Kaypro Corporation, commonly called
Kaypro, was an American
homeHome computers were a class of microcomputers entering the market in 1977, and becoming increasingly common during the 1980s. They were marketed to consumers as affordable and accessible computers that, for the first time, were intended for the use of a single nontechnical user...
/
personal computerA personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator...
manufacturer of the 1980s. The company was founded by
Non-Linear SystemsNon-Linear Systems is an electronics manufacturing company based in San Diego, California. Non-Linear Systems was founded in 1952, by Andrew Kay, the inventor of the digital voltmeter. Later the company developed miniature digital voltmeters and frequency counters. During the early 1980s the...
to develop computers to compete with the then-popular
Osborne 1The Osborne 1 was the first commercially successful portable microcomputer, released on April 3, 1981 by Osborne Computer Corporation. It weighed 10.7 kg , cost USD$ 1795, and ran the then-popular CP/M 2.2 operating system...
portable microcomputer. Kaypro produced a line of rugged, portable
CP/MCP/M was a mass-market operating system created for Intel 8080/85 based microcomputers by Gary Kildall of Digital Research, Inc...
-based computers sold with an extensive software bundle which supplanted its competitors and quickly became one of the top selling personal computer lines of the early 1980s.
While exceptionally loyal to its original consumer base, Kaypro was slow to adapt to the changing computer market and the advent of
IBM PC compatibleIBM PC compatible computers are those generally similar to the original IBM PC, XT, and AT. Such computers used to be referred to as PC clones, or IBM clones since they almost exactly duplicated all the significant features of the PC architecture, facilitated by various manufacturers' ability to...
technology. It faded from the mainstream before the end of the decade and was eventually forced into filing for
bankruptcyBankruptcy is a legal status of an insolvent person or an organisation, that is, one that cannot repay the debts owed to creditors. In most jurisdictions bankruptcy is imposed by a court order, often initiated by the debtor....
in 1992.
History
Kaypro began as Non-Linear Systems, a maker of electronic test equipment, founded in 1952 by
Andrew KayAndrew F. Kay was President and CEO of Kay Computers, a personal computer firm, and also serves as Senior Business Advisor to Accelerated Composites, LLC....
, the inventor of the digital
voltmeterA voltmeter is an instrument used for measuring electrical potential difference between two points in an electric circuit. Analog voltmeters move a pointer across a scale in proportion to the voltage of the circuit; digital voltmeters give a numerical display of voltage by use of an analog to...
.
In 1981, Non-Linear Systems began designing a personal computer, called
KayComp, that would compete with the popular
Osborne 1The Osborne 1 was the first commercially successful portable microcomputer, released on April 3, 1981 by Osborne Computer Corporation. It weighed 10.7 kg , cost USD$ 1795, and ran the then-popular CP/M 2.2 operating system...
transportable microcomputer. In 1982, Non-Linear Systems organized a daughter company named the
Kaypro Corporation and rechristened the computer with the same name.
The first product, the Kaypro II, carried the Roman-numeral designation because one of the most popular microcomputers at the time was the
Apple IIThe Apple II is an 8-bit home computer, one of the first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products, designed primarily by Steve Wozniak, manufactured by Apple Computer and introduced in 1977...
. The Kaypro II was designed to be portable like the Osborne. (When battery-powered laptop computers became available, the larger machines came to be called
transportable or
luggable, rather than
portable.) Set in an aluminum case, it weighed 29 pounds (13 kilograms) and was equipped with a
ZilogZilog, Inc., previously known as ZiLOG , is a manufacturer of 8-bit and 24-bit microcontrollers, and is most famous for its Intel 8080-compatible Z80 series.-History:...
Z80
microprocessorA microprocessor incorporates the functions of a computer's central processing unit on a single integrated circuit, or at most a few integrated circuits. It is a multipurpose, programmable device that accepts digital data as input, processes it according to instructions stored in its memory, and...
, 64 kilobytes of
RAM-Animals:*Ram, an uncastrated male sheep*Ram cichlid, a species of freshwater fish endemic to Colombia and Venezuela-Military:*Battering ram*Ramming, a military tactic in which one vehicle runs into another...
