I’m 39 and I really hope the younger generations take the time to appreciate things like this and understand how computers work. It’s so useful to not only know how to use technology on the front end, but also what’s happening behind the scenes. There was a time where you needed to have a basic understanding of both sides to use a computer. Troubleshooting tech and those types of problem solving skills are so insanely valuable IMO.
I worked with a fellow who in the early 1980s wrote a book on the Kaypro. He printed to a daisy wheel printer. A chapter would take overnight to print keeping his family awake. Whack! Whack! Whack! Whack! LOL. (RIP Bill L.)
Back in the day, we used Kermit, which seemed to be available for anything, and hook different machines together by serial cable sand send files from one to another using Kermit. Which got around incompatible disk drives.
Back in the 80’s I had a side gig that I would call “Folding floppies”. What I was doing was taking the 8” floppies and coping to the customers 5 1/4 “disks. There were a few different versions of 5 ¼” disk formats out there at the time, as you can see, by this video. The trick was to send a version of X-Copy receive only (as it was smaller) to the host machine and then send the full version of X-Copy to do the actual transfers. This was all done over the serial connections. What took the time was to work out the serial port set up for the host machine.
Fun fact (if noone has mentioned it already) is that the RIFA capacitors are made by a Swedish company. It's name is Radio Industriernas Fabrikations Aktiebolag which translates to the Radio Industries Manufacturing Company.
Aktiebolag, most common languages I can usually figure out the gist because they are usually sharing similar words, but that word does not tie in 😂 if you don't mind me asking, what does it translate to in English? Edit----from my astonishingly powerful abilities of deduction I've figured out it is the "company" part of the translation but I was asking for more information, just to make my vague question more sensical 😅
The blinking prompt on disk activity is something I haven't ever seen before, and I'm surprised it never took hold. That's actually a really good unobtrusive way to show that, and I wish it was still around.
Wow.. I had this exact same model! Bought it in Port Isabel, Texas in '83 (well, my dad bought it for me). Also had a Telex TTX-1014 daisy wheel printer and a Hayes 300 baud smartmodem connected to it. I also had a fake-leather soft carrying case for it. I remember I always routed the keyboard cable straight back and under the back corner of the case, then directly up to the port. Played games like Ladder (an ascii copy of Donkey Kong), Star Trader (a kind of space trading game), CatChum (Pac Man copy). Did a LOT of grade-school and high-school reports on WordStar. I wish I still had some of the old floppies.
I was under the impression that the RIFAs were safety capacitors that were required. After you mentioned deleting them as they were really noise filtering, I found an article on allaboutcircuits from 2019 that explains the X and Y safety caps. If you eliminate them then you've eliminated the safety risk that a standard capacitor might create. Interesting reading and thanks for pointing out that they are not necessary.
I would say they're often not needed for the operation of the device that has them. However, they are not only there to protect the device from external noise, but in a device with a switching power supply, they also act to significantly reduce the conducted noise put back onto the mains and also transmitted noise radiated from connected cables.
Dude, your videos really are so enjoyable and fun. It truly improves my day and I am able to take my mind off of how rough things are. I think a lot of my favorite channels truly underestimate their value as how much they are enjoyed for such a bigger reason than just great fun and informational. But you deserve another level of gratitude for how much it's relaxing and straight up enjoyable. I know I'm not the only one who sees it like that. Please keep doing what you do and thank you for being you! 😊🌎❤️🕺🏻🖥️
9:30 Kaypro had animated prompts. I repeat, it had animated prompts! I want that. For bash. On Linux. I only ever touched a CP/M only box in the 90's and it was an Osborne afair.
I believe zsh can be made to do that! I like fish myself though, even though you can duplicate everything fish does in zsh the defaults are so sensible and its way of browsing command history is so easy
I lioved the Kaypro!!! What a fantastic lugable! In college I was the first in my dorm to have a personal computer and I used it for both wordprocessing (WordStar for the win!) and as a smart terminal connected to the Vaxen in our Computer Science lab via its internal modem. I worked for a Kaypro dealer and at one point you could turn the lower priced half height dual single sided drives into dual sided by sinply moving a jumper on each drive... :) Best...
