Texas Kaypro 4 And Stuff

[Tommar]

I've determined that the Royal Office Master 2000 daisywheel printer has a parallel interface and may work. The unit is circa 1980s and still in original box; seller is claiming it is new. Wants $139 for it so.... anyone use or has used a daisywheel printer? I understand absolutely no graphics and no characters beyond the 100 character printwheel... Dot matrix is more versatile but print quality is iffy. Daisywheel offers excellent print quality... I used an Oki ML82 thru college... and put up with sub-par print quality. When I had a paper to present to a professor, I would use letter quality mode (not really letter quality, but...) and since the print head would have to go over each line 2x, a 30 page paper would take hours to print! Some of my professors were reluctant to accept such papers... In 1983 I was the only student at my university that had his own computer (Kaypro II)! So the Profs accepted my work albeit reluctantly! Long time ago... now I have a color laser printer and have not typed a MSDOS or CP/M command line in 30 years... My "new" Kaypro 4 arrives tomorrow, so that will change.

 

[rlauzon]

Does anyone know what printers work with the Kaypro 4? Right now I am looking at the Okidata Microline 186, an HP 720C inkjet, and a plethora of daisywheel printers, including the Tandy DWP 230, and TA Royal Office Master 2000 brands... The Oki 186, and HP 720C have parallel ports. However, the HP 720C inkjet documentation specifically says it works with Windows; I have no idea if it works with a CP/M machine; No info on the Oki 186 or the daisywheel printers. I assume that the daisywheel printers are also parallel ports but no information on them is forthcoming. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

I know that the Okidata Microline 321 will work (since that's what I have and I did have it hooked to my Kaypro 4 at one time).

I would say that any printer with a daisywheel will work since they will emulate a teletype type of interface.

 

[twolazy]

Any early laser printer should work as well. I remember using a QMS laser printer with my XT back in the day.

 

[Tommar]

An Arduino is a micro controller. You can (in theory) program it to pull data of the parallel port and do something with it.

But since you've never heard of it, it's probably not a project you want to tackle today.

Does anyone know what printers work with the Kaypro 4? Right now I am looking at the Okidata Microline 186, an HP 720C inkjet, and a plethora of daisywheel printers, including the Tandy DWP 230, and TA Royal Office Master 2000 brands... The Oki 186, and HP 720C have parallel ports. However, the HP 720C inkjet documentation specifically says it works with Windows; I have no idea if it works with a CP/M machine; No info on the Oki 186 or the daisywheel printers. I assume that the daisywheel printers are also parallel ports but no information on them is forthcoming. Any help would be greatly appreciated! Also, see my other post from today!

 

[Tommar]

I know that the Okidata Microline 321 will work (since that's what I have and I did have it hooked to my Kaypro 4 at one time).

I would say that any printer with a daisywheel will work since they will emulate a teletype type of interface.

How did you like the OKI Microline 321? Was the print quality good?

 

[twolazy]

Here's the first QMS printer I had, was 1988? ish. QMS KISS Laser Printer.



Was the first "affordable" laser printer , think was 300 DPI? been a while. Worked great with my TRS-80 COCO2 as well. Used same guts as the Apple laser printers but had more ram and cheaper toner. Not sure if one can be found nowadays, and remember my lights dimming when it printed. But it would be period correct and would not have to worry bout ink drying out. Always been a Laser / Phazer (color wax) fan.

 

[Tommar]

Hello Everybody! Today was a red letterday: My "new" Kaypro 4 arrived! The seller quadruple wrapped it in bubble wrap an tons of packing tape around the bubble wrap--very securely packaged! Anyway, after 30 minutes of unwrapping and de-taping, I plugged it in. And it was dead... I finally traced it to the power plug which was not securely inserted. This time, the lights came on, but no screen... hmm ... easily fixed by turning up the brightness knob. Then inserted the master CP/M disk and it instantly booted. Yay! So I now have a working retro Kaypro 4! Last night I ordered a brand new in-box circa 1980s Royal Office Master 2000 daisywheel printer for $135 and free shipping. I've discovered that ribbons and printwheels are readily available so I decided to order it. Now I just need more software! I do not have a MS-DOS computer nor a floppy drive so getting software from one of the websites is not really doable. A member here wants me to install a Kaypro/CPM emulator on my laptop but it sounds really complicated and I don't know what the emulator would accomplish since no floppy drive...