, and two 5¼-inch
double-densityDouble density, often shortened DD, is a capacity designation on magnetic storage, usually floppy disks. It describes the use of an encoding of information, which can encode on average twice as many bits per time unit compared to single density...
floppy-diskA floppy disk is a disk storage medium composed of a disk of thin and flexible magnetic storage medium, sealed in a rectangular plastic carrier lined with fabric that removes dust particles...
drives. It ran on
Digital Research, Inc.'sDigital Research, Inc. was the company created by Dr. Gary Kildall to market and develop his CP/M operating system and related products. It was the first large software company in the microcomputer world...
CP/MCP/M was a mass-market operating system created for Intel 8080/85 based microcomputers by Gary Kildall of Digital Research, Inc...
operating system, and sold for about US$1,795.00.
By mid-1983, Kaypro had dropped the price to $1,595, and was selling more than 10,000 units a month—briefly making it the fifth-largest computer maker in the world. The Kaypro II's market success was due to a number of factors: it had a larger screen than the Osborne; it was a relatively inexpensive, simple to set up closed architecture system at a time when first-time computer buyers made up almost the entirety of the market; it came bundled with popular third-party
application softwareApplication software, also known as an application or an "app", is computer software designed to help the user to perform specific tasks. Examples include enterprise software, accounting software, office suites, graphics software and media players. Many application programs deal principally with...
(PerfectWriter and PerfectCalc, later to be replaced by MicroPro's
WordStarWordStar is a word processor application, published by MicroPro International, originally written for the CP/M operating system but later ported to DOS, that enjoyed a dominant market share during the early to mid-1980s. Although Seymour I...
and CalcStar); and it was supported by a network of trained dealers. The boxy units were so popular that they spawned a network of hobbyist user groups across the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
that provided local support for Kaypro products. Kaypro's success contributed to the eventual failure of the
Osborne Computer CorporationThe Osborne Computer Corporation was a pioneering maker of portable computers.-The Osborne 1:After Adam Osborne sold his computer book-publishing company to McGraw-Hill in 1979, he decided to sell an inexpensive portable computer with bundled software and hired Lee Felsenstein to design it...
and Morrow Designs.
Kaypro published and subsidized
ProFiles: The Magazine for Kaypro Users, a monthly, 72-page, four-color magazine that went beyond coverage of Kaypro's products to include substantive information on CP/M and
MS-DOSMS-DOS is an operating system for x86-based personal computers. It was the most commonly used member of the DOS family of operating systems, and was the main operating system for IBM PC compatible personal computers during the 1980s to the mid 1990s, until it was gradually superseded by operating...
; frequent contributors included
Ted ChiangTed Chiang is an American speculative fiction writer. His Chinese name is Chiang Feng-nan.He was born in Port Jefferson, New York and graduated from Brown University with a Computer Science degree. He currently works as a technical writer in the software industry and resides in Bellevue, near...
,
David GerroldJerrold David Friedman , better known by his pen name David Gerrold, is an American science fiction author who started his career in 1966 while a college student by submitting an unsolicited story outline for the television series Star Trek. He was invited to submit several premises, and the one...
,
Robert J. SawyerRobert James Sawyer is a Canadian science fiction writer. He has had 20 novels published, and his short fiction has appeared in Analog Science Fiction and Fact, Amazing Stories, On Spec, Nature, and many anthologies. Sawyer has won over forty awards for his fiction, including the Nebula Award ,...
, and Ted Silveira.
Another popular magazine that covered Kaypro computers was
Micro CornucopiaMicro Cornucopia was a 1980s microcomputer magazine for hobbyists and enthusiasts, published in Bend, Oregon by David J. Thompson, a former Tektronix engineer....
, published at
BendBend is a city in and the county seat of Deschutes County, Oregon, United States, and the principal city of the Bend, Oregon Metropolitan Statistical Area. Bend is Central Oregon's largest city, and, despite its modest size, is the de facto metropolis of the region, owing to the low population...
