Kaypro Professional Computer
O. Alan Jones
store. I didn't notice the name until I got home. The only reason I
bought the computer was to rob it for parts. As I took the case off I
saw the motherboard said "Kaypro." And man it is a small motherboard!
The front of the case says, "Kaypro Professional Computer" and on the
back of the computer it says, "Kaypro PC-10, Part No B1-045-05." Has
anyone else ever seen one of these before? I didn't know Kaypro made
PC's. I just thought they made CP/M computers back in the old days.
--Alan
George Hostler
I vaguely remember something about it. It came out after the 8-bit Kaypros.
I could be wrong, but I think it was one of Kaypro's last.
George
O. Alan Jones wrote in message <384F08E3...@bright.net>...
:I just purchased a Kaypro Professional Computer from a local thrift
:
:
Chris Collet
laptop, and I have a Kaypro 16 (8088 based luggable)that runs MSDOS. Also,
I've seen some 286 motherboards with 'Kaypro' written on it.
Speaking of the Kaypro 16, has anyone ever opened one of them up? There
is a huge circuit board (probably the largest in there) with no chips or
IC's or anthing on it! The board with the AMD 8088 clone is actually
rather small. Does anybody know what the empty board is for? And while I'm
asking, there are two 9 pin female connectors on the graphics card. One is
for an RGB monitor, but I can't figure out what the second jack is for.
Any ideas?
In article <s4ue7r...@corp.supernews.com>, "George Hostler"
<ghos...@cia-g.com> wrote:
--
have YOU played atari today?
Chris Collet
whatever) connector. I've tried plugging everything into the unidentified
jack, including several RGB and Monochrome monitors and RGB from another
computer (in case it was some sort of input). Also, the serial port seems
unrelaible at any baud rate.
I was thinking that the empty board in the Kaypro 16 might be for a Z80
computer. Perhaps they were planning on giving it backwards compatibility
by putting a 8088 and Z80 in it. On the silkscreen, there are many many
'sockets'
for IC's so I guess it could also be for extra RAM, but the board is huge
(about the size of a motherboard in a regular PC)
In article <82nhj5$16l7$1...@thoth.cts.com>, Don Maslin <do...@cts.com> wrote:
> Chris Collet <cco...@mason.gmu.edu> wrote:
> : Kaypro did release a few MS-DOS based machines. I think they released a
> : laptop, and I have a Kaypro 16 (8088 based luggable)that runs MSDOS. Also,
> : I've seen some 286 motherboards with 'Kaypro' written on it.
>
> : Speaking of the Kaypro 16, has anyone ever opened one of them up? There
> : is a huge circuit board (probably the largest in there) with no chips or
> : IC's or anthing on it! The board with the AMD 8088 clone is actually
> : rather small. Does anybody know what the empty board is for? And while I'm
> : asking, there are two 9 pin female connectors on the graphics card. One is
> : for an RGB monitor, but I can't figure out what the second jack is for.
> : Any ideas?
>
> Something unusual here. According to the manual, the second connector
> on the graphics card should be an RCA jack for composite video
> output.
>
> - don
>
>
> : In article <s4ue7r...@corp.supernews.com>, "George Hostler"
Don Maslin
Don Maslin
: Yeah, there is an RCA jack for composite under the second RGB (or
: whatever) connector. I've tried plugging everything into the unidentified
: jack, including several RGB and Monochrome monitors and RGB from another
: computer (in case it was some sort of input). Also, the serial port seems
: unrelaible at any baud rate.
: I was thinking that the empty board in the Kaypro 16 might be for a Z80
: computer. Perhaps they were planning on giving it backwards compatibility
: by putting a 8088 and Z80 in it. On the silkscreen, there are many many
: 'sockets'
: for IC's so I guess it could also be for extra RAM, but the board is huge
: (about the size of a motherboard in a regular PC)
As issued, the K16 consisted of a Main Board which carried socketed
memory - up to 512k, video decoding, and the interface to the WD1002
Hard Disk controller. Plugged into the Main Board were the 8088
Processor Card, the Color Graphics Card, and the Floppy+RAM+I/O Card.
This left one expansion slot available.
- don
: In article <82nhj5$16l7$1...@thoth.cts.com>, Don Maslin <do...@cts.com> wrote:
Chris Collet
and on the back of the machine is a sticker that says '768Kb RAM' 20 meg
hard disk, too. And the main board has maybe 2 or 3 components on it
(socket for power, for little red light on front of machine, and of course
3 sockets for cards) but absolutely no ROMs or RAM on it.I guess there
must be several different versions of the machine.
William Stulz
ram, etc are moved from the motherboard onto plug in cards on the bus. I'm
not familiar with the k16 but some other manufacturers did the same thing
around that time frame. The motherboard is essentially just the bus.
bst...@bellatlantic.net
"Chris Collet" <cco...@mason.gmu.edu> wrote in message
news:ccollet-0912...@228.arlington-26-27rs.va.dial-access.att.net..
.
Don Maslin
: What you're describing is a 'backplane' motherboard design. The processor,
: ram, etc are moved from the motherboard onto plug in cards on the bus. I'm
: not familiar with the k16 but some other manufacturers did the same thing
: around that time frame. The motherboard is essentially just the bus.