 

[Tommar]

Hello Everybody! Today was a red letterday: My "new" Kaypro 4 arrived! The seller quadruple wrapped it in bubble wrap an tons of packing tape around the bubble wrap--very securely packaged! Anyway, after 30 minutes of unwrapping and de-taping, I plugged it in. And it was dead... I finally traced it to the power plug which was not securely inserted. This time, the lights came on, but no screen... hmm ... easily fixed by turning up the brightness knob. Then inserted the master CP/M disk and it instantly booted. Yay! So I now have a working retro Kaypro 4! Last night I ordered a brand new in-box circa 1980s Royal Office Master 2000 daisywheel printer for $135 and free shipping. I've discovered that ribbons and printwheels are readily available so I decided to order it. Now I just need more software! I do not have a MS-DOS computer nor a floppy drive so getting software from one of the websites is not really doable. A member here wants me to install a Kaypro/CPM emulator on my laptop but it sounds really complicated and I don't know what the emulator would accomplish since no floppy drive...

 

[rlauzon]

How did you like the OKI Microline 321? Was the print quality good?

It looked good to me. It's a higher end printer, mostly used for offices. So I would expect the print quality to be higher than the regular, cheap consumer printers.

 

[rlauzon]

Hello Everybody! Today was a red letterday: My "new" Kaypro 4 arrived! The seller quadruple wrapped it in bubble wrap an tons of packing tape around the bubble wrap--very securely packaged! Anyway, after 30 minutes of unwrapping and de-taping, I plugged it in. And it was dead... I finally traced it to the power plug which was not securely inserted. This time, the lights came on, but no screen... hmm ... easily fixed by turning up the brightness knob. Then inserted the master CP/M disk and it instantly booted. Yay! So I now have a working retro Kaypro 4! Last night I ordered a brand new in-box circa 1980s Royal Office Master 2000 daisywheel printer for $135 and free shipping. I've discovered that ribbons and printwheels are readily available so I decided to order it. Now I just need more software! I do not have a MS-DOS computer nor a floppy drive so getting software from one of the websites is not really doable. A member here wants me to install a Kaypro/CPM emulator on my laptop but it sounds really complicated and I don't know what the emulator would accomplish since no floppy drive...

Software off the Internet comes in 2 forms:
1. Files
2. Disk images

For the files, you would use something like Kermit (which runs on pretty much everything) and a USB-Null-Modem cable (you'll also probably need a 9-pin to 25-pin adapter too). You run Kermit on the Kaypro and your PC and transfer the files over.

For the disk images, the easy way is to get a floppy emulator (Like a Gotek with FlashFloppy installed). You'll also need a 5.25" to 3.5" data and power adapters. With that, you can (temporarily, or permanently) replace one of your real floppy drives, load the disk images on to it and, if you choose, copy those files to a real floppy.

On my Kaypro 4/83, I use an HxC floppy emulator from Lotharek. It replaces BOTH floppy drives with one unit using the same SD card - which is really nice.
On my Kaypro "1", I temporarily hooked up a Gotek/FlashFloppy as drive A: and created boot floppies as well as copied disk images onto a real disk in the B: drive. Later, I put the real A: drive back and just boot off of that.

For both, I used Kermit to send over new software that I found.

 

[Tommar]

Software off the Internet comes in 2 forms:
1. Files
2. Disk images

For the files, you would use something like Kermit (which runs on pretty much everything) and a USB-Null-Modem cable (you'll also probably need a 9-pin to 25-pin adapter too). You run Kermit on the Kaypro and your PC and transfer the files over.

For the disk images, the easy way is to get a floppy emulator (Like a Gotek with FlashFloppy installed). You'll also need a 5.25" to 3.5" data and power adapters. With that, you can (temporarily, or permanently) replace one of your real floppy drives, load the disk images on to it and, if you choose, copy those files to a real floppy.

On my Kaypro 4/83, I use an HxC floppy emulator from Lotharek. It replaces BOTH floppy drives with one unit using the same SD card - which is really nice.
On my Kaypro "1", I temporarily hooked up a Gotek/FlashFloppy as drive A: and created boot floppies as well as copied disk images onto a real disk in the B: drive. Later, I put the real A: drive back and just boot off of that.

For both, I used Kermit to send over new software that I found.

Geez! I think you are speaking Greek! I need to find a computer club here in Waco, TX and have soneone hold me by the hand and gently walk me through all this. At age 72, my brain cells ain't what they used to be... Sure wish you were in the next town over!

 

[rlauzon]

Kermit is a file transfer protocol that was designed to be able to transfer files from dissimilar systems. Columbia University developed it and became the repository of the various implementations of Kermit for many systems.
The nice thing is that the version of Kermit that's available for the Kaypro can still communicate with the version of Kermit for today's Linux or Windows systems.

Floppy emulators are becoming more prevalent as media and floppy drives simply wear out. Most of my vintage systems use them today. I think I have only 2 systems that use real floppy drives - and only one of those uses 5.25" drives.
IHMO: This is where you should focus your education on right now. There are many "how to" videos and web pages on them.

