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Texas Kaypro 4 And Stuff

Covers: Texas
Tommar said:
COPY is the command on my CP/M disk. That is what I see when I do a DIR. Typing COPY pulls up another screen which includes "BLANK" as an option. Here, I have the option of pressing the letter "B" which starts the formatting process. This is what the Kaypro user manual says is what to do to format a blank diskette. And at this point, I am getting the "bad sector" error. I tried to clean the B drive by inserting a disk cleanin diskette but I am unable to tell if the drive is turning the diskette. Cleaning the A drive is easy and the diskette turns but drive B is different because essentially drive B is a "slave" drive. I tried putting in the disk cleaning diskette and following the steps to format a blank diskette, but could not tell if the drive was actually turning. If I put a formatted master diskette (such as games) into drive B and press "B:" at the A prompt, the light shifts to drive B and I can type B:CATCHUM and that game will load so obviously, drive B is reading the disk; it's not WRITING to a disk in drive B.
Click to expand...

Sounds like the write protect sensor is "stuck". I'm not sure what mechanism those drives use to detect the notch on the diskettes, but if it's not writing, it might be because the drive is not detecting the notch and thinking that the disk is write protected.
 
rlauzon said:
Sounds like the write protect sensor is "stuck". I'm not sure what mechanism those drives use to detect the notch on the diskettes, but if it's not writing, it might be because the drive is not detecting the notch and thinking that the disk is write protected.
Click to expand...
Dunno what the issue is. I found a computer repair shop here in Waco that's willing to take out and clean both drives so we'll see... I didn't think to check the new blank diskettes for the write protect notch... and since my computer is in the shop I'll have to wait on that. Thanks!
 
rlauzon said:
Sounds like the write protect sensor is "stuck". I'm not sure what mechanism those drives use to detect the notch on the diskettes, but if it's not writing, it might be because the drive is not detecting the notch and thinking that the disk is write protected.
Click to expand...
Got my Kaypro 4 out of the shop today. Unfortunately, it still won't format a disk. Owner of the shop said he could not get into the drive to clean the heads. Translation: He doesn't know how to do it. The guy was born in 1991 so not too surprising. However, I am well and truly stuck. I've googled the internet and can't seem to find anyone to help. Do you know of anyone in Texas that could help? Dunno what to do next...
 
One thing nobody has mentioned here is that Tommar might have been on to something when he asked if he had the right boot disks. The version of CP/M has to match the ROMs in your particular machine. Kaypro had several versions of the ROMs (and motherboards they were plugged into.) If they don't match up right, some things will work properly, but others either will crash the system or give bizarre results that look like normal errors.

So which version of Kaypro CP/M is on your boot disk? The startup screen should display it. Keep in mind that the entire version code is important. Most (all?) Kaypros used CP/M 2.2, but there are different versions for each ROM. For example, a common version is 2.2f, but you might need 2.2g.

Also, if the system boots with a disk in drive A:, that only proves that your A: drive can read a disk. Have you tried WRITING anything to the A: drive? Maybe you could run the format program from the B: drive and format a blank disk in the A: drive. Does that work?
 
Boot from your Kaypro and take a picture of the screen where the information is listed in the cp/m bar
Regarding the floppy drives, read and write are two different logic circuits on a disk drive so one doesn't mean the other works and vice versa.
In a 40 years machine, one, assuming anything is plugged in correctly or it has OEM hardware (ie DSDD and not something else like SSDD) in the computer can lead you to a whole series of pointless troubleshooting.
CP/M disk comes with a configuration module to specify what disk drives are mounted, assuming it is the one for your machine also isn't going to be helpful

It would help if you assumed everything might not be square and good. having a "vintage" computer (retro is <10 years this is 40 years old) boot, means very little.

1. boot first disk, load config and check if the drive setting is correct assuming the hardware matches OEM specs
2. write protect your boot disk after step 1.
3. format A: drive (B could be just bad let's start by assuming this A drive is good) does it format normally? yes, repeat the process with B drive errors. and which errors?

report findings here, not in PM because we can't help you in PM as a group.

Is there help in Texas?, I know of 5 people in texas that deal with old vintage machines of all sorts, 2 are in DFW area, 2 in Santonio/Austin areas and me in Houston. I am sure there are more depending if some people (like I) are more focused on one product than another. but in fact, a lot of it is crossover information (like floppy drives and operating systems)
 
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