new toy!

From: Don Maslin <donm_at_cts.com>
Date: Fri Jan 29 00:51:02 1999

On Thu, 28 Jan 1999, Jim Strickland wrote:

> I just got my hands on my first Kaypro - a Kaypro 4. Everything seems to work,
> but it never boots from the only boot floppy I have. I tried reversing the
> two drives and booting from the other drive and got the same results, so I'm
> convinced it's the floppy itself.
>
> Can anyone point me to a site where I can get the software to create a new
> one from my win95 machine (if possible).

A copy of TeleDisk and a TeleDisk disk image and a PC with a 5.25" drive
- preferably a 360k - is pretty much what you need. Because the o/s is
contained in the boot track, the usual copy commands don't quite fo it.
 
> I have some questions. First, I tried connecting a 360k 5.25 inch floppy from
> a PC to the kaypro. At first nothing happened, then when I changed the device
> select to 0, it hung the machine every time it tried to boot. Should I
> interpret this to mean you can't connect PC drives to Kaypros? If you CAN,
> can you connect 3.5 inch drives to it? It would be far more convenient...

No, more likely there are some of the other jumpers set such that the
Kaypro doesn't like it. And yes, you can hang 3.5" drives on instead.
It means patching the BIOS to reflect the format differences, and of
course you cannot format to 1440k (HD). Allison has done the 3.5" thing,
I believe.
 
> Also, on www.psyber.com/~tjc/ it says there's a western digital hard disk
> controller. WD-1002-05 HDO. Is it possible to connect this to a K4? If so,
> how? I don't see any open connectors on the motherboard offhand.

Apparently, you have the so called 4/83 that uses full height drives.
The 4/84s and 2Xs and 10s all had a 50 pin header that lead to an adapter
board, which in turn led - by way of a 40 conductor ribbon - to the WD HD
controller.
 
> Anyway, the guy I got my K4 from has a K2 and a K2x - the latter of which
> appears to be unable to boot, although I suspect reseating the chips would
> solve it, and the former of which has a soda-contaminated keyboard with
> some missing keys. If anyone's interested in these machines, let me know and
> I'll forward your e-mail to him.

If in fact that is a K2 rather than a KII, it might have the 50 pin header
also. Kaypro played some games with model numbers, so it is a bit
difficult to be absolutely certain sometimes.

                                                 - don
> --
> Jim Strickland
> jim_at_DIESPAMMERSCUMcalico.litterbox.com
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> Vote Meadocrat! Bill and Opus in 2000 - Who ELSE is there?
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>
Received on Fri Jan 29 1999 - 00:51:02 GMT