Subject: hotrod Kaypro acquisition & problem

From: Jim Battle <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue May 6 03:43:00 2003

This past weekend I went to the monthly swap meet in Livermore, CA.  I 
had a late start, the weather wasn't promising, and I was tired, but I 
hadn't gone for a while so I went anyway.  I'm glad I did.

I picked up a Kaypro II for $20, although the seller asked for "Oh, $20, 
maybe $15" since he seemed like a nice guy.

It didn't have any floppies or any manuals, but the rest is pretty nice.

First, the case is in great shape.  It was well taken care of.  On power 
up, the character generation is pretty clean.

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.

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!

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.

3) there is a RAM disk, which is F.  I'm not sure of the size yet.

4) On the rear there is a toggle switch: 2.5 MHz/5.0 MHz.  Cool.

5) On boot up, I get a notice saying that it has the Advent TurboROM 3.0 
(1985) modification.

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.

On cold boot and warm boot, I have to hit carriage return a dozen times 
or so to get past the "Drive A: BDOS bad sector" (or somesuch) spew, but 
I do eventually get a prompt.  So his attempt to erase the hard disk got 
rid of the directory apparently, but not the boot tracks.

I am hopeful that the information is still there, and all I need to do 
is somehow boot off of the remaining floppy and use a sector editor to 
unerase the damage done to drive A.  However, the fact that it is saying 
"bad sector" instead of just saying drive A has "no files" on a DIR 
would seem to indicate things aren't so simple.  I may need to 
completely rebuild drive A.

I've combed through the various CP/M archives and have found out a bit 
about the Advent TurboROM.  I believe that if I have a bootable disk, I 
can put it into the "E" floppy drive and it will become the "A" drive on 
  a reboot.

So that leaves the question: how to get a kaypro II disk image?

I have a PC (P-166) lying around that I added a 5.25" drive to for the 
purpose of reading some trs-80 disks.  I'm not sure of the drive density 
at the moment; that was a while back.  What density drive should I use 
in my PC?  What software it recommended for making a bootable disk? 
Short of bothering the tireless Don Maslin, are there any disk images 
available online that could help me out?  Should I scratch any plans to 
recover the CP/M 2.2 image on the A drive and instead just attempt to 
reformat and reinstall CP/M (Or ZCPR?)

All suggestions are welcomed.  Thanks.

---

From: Don Maslin <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue May 6 23:20:00 2003

> infer this from the fact that the fan keeps running for 5-10 seconds

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.

> 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.

> 5) On boot up, I get a notice saying that it has the Advent TurboROM 3.0

Does it state the size of the operating system?  60K?  58K?  ??

> nor DDT.  The built-in DIR and TYPE work, of course, as I imagine the

None of these are mirrored in B-D I take it.

> 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.

> reformat and reinstall CP/M (Or ZCPR?)

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.

The TeleDisk image can be reproduced on either 48 or 96tpi drives.
Desirably, the disk would be bulk erased - degaussed - prior to
use if possible.

						- don

---

From: Jim Battle <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri May 9 01:08:00 2003

Don Maslin wrote:
>>This past weekend ...
>>I picked up a Kaypro II...

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.

>>infer this from the fact that the fan keeps running for 5-10 seconds

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).

> marginal in standard usage and would never hack an added hard

It is a NLS machine, I believe.

>>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).

> 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.

> Does it state the size of the operating system?  60K?  58K?  ??

62KB CP/M.

> 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.

...
> hard disk and place it on a floppy, you will have the correct

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.

...
> things for you.  It is a pretty good sector editor.

Great!  Thanks Don.