 

[Tommar]

Kermit is a file transfer protocol that was designed to be able to transfer files from dissimilar systems. Columbia University developed it and became the repository of the various implementations of Kermit for many systems.
The nice thing is that the version of Kermit that's available for the Kaypro can still communicate with the version of Kermit for today's Linux or Windows systems.

Floppy emulators are becoming more prevalent as media and floppy drives simply wear out. Most of my vintage systems use them today. I think I have only 2 systems that use real floppy drives - and only one of those uses 5.25" drives.
IHMO: This is where you should focus your education on right now. There are many "how to" videos and web pages on them.

OK, lets talk a bit about floppy emulators. I researched on Amazon and came across the Gotek SFRM1M44 but the questions section says that this must use Windows so I'm confused as to how this would work.... I'm assuming I would write files to a USB flash drive but how would my modern computer read CP/M filas? And could my modern computer write cp/m files to a flash drive and then the Kaypro read them? I've got a king-sized headache... going to bed!

 

[rlauzon]

OK, lets talk a bit about floppy emulators. I researched on Amazon and came across the Gotek SFRM1M44 but the questions section says that this must use Windows so I'm confused as to how this would work.... I'm assuming I would write files to a USB flash drive but how would my modern computer read CP/M filas? And could my modern computer write cp/m files to a flash drive and then the Kaypro read them? I've got a king-sized headache... going to bed!

It's surprising the learning curve that exists for many of these vintage systems.

So the way a Gotek works is this:
1. You first load FlashFloppy on it (ex:

) or buy one that someone already loaded it on (ex: https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p3519243.m570.l1313&_nkw=flashfloppy&_sacat=0)
2. The media is a standard USB drive. I usually get a drive like this (https://www.amazon.com/Flash-KEXIN-...9070113&sprefix=short+usb+drive,aps,84&sr=8-3) which only sticks out a little.
3. The USB drive mounts up on your PC as a normal USB drive and you just drag/drop floppy images to the USB drive.
4. Then you plug the USB drive into your Gotek, power on your PC and you can select a disk image, which to the Kaypro is like putting a floppy into the drive.

Now, if you want to manipulate the files inside a disk image... That is a much more complex topic. I suggest that you avoid that for now.

The other floppy emulator that works nicely is the Lotharek HxC (https://lotharek.pl/productdetail.php?id=27). One of these will emulate BOTH floppy drives. That is what I use in my Kaypro 4. And I put all the disk images that I use in GitHub (https://github.com/rlauzon54/Kaypro-4-83).

 

[Tommar]

My blank DDDS disks arrived today... and will not format. These blank disks' box says For IBM, Appl, Commodore computers... My Kaypro returns "Error, bad sector" on each of the ones I've tried. Drive B reads formatted disks fine, such as the games disk... Another thought: I'm not sure if the supplied boot disk is actually a Kaypro 4 boot disk... but it boots the computer! Also: This time when I started the Kaypro 4, the light on Drive A did not come on and computer did not boot. Finally, for no good reason, the Drive A light came on; I inserted the CP/M disk and computer booted. But could not format the floppies... got a bad sector error on each disk I tried.... I'm wondering if I need CP/M-specific blank disks?

 

[Tommar]

Upon furher reflection, I don't think that Drive B is writing... I know Drive B reads, because when I insert a formatted disk (games) it will execute that game. But that is a "read" function. I do not believe it writes when I execute the Blank command; the light shifts to Drive B but I do not hear anything. Does that make sense?

 

[Tommar]

Tomorrow, after (hopefully) I hear back from you guys, I will take the cover off and attempt to clean both drives with a Q tip and alcohol... and perform any other possible steps y'all recommend. I heard back from the seller of the floppies and he says that these floppies should work perfectly with a Kaypro... only they're not.

 

[hornbetw]

You need to erase the disks with a magnetic eraser, either a strong magnet or a plug in magnetic coil. With the the IBM format removed from the disk, CP/M will be able to format the disk.

 

[ldkraemer]

Tommar,
The correct command to format the B: drive is with using sscopy or copy, depending on the
files in the A: directory.


$ cpmls -f kpii -D K4836768.RAW
Name Bytes Recs Attr update create
------------ ------ ------ ---- ----------------- -----------------
ASM .COM 8K 64
BASICLIB.REL 41K 324
BAUD .COM 1K 6
CONFIG .COM 12K 89
COPY .COM 8K 60
DDT .COM 5K 38
DPLAY .BAS 1K 4
DUMP .ASM 5K 33
DUMP .COM 1K 4
ED .COM 7K 52
FAC .BAS 1K 2
LOAD .COM 2K 14
MOVCPM .COM 10K 76
OVERLAYB.COM 7K 54
PIP .COM 8K 58
SBASIC .COM 26K 204
SSCOPY .COM 8K 60
STAT .COM 6K 41
SUBMIT .COM 2K 10
SYSGEN .COM 1K 8
TERM .COM 1K 6
USERLIB .REL 1K 6
XAMN .BAS 20K 154
XSUB .COM 1K 6
24 Files occupying 96K, 95K Free.


