Help Identifying Kaypro

[This Guy]

I've been trying to identify the model of this kaypro of mine for some times. As far as I can tell it's a New 2, though I've read that the New 2 didn't have a built in modem and mine does. Also the pictures of the New 2 I've seen have a different sort of floppy disk drive. I'm confounded. If the members of this forum could lend it's expertise I'd be appreciative. You can have a look at the pics of it here: http://nathanc.selfip.com/kaypro.
My aim here is to figure out what software I'd need to find to get it running.

 

[Mr.Amiga500]

I've been trying to identify the model of this kaypro of mine for some times. As far as I can tell it's a New 2, though I've read that the New 2 didn't have a built in modem and mine does. Also the pictures of the New 2 I've seen have a different sort of floppy disk drive. I'm confounded. If the members of this forum could lend it's expertise I'd be appreciative. You can have a look at the pics of it here: http://nathanc.selfip.com/kaypro.
My aim here is to figure out what software I'd need to find to get it running.

Yep, that's definitely a "New 2". I have the identical model - with built in modem and same floppy drives. Mine has a little sticker on the back that has a diagonal "New" beside the 2 - which was stuck over the original 2. Yours probably peeled off.

 

[This Guy]

Ah, good. So I don't see software specifically for the New 2 on the coveted Dave's Old Computers site. I read somewhere that it has the same mobo as a 2x. Should try using that for the boot disk? Also can you tell weather those floppy drive I are double sided or not and what capacity they might be? I'm assuming that they're single sided but I know of some New 2's that have double sided drives.

 

[z8coder]

Guy,

Well at least the cabinet looks like a new 2, but who knows whats inside of it?????
Someone could have put any type of Kaypro board inside of it! The only way your gona know for sure is take the lid off of it and look at the board number and the rom numbers. the rom numbers tell what type of CP/M OS goes into it! all of Kaypros disk's will not work in all of their computers, but if you think it's a New 2 then have at it just thought I'd pass that little fact on to you!


z8coder

 

[GADFRAN]

And do not forget any " modifications " -

- according to published information

- just by the owners with their own ways of doing things ? ["s" - note plural - do you have any info on them ??? - can you contact them ???]

But the good news is that there is a developing "knowledge base" on this site on information to try to determine just "what" Kaypro you have.

Just do a search on this site under Kaypro.

As I have noted many times in the past on this site - Kaypro was desparate to just survive in the later years and there may have been
many manufacturing changes that we may now be only finally finding out - they may not have been documented for a variety of reasons.

Good luck ! Please keep us informed as you progress so that the knowledge base can be updated.

Overall, you probably have the Kaypro that the case says you have - but ...... who knows unless you verify it.

As the previous post notes, many Kaypros used different versions of CP/M [ I count 6 - Chuck on this site said in a post there may have been a total of over 500 different CP/M versions for various computers ] - not much backward compatibility then like there is today - big news for those
just getting into vintage computing.

All the best !

Frank

 

[This Guy]

Thanks for the input, guys. I gave up trying to identify this machine a few weeks ago and just decided to get the software together and just try all of it to see what ran. Took me a while to put together a pc to write the floppy disks. Hard to find 5.25 floppy drives these days. I finally got the Kaypro to boot from a system disk for a Kaypro I. The drives in the kaypro are obviously single sided since I couldn't get it to read anything else. I'm a bit confused though. I see the collection of system disks for the various models of kaypro at Dave's site and most of them have multiple disk images. Don't most kaypros boot from the floppy disk? How would you run one that needed multiple disks like that? Also, if anyone is familiar with the Citadel BBS software and how I could get it to run on this old suitcase I'd love to know.

 

[z8coder]

Guy,

Unless your into a commitment of actually learning how to rewrite the code in the Eprom I wouldn't even try to much software in the Kaypro! My experience over the last 25 to 30 years with these beasties is that if you aren't willing to do Mod's (Electronically as well as Eprom updates it's not worth the effort!

z8coder

 

[This Guy]

Hmm. I'm still confused as to how a kaypro's system can be more than 1 disk large. Either way I'd still like to setup some kind of old Citadel-based BBS. Any suggestions or previous threads I could get info from?

 

[glitch]

Hmm. I'm still confused as to how a kaypro's system can be more than 1 disk large. Either way I'd still like to setup some kind of old Citadel-based BBS. Any suggestions or previous threads I could get info from?

You swap disks based on what you're doing. For instance, if I want to write a text file with my Kaypro II and then upload it to my UNIX shell account so I can e-mail it out, I first boot up with the floppy containing my editor, VDE, in the A: drive. Once it's booted, I place the floppy that contains my documents in the B: drive. After I'm done, I swap the editor disk for the disk containing Kermit-80, and press Control-C to do a warm boot from the new disk. I can then use Kermit to talk to the remote system and upload the file on the documents disk in B: drive.

I also sysgen most of my application floppies so they can be directly booted in the Kaypro. This saves the trouble of booting off the CP/M full system disk every time you want to start up.