,
OregonOregon is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located on the Pacific coast, with Washington to the north, California to the south, Nevada on the southeast and Idaho to the east. The Columbia and Snake rivers delineate much of Oregon's northern and eastern...
.
Following the success of the Kaypro II, Kaypro moved on to produce a long line of similar computers into the mid 80s. Exceedingly loyal to its original core group of customers, Kaypro continued using the CP/M operating system long after it had been abandoned by its competitors. It wasn't until 1985 that Kaypro began producing IBM compatible MS-DOS machines, the Kaypro 16 (transportable, same form factor as the Kaypro II), the Kaypro PC, Kaypro 286i (the first 286 IBM PC AT compatible), the Kaypro 386, and the Kaypro 2000 (a rugged aluminum-body battery-powered laptop with a detachable keyboard). The slow start into the IBM clone market would have serious ramifications.
After several turbulent years, with sales dwindling, Kaypro filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in March 1990. Despite restructuring, the company was unable to recover and filed for
Chapter 7Chapter 7 of the Title 11 of the United States Code governs the process of liquidation under the bankruptcy laws of the United States...
bankruptcy in June 1992. In 1995, its remaining assets were sold for $2.7 million.
The Kaypro name briefly re-emerged as an online vendor of
WintelWintel is a portmanteau of Windows and Intel, referring to personal computers using Intel x86 compatible processors running Microsoft Windows...
PCs in 1999, but was discontinued in 2001 by its parent company
Premio Computers Inc. because of sluggish sales.
Kaypro founder Andy Kay re-emerged from the final failure of Kaypro with a second company, called Kay Computers, utilizing a similar sales strategy. Kay Computers is now apparently also defunct; its web site is
parkedDomain parking is the registration of an Internet domain name without using it for services such as e-mail or a website i.e without placing any content on the domain. This may be done to reserve the domain name for future development, to protect against the possibility of cybersquatting, or to...
and its location is occupied by a pet salon.
Hardware
Kaypro's first computer, the
Kaypro II had a 2.5 MHz
ZilogZilog, Inc., previously known as ZiLOG , is a manufacturer of 8-bit and 24-bit microcontrollers, and is most famous for its Intel 8080-compatible Z80 series.-History:...
Z80 microprocessor, 64 KB of RAM, dual, single-sided, 191 kB 5¼ inch
floppy diskA floppy disk is a disk storage medium composed of a disk of thin and flexible magnetic storage medium, sealed in a rectangular plastic carrier lined with fabric that removes dust particles...
drives, and an 80 column green monochrome 9"
CRTThe cathode ray tube is a vacuum tube containing an electron gun and a fluorescent screen used to view images. It has a means to accelerate and deflect the electron beam onto the fluorescent screen to create the images. The image may represent electrical waveforms , pictures , radar targets and...
.
Early in the Kaypro’s life, there was a legal dispute with the owner of the
BigboardThe Big Board and Big Board II were Z80 based single-board computers designed by Jim Ferguson. They provided a complete CP/M compatible computer system on a single printed circuit board, including CPU, memory, disk drive interface, keyboard and video monitor interface. The printed circuit board...
computer who charged that the Kaypro II main circuit board was an unlicensed copy or
cloneIn computing, a clone is a hardware or software system that is designed to mimic another system. Compatibility with the original system is usually the explicit purpose of cloning hardware or low-level software such as operating systems...
.
The outer case was constructed of painted aluminum. The computer featured a large detachable
keyboardIn computing, a keyboard is a typewriter-style keyboard, which uses an arrangement of buttons or keys, to act as mechanical levers or electronic switches...
that covered the
screenA display device is an output device for presentation of information in visual or tactile form...
and disk drives when stowed. The Kaypro ran off regular
ACIn alternating current the movement of electric charge periodically reverses direction. In direct current , the flow of electric charge is only in one direction....
mains power and was not equipped with a
batteryAn electrical battery is one or more electrochemical cells that convert stored chemical energy into electrical energy. Since the invention of the first battery in 1800 by Alessandro Volta and especially since the technically improved Daniell cell in 1836, batteries have become a common power...
.