$ cpmls -f kpii -D K4836768.RAW
Name Bytes Recs Attr update create
------------ ------ ------ ---- ----------------- -----------------
ASM .COM 8K 64
BASICLIB.REL 41K 324
BAUD .COM 1K 6
CONFIG .COM 12K 89
COPY .COM 8K 60
DDT .COM 5K 38
DPLAY .BAS 1K 4
DUMP .ASM 5K 33
DUMP .COM 1K 4
ED .COM 7K 52
FAC .BAS 1K 2
LOAD .COM 2K 14
MOVCPM .COM 10K 76
OVERLAYB.COM 7K 54
PIP .COM 8K 58
SBASIC .COM 26K 204
SSCOPY .COM 8K 60
STAT .COM 6K 41
SUBMIT .COM 2K 10
SYSGEN .COM 1K 8
TERM .COM 1K 6
USERLIB .REL 1K 6
XAMN .BAS 20K 154
XSUB .COM 1K 6
24 Files occupying 96K, 95K Free.

The Menu in sscopy or copy will specify FORMAT or Copy A: to B:.
You can try FORMAT and once format is done you can exit back to A: Drive. Then try
SYSGEN <ENTER>

It will ask for SOURCE (A then DESTINATION (B: which was previously formatted) and copy the
system tracks from A: to B:. If that works the floppy is functional. Then try this command:
pip b:=A:*.* [ov] and depress ENTER KEY

All the Files from A: will be copied to B:, which should now boot properly in A: drive.

BLANK or blank is not a valid CP/M command.


Larry

 

[Tommar]

Tommar,
The correct command to format the B: drive is with using sscopy or copy, depending on the
files in the A: directory.


$ cpmls -f kpii -D K4836768.RAW
Name Bytes Recs Attr update create
------------ ------ ------ ---- ----------------- -----------------
ASM .COM 8K 64
BASICLIB.REL 41K 324
BAUD .COM 1K 6
CONFIG .COM 12K 89
COPY .COM 8K 60
DDT .COM 5K 38
DPLAY .BAS 1K 4
DUMP .ASM 5K 33
DUMP .COM 1K 4
ED .COM 7K 52
FAC .BAS 1K 2
LOAD .COM 2K 14
MOVCPM .COM 10K 76
OVERLAYB.COM 7K 54
PIP .COM 8K 58
SBASIC .COM 26K 204
SSCOPY .COM 8K 60
STAT .COM 6K 41
SUBMIT .COM 2K 10
SYSGEN .COM 1K 8
TERM .COM 1K 6
USERLIB .REL 1K 6
XAMN .BAS 20K 154
XSUB .COM 1K 6
24 Files occupying 96K, 95K Free.


$ cpmls -f kpii -D K4836768.RAW
Name Bytes Recs Attr update create
------------ ------ ------ ---- ----------------- -----------------
ASM .COM 8K 64
BASICLIB.REL 41K 324
BAUD .COM 1K 6
CONFIG .COM 12K 89
COPY .COM 8K 60
DDT .COM 5K 38
DPLAY .BAS 1K 4
DUMP .ASM 5K 33
DUMP .COM 1K 4
ED .COM 7K 52
FAC .BAS 1K 2
LOAD .COM 2K 14
MOVCPM .COM 10K 76
OVERLAYB.COM 7K 54
PIP .COM 8K 58
SBASIC .COM 26K 204
SSCOPY .COM 8K 60
STAT .COM 6K 41
SUBMIT .COM 2K 10
SYSGEN .COM 1K 8
TERM .COM 1K 6
USERLIB .REL 1K 6
XAMN .BAS 20K 154
XSUB .COM 1K 6
24 Files occupying 96K, 95K Free.

The Menu in sscopy or copy will specify FORMAT or Copy A: to B:.
You can try FORMAT and once format is done you can exit back to A: Drive. Then try
SYSGEN <ENTER>

It will ask for SOURCE (A then DESTINATION (B: which was previously formatted) and copy the
system tracks from A: to B:. If that works the floppy is functional. Then try this command:
pip b:=A:*.* [ov] and depress ENTER KEY

All the Files from A: will be copied to B:, which should now boot properly in A: drive.

BLANK or blank is not a valid CP/M command.


Larry

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.