hotrod Kaypro acquisition & problem

From: Jim Battle <frustum_at_pacbell.net>
Date: Fri May 9 01:08:00 2003

Don Maslin wrote:
>
> On Tue, 6 May 2003, Jim Battle wrote:
>
>
>>This past weekend ...
>>I picked up a Kaypro II...
>>More interestingly, it has had a lot of mods done to it. I haven't
>>opened it up yet, but some of the changes are evident anyway.

I've opened it up and found out a few things. Written in pencil on top
of the drive bay structure are these words:

        H/D
        Rodine
        RO 252F TYPE2

The maker of the TurboROM is Advent, of course, but the controller for
the stack of two daughter cards that plug into the CPU (2.5 MHz/5.0 MHz
switchable) and the disk controller daughter card that cables off to the
hard disk are from Advent too.

The character generator ROM is an EPROM with the gummy label "CB32",
whatever that is worth.

>>1) addition of a fan. this is way too noisy and I must replace it.
>>Also, it appears to be powered from the DC side of the power supply; I
>>infer this from the fact that the fan keeps running for 5-10 seconds
>>after power is removed!

Actually, it is a 120V AC fan. It must just have enough momentum to
spin for 5+ seconds after the power is off (making quite a lot of noise
the whole time).

> Unless it is a late edition Kaypro II (check the nameplate to see
> if it is a Non Linear Systems or Kaypro product) it is likely that
> the power supply has been replaced as the early II PSUs were a bit
> marginal in standard usage and would never hack an added hard
> drive.

It is a NLS machine, I believe.

>>2) one of the full height 5.25" floppies is replaced with a hard drive.
>>I haven't confirmed the size, but the seller recalled that it was 10
>>MB. The hard drive has been partitioned into A, B, C, and D drives.
>>The remaining floppy is E.

I didn't want to disassemble the whole thing right now (the innards are
packed tight!), so I couldn't tell what type drive it had. Fortunately,
the seller kept the other floppy drive which was removed to make room
for the hard disk.

It is a Tandon TM100-1A drive. This, I believe, is the orginal Kaypro
II drive, which is single sided, double density (180 KB).

>>3) there is a RAM disk, which is F. I'm not sure of the size yet.
>
>
> When you pull the cover, note whether there is a daughter board
> that carries an 8088 and DRAM which indicates the presence of an
> SWP add on with RAM disk not using the 64k standard memory.

It isn't some software trick to carve out a tiny RAM disk from the main
64KB. It appears to be a pair of sandwiched cards; one is half
populated with DRAMs, the other is the control logic that makes it
appear as a disk. To get a look at it I'd have to dismantle a number of
items, so I haven't done it yet. It is mounted parallel to the sides of
the box, between the CRT and the disk bay, and below the main logic board.

>>5) On boot up, I get a notice saying that it has the Advent TurboROM 3.0
>>(1985) modification.
>
> Does it state the size of the operating system? 60K? 58K? ??

62KB CP/M.

>>That is all to the good.
>>
>>Now the bad news. The seller tried to "erase the hard drive", but said
>>he didn't remember enough how to do it. Well, he managed to erase the A
>>partition, although B, C, and D are still there. As you might expect, A
>>contained the most interesting stuff. I can't do PIP, nor STAT, nor ED,
>>nor DDT. The built-in DIR and TYPE work, of course, as I imagine the
>>other built-ins would.
>
>
> None of these are mirrored in B-D I take it.

Nope. It looks like only user0 has anything on any drive. A0 has
nothing left. B0 has a single application, "PHONE.COM". C0 is empty.
D0 has a a few apps, mostly pie charting software, and BRIEF.COM.

...
>>So that leaves the question: how to get a kaypro II disk image?
>
> I would suggest that your immediate need is not a disk image, but
> the missing utility files - plus a few more - and a readable disk
> that contains them. If you can resurrect the boot track from the
> hard disk and place it on a floppy, you will have the correct
> version and size needed.

You've sent me the teledisk image. Thanks! Now that I know the floppy
drive type in the kaypro, I'll set up a PC with the same so I can create
the disk.

...
> Presuming - always a problem - that your floppy is a 48tpi drive
> (390k in Kaypro speak) it would be desirable to have a 48tpi
> (360k) drive on the PC, but not absolutely necessary. I am
> sending under separate cover a TeleDisk image of a Kaypro II SSDD
> disk which contains a number of utilities that you should find useful
> in your salvage effort. Most are the standard CP/M utilities - pip,
> etc. - but the one that is most likely to be helpful on the HD is
> DU-V78.COM. It comes with a pretty good explanation of usage. Study
> it well, as it is a powerful tool and can do both good and terrible
> things for you. It is a pretty good sector editor.

Great! Thanks Don.
Received on Fri May 09 2003 - 01:08:00 BST