypros is
rather superficial so I can't say what's different from model to model
or version to version, but I can report that knowing your exact
machine configuration seems to be important.
-ethan
6 Jul
6 Jul
9:04 p.m.
Ethan Dicks wrote:
Something you should probably do is take the lid off and record the
number from the sticker on the boot ROM. Long ago, when I got Kaypro
disks directly from Don Maslin, he needed that number from me to know
exactly what disk to send me. My experience with CP/M and Kaypros is
rather superficial so I can't say what's different from model to model
or version to version, but I can report that knowing your exact
machine configuration seems to be important.
The sticker says 81-478.
The mainboard is assembly #81-809, and has quite a few unstuffed
components in the upper right corner
According to this site:
http://ripsaw.cac.psu.edu/~mloewen/Oldtech/Kaypro/Kaypro1.html
It uses the Universal ROM and must run CP/M 2.2U1
It's unclear to me which of the images on Dave's site would work. I
suppose I can try all of them (the system disks from the KII, the K3*83,
the K4, and the K10), but I'm not sure if I'll know whether the issues
is an system mismatch or a drive issue.
Jim.
4016
days inactive
5409
days old
23 comments
10 participants
participants (10)
-
brain＠jbrain.com -
cclist＠sydex.com -
cisin＠xenosoft.com -
dave09＠dunfield.com -
dgriffi＠cs.csubak.edu -
drlegendre＠gmail.com -
ethan.dicks＠gmail.com -
geoffr＠zipcon.net -
terry＠webweavers.co.nz -
tothwolf＠concentric.net