The
Kaypro IV and later the Kaypro 4 had two double-sided disks. The Kaypro 4 was released in 1984, usually referred to as Kaypro 4 '84, as opposed to the Kaypro IV released one year earlier and referred to as Kaypro IV '83.
The
Kaypro 10 followed the Kaypro II, and featured a 10
megabyteThe megabyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information storage or transmission with two different values depending on context: bytes generally for computer memory; and one million bytes generally for computer storage. The IEEE Standards Board has decided that "Mega will mean 1 000...
hard drive and a single 5¼" floppy drive.
Kaypro later replaced their CP/M machines with the
MS-DOSMS-DOS is an operating system for x86-based personal computers. It was the most commonly used member of the DOS family of operating systems, and was the main operating system for IBM PC compatible personal computers during the 1980s to the mid 1990s, until it was gradually superseded by operating...
-based Kaypro 16, Kaypro PC and others, as the
IBM PCThe IBM Personal Computer, commonly known as the IBM PC, is the original version and progenitor of the IBM PC compatible hardware platform. It is IBM model number 5150, and was introduced on August 12, 1981...
and its clones gained popularity. Kaypro was late to the market, however, and never gained the kind of prominence in the MS-DOS arena that it had enjoyed with CP/M. Instead, Kaypro watched as a new company
CompaqCompaq Computer Corporation is a personal computer company founded in 1982. Once the largest supplier of personal computing systems in the world, Compaq existed as an independent corporation until 2002, when it was acquired for US$25 billion by Hewlett-Packard....
, grabbed its market with the
Compaq PortableThe Compaq Portable was the first product in the Compaq portable series to be commercially available under the Compaq Computer Corporation brand . It was the first IBM PC compatible portable computer...
, an all-in-one portable computer that was similar to Kaypro's own CP/M portables with the exception that it ran MS-DOS and was nearly 100% IBM compatible. The 1985 introductions of the Kaypro 286i, the first IBM PC AT clone
http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=1044&st=1, and the Kaypro 2000
http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?st=1&c=830, one of the first battery-powered MS-DOS portables, did little to change Kaypro's fortunes. Kaypro's failure in the MS-DOS market and other corporate issues helped lead to Kaypro's eventual downfall.
Software
CP/M was the standard
operating systemAn operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...
for the first generation of Kaypros. The first
application softwareApplication software, also known as an application or an "app", is computer software designed to help the user to perform specific tasks. Examples include enterprise software, accounting software, office suites, graphics software and media players. Many application programs deal principally with...
that came with the Kaypro II included a highly unpopular word processor called
Select that was quickly dropped in favor of an office suite from Perfect Software which included
PerfectWriter, PerfectCalc, PerfectFiler, and PerfectSpeller, as well as Kaypro's own
compiledA compiler is a computer program that transforms source code written in a programming language into another computer language...
S-BASIC (which produced executable
.com files). PerfectFiler featured non-relational, flat-file databases suitable for merging a contact list with form letters created in PerfectWriter. PerfectWriter itself was initially just a rebranded Mince and Scribble from
Mark of the UnicornMark of the Unicorn is a music-related computer software and hardware supplier. It is based in Cambridge, Massachusetts and has created music software since 1984.Products by MOTU include:*Digital Performer*AudioDesk*BPM*MachFive*MX4*Unisyn...
, which was itself a CP/M implementation of the (then) mainframe
EmacsEmacs is a class of text editors, usually characterized by their extensibility. GNU Emacs has over 1,000 commands. It also allows the user to combine these commands into macros to automate work.Development began in the mid-1970s and continues actively...
and
ScribeA scribe is a person who writes books or documents by hand as a profession and helps the city keep track of its records. The profession, previously found in all literate cultures in some form, lost most of its importance and status with the advent of printing...
using
BDS CBDS C is a compiler for a sizeable subset of the C programming language, that ran on and generated code for the Intel 8080 and Zilog Z80 processors. It was written by and first released in 1979 when he was 20 years old...
. Later on
MBasicMBASIC is the Microsoft BASIC implementation of BASIC for the CP/M operating system. MBASIC is a descendant of the original Altair BASIC interpreters that were among Microsoft's first products. MBASIC was one of the two versions of BASIC bundled with the Osborne 1 computer...
