The Last of the CP/M Kaypros - Kaypro 1 (1986)

Due to the generosity of a fellow member of the Vintage Computer Forum, I recently re-homed a Kaypro Model 1 computer from 1986.  Despite its numerical sequence the Kaypro 1 (1986) is the last of the line of Kaypro CP/M machines that started out with the Kaypro II in 1982.

I also have acquired and restored a Kaypro 2X (1984) machine which I've previously blogged about.  This machine is still in my collection.  That experience lead me to feel pretty comfortable tackling another Kaypro project.  The previous owner of the machine let me know ahead of time about issues with the machine, but there was really only one problem, the A drive was intermittent and the machine wouldn't boot any more.  I'd experienced this exact same symptom with the other Kaypro.

It's important to get the Kaypro back to a state where it can make bootable copies of its own floppies.  Especially since this newer Kaypro has a newer ROM that requires slightly different version of CP/M (2.2U1) and it wouldn't boot off the disks that I'd made last time for my other Kaypro (2.2G).  Step one of the repair was to get the two drives out and inspect them.  The inside of this machine was clean.  The floppy disks both looked good the heads could move freely and the direct drive spindle motors were spinning freely.  There was noting obvious wrong, so I cleaned the heads and swapped the A and B drives around.  Swapping A and B on a CP/M machine requires both changing jumpers and moving the termination resistor pack on the drives.  Now the A drive was the drive with much lower hours on it.

It worked!  The Kaypro 1 booted the first time after swapping the drives, always a good feeling to get another machine booting again.  And this enabled me to do a bit more troubleshooting on the bad drive (formerly known as the A drive).  I used the COPY utility to copy the Boot & Extra Utilities disk over to the B drive.  The copy operation is slow on these machines but it went all the way to the end and then failed when it go to the boot sector (track zero on the drive for CP/M).  I had another 360K floppy already serviced and ready to go so I decided to use that instead of doing further troubleshooting on the faulty drive.  The drive formerly known as A will go into storage for a future repair.

For now, the replacement TEAC drive is working well as the A drive and the old Kaypro drive is back as the B drive once again.  I got all the jumpers and termination setup correctly and the Kaypro 1 is able to make its own boot disks once again...

This machine came with some cool accessories including a canvas carrying bag a desktop stand and ALOT of software on floppy disks (over 100 disks).  The next order of business for me on this project is to go through and try to figure out what software I've got...

This software is quite an exciting addition to the collection since previously I've only had a handful of disks of the software I was able to find on the Internet.  Thanks again to the previous owner of this system for sending it along, I know it will bring alot more hours of enjoyment.