: bst...@bellatlantic.net
That was the basic concept with the Kaypro 16. There was RAM on the
processor card, and provision for expansion RAM on the backplane that
they called the "Main Board". Apparently in some versions they chose
to save a little by not installing sockets on the MB. I do not have
one to look at, so I am able only to quote from the Tech Manual and
look at a few pictures - one of which looks like there is a fourth
slot on the MB.
Sorry that I cannot be more authoritative.
- don
: "Chris Collet" <cco...@mason.gmu.edu> wrote in message
Pete Cervasio
Collet) wrote:
>Kaypro did release a few MS-DOS based machines. I think they released a
>laptop, and I have a Kaypro 16 (8088 based luggable)that runs MSDOS. Also,
>I've seen some 286 motherboards with 'Kaypro' written on it.
My first 286 (which I still have, and still works) was a 16 MHz Kaypro
286i. The machine uses an eight slot backplane, with the CPU and
system memory on a single card. There were two types of backplanes,
IIRC... one like mine which was just a row of connectors, and another
that had the floppy controller built onto it.
I eventually went to work for the Kaypro dealer who sold the machine
to me, and remember the laptop. I think it was called the Kaypro
2000. As I recall, we had a lot of trouble with the store's demo
machine, and didn't sell very many.
Oh, about my 286i... I promptly replaced the 32 MHz crystal oscillator
with a 40 MHz one, once I found out that the Harris 80286 chip it used
would run at 20 MHz. The folks at Kaypro said it would go to 22, but
was sometimes flakey at anything faster. For a short while I had the
fastest PC in town. :) :)
Best regards,
Pete C.
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Gregory Watson
is some additional information. Unfortunately, my news feed hasn't
picked up all of the articles, so I'm doing this from what I've read
so far.
These are from my memories of working at a computer store
which sold a lot of these machines.
Video card. Yes, the early versions had two DB-9 video out
connectors. This was changed later when they switched to ATI cards.
One was CGA and the other was MDA (Yes, monochrome, no graphics not
even Hercules.) The video card could only output on one connector at
a time. You could switch between them using the mode program (from
DOS) or the VSWITCH program (a TSR that Kaypro developed.) You could
change the default by changing the DIP switch, which was on the
processor card. I don't remember which switch.
Passive backplane design. Yes, the idea of this was that you
could upgrade the machine, by upgrading the processor card. Actually,
the upgrade consisted (I think) of both the processor card and the
card with the expansion slots (and battery for the clock) so you could
get the 16-bit connectors, but I'm not certain of that. Kaypro did
sell a 6 MHz 286 upgrade card for it, but it was at the time
relatively expensive. I can only remember one customer upgrading in
this way, because you also still kept the 8-bit HD controller which
was slow. There was the other big problem of the machine for
upgrading which was that the case was 1/2 inch too low to take real AT
16 bit cards. So you could put a 286 in it, but you were limited in
what expansion cards you could use.
Kaypro did eventually come out with a 286 (long after the
286i) with a passive backplane design. This was the PC-286 and in the
PC case which still didn't accept AT sized expansion cards. It was a
12-MHz machine.
The original Kaypro PC had 9-slots, three of which were
filled. 1 was processor, 1 was video, and 1 was multifunction I/O
(memory, serial, parallel, disk controller.)
There were a number of variations on the machine as Kaypro
went on, changing among other things: video, multifunction I/O, and
processor (later machines had switchable processors, 8 and 10 MHz,
both with and without the NEC V-20 chip.)
Hope this helps, and let me know if I can add anything else.
Greg
Gregory Watson
g...@smart.net
Chris Collet
more than a few minutes without doing anything, the message
8087 NMI int, CS:IP = F000:E82E Type (S)hut of NMI, (R)eboot, other key
All I have to do is type S and everything starts working again. I assume
the message has something to do with an 8087 math coprocessor, but when I
looked at the the motherboard, I didnt see one (there was an empty socket
next to the CPU which is where I assume an 8087 would go). And, when I
booted up the computer this morning it said,
8087 NMI int, 00RAM bad B81E2
while checking the RAM. This is the first time its said that, so I hope
the computer isnt going bad or something (Hey, I had to pay 20 bucks for
it!)
In article <82s228$8ja$1...@news.smart.net>, g...@smarty.smart.net (Gregory
Watson) wrote:
--
Gregory Watson
able to answer this definitively.
I don't know what the error is, but I agree, it sounds like it
may be something with a coprocessor. I think one of the dip switches
told it whether or not there was an 8087.
This is really dregging things out of my memory, but I believe
there is a bank of about 5 switches on the processor card. The
switches controlled, and I don't remember the order or if this is
complete: 8087, memory, video. But, I can't be certain of this.
If you have an old version of Norton Utilities, you might want
to try to run it to see if it thinks there is a math coprocessor or
not. That might give a clue as to how the switch is set.
$20 seems like a fair price. When my parents just cleaned out
their house and we disposed of machines, we just junked the Kaypro PC
we had. It had been sitting unused for years. We kept all of the
CP/M machines of course. ;-)
Greg
Gregory Watson
g...@smart.net
In article <ccollet-1012...@202.arlington-43-44rs.va.dial-access.att.net>,