(a variant of
Microsoft BasicMicrosoft BASIC was the foundation product of the Microsoft company. It first appeared in 1975 as Altair BASIC, which was the first BASIC, and the first high level programming language available for the MITS Altair 8800 hobbyist microcomputer....
) and The Word Plus spellchecker were added to the model II suite of software. The Word Plus included a set of utilities that could help solve
crossword puzzleFor the common puzzle, see CrosswordCrossword Puzzle was the second to last album made by The Partridge Family and was not one of the most popular albums. It was released in 1973 and did not produce a U.S. single. This album was finally released on CD in 2003 on Arista's BMG Heritage label...
s or
anagramAn anagram is a type of word play, the result of rearranging the letters of a word or phrase to produce a new word or phrase, using all the original letters exactly once; e.g., orchestra = carthorse, A decimal point = I'm a dot in place, Tom Marvolo Riddle = I am Lord Voldemort. Someone who...
s, insert soft hyphens, alphabetize word lists, and compute word frequencies. Another utility program called Uniform allowed the Kaypro to read disks formated by Osborne, Xerox, or
TRS-80TRS-80 was Tandy Corporation's desktop microcomputer model line, sold through Tandy's Radio Shack stores in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The first units, ordered unseen, were delivered in November 1977, and rolled out to the stores the third week of December. The line won popularity with...
computers.
The initial bundled applications were soon replaced by the well-known titles
WordStarWordStar is a word processor application, published by MicroPro International, originally written for the CP/M operating system but later ported to DOS, that enjoyed a dominant market share during the early to mid-1980s. Although Seymour I...
, (a
word processorA word processor is a computer application used for the production of any sort of printable material....
with MailMerge, for personalised mass mailings), the
SuperCalcSuperCalc was a spreadsheet application published by Sorcim in 1980, and originally bundled as part of the CP/M software package included with the Osborne 1 portable computer....
spreadsheetA spreadsheet is a computer application that simulates a paper accounting worksheet. It displays multiple cells usually in a two-dimensional matrix or grid consisting of rows and columns. Each cell contains alphanumeric text, numeric values or formulas...
, two versions of the
Microsoft BASICMicrosoft BASIC was the foundation product of the Microsoft company. It first appeared in 1975 as Altair BASIC, which was the first BASIC, and the first high level programming language available for the MITS Altair 8800 hobbyist microcomputer....
interpreter, Kaypro's S-BASIC, a bytecode-compiled BASIC called C-Basic, and the
dBase IIdBase II was the first widely used database management system for microcomputers. It was originally published by Ashton-Tate for CP/M, and later on ported to the Apple II and IBM PC under DOS...
relational databaseA relational database is a database that conforms to relational model theory. The software used in a relational database is called a relational database management system . Colloquial use of the term "relational database" may refer to the RDBMS software, or the relational database itself...
system.
Using the
comma-separated valuesA comma-separated values file stores tabular data in plain-text form. As a result, such a file is easily human-readable ....
(CSV)
file formatA file format is a particular way that information is encoded for storage in a computer file.Since a disk drive, or indeed any computer storage, can store only bits, the computer must have some way of converting information to 0s and 1s and vice-versa. There are different kinds of formats for...
(better known at the time as CDF or comma delimited format or comma delimited file), data could be moved between these programs quite easily, which enhanced the utility of the package. The manuals assumed no computer background, the programs were straightforward to use, and thus it was possible to find the CEO of a small company or somebody else developing the applications needed in-house.
The Kaypro II and later models also came with some games, including versions of old character-based games from earlier days (for example,
Star Trek), and a few of which were arcade games re-imagined in
ASCIIThe American Standard Code for Information Interchange is a character-encoding scheme based on the ordering of the English alphabet. ASCII codes represent text in computers, communications equipment, and other devices that use text...
, including
CatChum (a
Pac-Manis an arcade game developed by Namco and licensed for distribution in the United States by Midway, first released in Japan on May 22, 1980. Immensely popular from its original release to the present day, Pac-Man is considered one of the classics of the medium, virtually synonymous with video games,...
-like game) and
LadderLadder is a barrel-jumping game written for the CP/M operating system. Since the screens on these computers only accept text characters and not rendered graphics, the game uses letters, numbers, and symbols lined up to create walls and platforms, pits/traps, characters, trampolines and goals.The...
(a
Donkey Kongis an arcade game released by Nintendo in 1981. It is an early example of the platform game genre, as the gameplay focuses on maneuvering the main character across a series of platforms while dodging and jumping over obstacles. In the game, Jumpman must rescue a damsel in distress, Lady, from a...
-like game).
All this software if bought separately would have cost more than the entire hardware and software package together. The Kaypro II was a very usable and (at the time) powerful computer for home or office, even though the painted metal case made it look more like a rugged laboratory instrument than an office machine. It enjoyed a reputation for durability.
Later MS-DOS Kaypro computers offered a similar software bundle.
Kaypro by model and year
Kaypro's nomenclature was odd, with the numerical designations for their machines having more to do with the capacity of the drives than the order they were produced. Kaypro also released several different models with the same names, perhaps hoping to capitalize on the name recognition of their older machines. As a result, identifying exactly which model a Kaypro is often requires an inspection of their hardware configuration.
All of the computers listed below are of the portable type unless otherwise noted.
- 1982
- Kaycomp I - The original Kaypro, was a demonstrator model shown mainly to prospective dealers. It had the same case as future models, but was painted green with two single sided floppy drives that were mounted vertically on opposite sides of the monitor like the Osborne I, its intended competition.
- Kaypro II - The first commercially released Kaypro, was an immediate success, dominating its competition, the Osborne I microcomputer. The Kaypro II had a 9 inch internal monitor instead of the Osborne's tiny 5 inch display, and single sided floppy drives. A redesigned version of the Kaypro II was released in 1984 that allowed block style graphics, and had half-height drives. This version of the Kaypro II had a version of Space Invaders along with the typical ASCII games.
- 1983
- Kaypro IV - An evolution of the Kaypro II, the Kaypro IV had two DS/DD drives (390 KB) and came with Wordstar in addition to the Perfect Suite of software.
- Kaypro 10 - The Kaypro 10 was one of the earliest computers to come standard with a hard drive. It came with a 10 megabyte internal hard drive and a single DS/DD floppy drive. All of the computers produced until then had been green or light grey or grey and blue, but the K10 was dark grey, almost black.
- 1984
- Kaypro 4 - The Kaypro 4 was virtually identical to the IV, but featured half-height drives instead of full height drives, a 4 MHz clock speed and had basic graphics capabilities. It also had an internal 300-baud modem.
- Kaypro 2X - The Kaypro 2X was similar to the Kaypro 4, but it lacked the built-in 300 baud modem that was available in the Kaypro 4. Kaypro 2X's were often sold in a bundle with the Wordstar word processing software suite, spreadsheet and database software. The impact printer that was also included in the bundle was labeled as the "Kaypro Printer", but was actually a re-branded Juki 6100 daisywheel printer.
- Kaypro Robie - The Kaypro Robie was the only CP/M based Kaypro to be non-portable. Designed as a desktop computer, it had the same motherboard as the Kaypro 4. It was also equipped with two 2.6 MB high density floppy drives and a 300 Baud modem. The floppy drives were notorious for failing as they literally scraped the media off of the disk substrate, leaving many customers with drives which they could not read. The Robie was jet black, with the drives mounted above the screen, and the front panel angled upward. The Robie did not sell well, but it did make periodic cameo appearances on the ABC television series Moonlighting
Moonlighting is an American television series that aired on ABC from March 3, 1985, to May 14, 1989. The network aired a total of 66 episodes...
, as the desktop computer used by Bruce WillisWalter Bruce Willis , better known as Bruce Willis, is an American actor, producer, and musician. His career began in television in the 1980s and has continued both in television and film since, including comedic, dramatic, and action roles...
' character David Addison. Due to its black color, the fact that it sat upright and looked like a helmet, and its handle mounted on the top, it was nicknamed "Darth Vader's lunchbox."
- 1985
- Kaypro "New" 2 - A scaled-down Kaypro 2X for the budget buyer, came with minimal software, and did not feature the internal modem.
- Kaypro 4+88 - A dual system computer, the 4+88 was equipped with both an 8088
The Intel 8088 microprocessor was a variant of the Intel 8086 and was introduced on July 1, 1979. It had an 8-bit external data bus instead of the 16-bit bus of the 8086. The 16-bit registers and the one megabyte address range were unchanged, however...
processor and a Z80, and was capable of running both the MS-DOS and CP/M operating systems. It came with 256 KB of RAM for the MS-DOS operating system that could double as a RAM diskA RAM disk or RAM drive is a block of RAM that a computer's software is treating as if the memory were a disk drive...
for CP/M.
- Kaypro 16 - Very similar in appearance to the Kaypro 10, the Kaypro's 16's main difference was that it had an 8088 processor and 256 KB of RAM and ran on the MS-DOS operating system instead of CP/M. The Kaypro 16/2e came with Dos 3.3, 2 5.25" 360k Floppy Drives and 768K Ram.
- Kaypro 2000 - Kaypro's first and only laptop, it was an MS-DOS machine that ran on heavy lead-acid batteries. Strikingly similar in basic appearance to a modern laptop, it featured a detachable keyboard, rugged brushed aluminum casing and a pop-up 3.5 inch floppy drive. In what seems to have been a recurring comparison, it has been called "Darth Vader's laptop".
- Kaypro PC - Late on the PC market, the Kaypro PC was intended as a competitor to the IBM PC-XT desktop machine. Running at a faster clock speed than IBM's machine, it was available with a larger hard drive than that offered by IBM and an extensive software package. It featured the motherboard on a bus card, which, like the Zenith Z-series machines, promised upgradability.
-
- Kaypro 286i - A 6 MHz 286 desktop, it was the first IBM PC/AT compatible, with dual 1.2 MB floppy drives standard and an extensive software package but no MS-DOS 3.0, which had not yet been released, requiring the user to purchase PC-DOS 3.0 from IBM.
- 1986
- Kaypro 1 - The Kaypro 1 was the last CP/M model Kaypro introduced. In most ways, it was simply a Kaypro 2X with a smaller software package. It is distinctive from earlier Kaypro models because of its vertically oriented disk drives.
- 1987
- Kaypro 386 - A 20 MHz 386 desktop, with an extensive software package. It featured the motherboard on a bus card.
In popular culture
Arthur C. ClarkeSir Arthur Charles Clarke, CBE, FRAS was a British science fiction author, inventor, and futurist, famous for his short stories and novels, among them 2001: A Space Odyssey, and as a host and commentator in the British television series Mysterious World. For many years, Robert A. Heinlein,...
used a Kaypro II to write and collaboratively edit (via modem) his 1982 novel
2010: Odyssey Two2010: Odyssey Two is a 1982 best-selling science fiction novel by Arthur C. Clarke. It is the sequel to the 1968 novel 2001: A Space Odyssey, but continues the story of Stanley Kubrick's film adaptation with the same title and not Clarke's original novel. The book is a part of Clarke's...
A refurbished Kaypro (of unspecified model type) is featured in the 2004
Tom WolfeThomas Kennerly "Tom" Wolfe, Jr. is a best-selling American author and journalist. He is one of the founders of the New Journalism movement of the 1960s and 1970s.-Early life and education:...
novel,
I Am Charlotte SimmonsI Am Charlotte Simmons is a 2004 novel by Tom Wolfe, concerning sexual and status relationships at the fictional Dupont University, closely modeled after Duke University, the University of Pennsylvania and Stanford University...
.
Peggy Hill from
King of the HillKing of the Hill is an American animated dramedy series created by Mike Judge and Greg Daniels, that ran from January 12, 1997, to May 6, 2010, on Fox network. It centers on the Hills, a working-class Methodist family in the fictional small town of Arlen, Texas...
possessed a Kaypro computer until the year 2000.
External links