I love when new or old stuff has "Simple" "Hacks" to improve/unlock features or performance. Just sucks that most stuff these days are locked down in hardware so even if the features and capability is there, the chip (and/or circuits running it) are designed not to allow (easy) tampering to get more out of what you paid for.
@@meredithunitA VAX is a mainframe by DEC. Colloquially VAXen would be plural for multiple VAX mainframes, as geeks we like to play around with language, so ox and oxen, but box and boxes, because one is animate while the other isn't, therefore as a joke we refer to computer servers as boxen as they are "live" ergo animate boxes, and therefore similarly vax and vaxen. Ah, old school nerd humor.
C'mon. Replacement caps are like 1 buck a piece for shiny new ceramic X or Y types. Replace them, if not for your own sake, do it for the people who live around you. RFI sucks and it's just nice to have the system all complete like it should be. If you don't mind the smell of your own farts in your office cubicle, it doesn't mean that people around you won't be bothered by it.
(I wrote a college term paper on a KayPro. Beautifully sharp screen; very easy on the eyes.) CP/M world-view is "computer connected to terminal via serial port". So where's the KeyPro's terminal? It's emulated on the motherboard. Specifically, it emulates an ADM-3A.
i will give you a hint for the hitch hikers game... you need to take pain killers to get rid of the hangover to get out of the room, and you only have a certain number of turns.
I always thought those Kaypro's looked like serious business with that simple, industrial looking metal case and the logo font. It has a hint of 70s about it while being from the 80s.
Those Z80 I/o chips were excellent. They worked with the processor to give hardware vectoring of interrupts, with prioritization, which meant you could do a lot of efficient interrupt driven I/o with a Z80 based system. Don't people know this? It's one of the stand out features of the processor
I can probably remember how to play Infocom's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy up to the point where the Vogons toss the 2 of you out an airlock & wake up in the Heart of Gold. The Babel Fish scene is rather complex.
Keyboard connector: Plastic tends to get brittle over time. And especially something like the keyboard connector that gets a good amount of stress, it can break easily. The good news is that DigiKey sells replacement connectors that work and fit just fine. I replaced the connectors on my 4/83 and 4/84 systems.
Wordstar had a programming macro language built-in to the system. You could change whatever key sequence you wanted to something else. I wrote a bunch of modifications to Wordstar to support an old colour dot-matrix printer that I had for my Apple ii clone. The macros worked perfectly.
to this day i thought that you all talk about reefer caps but after seeing the logo here and you explaining that its just the brand i finally understand you actually mean rifa
Those RIFA caps always amuse me for some reason. They were manufactured in the town where I live, and I'm friends with one of the men from the design team for those caps, lol.
Don Maslin was the "go to" guy for archiving disk CPM OS disks back in the day. Sadly he has passed on, but much of his efforts is still available online.
I think my brother got CP/M disks from him in the mid 90s, when we ended up with Osborne 1 and Kaypro at a university surplus auction. They both worked, and were interesting excursion into CP/M, which was already retro at that point.
I had the Amstrad CPC 6128, it's CP/M+ looked exactly like what you show. I also had all the infogram games. And the drive as well, a single-sided Shugart 440K 5.25" drive. Brings back memorie.
You mean the Kaypro 4 '84 with the built in 300baud modem and half height 5 1/4" floppy drives! I have one of these that I bought while in college and still have it along with all the floppies and books. I also have a number of language compilers for it. At one point, I had upgraded to an external 1200baud modem, then eventually a 9600baud.
It's great to see a Kaypro. I grew up with a Kaypro 16 DOS machine. I have been searching everywhere for one, but I don't think they were very popular.
We had a Kaypro II when I was a kid. That Nemesis game was my favorite when I was 6 or so, be careful of footpads. Did you try to lay down in front of the bulldozer in Hitchhiker’s?
While sometimes its nice to see people fixing various issues with old stuff, sometimes its also nice when something just need little to no fixes and it just WORKS Thanks for another interesting video buds, while the Kaypro might not be a choice gaming machine, I know it did at least end up in peoples homes and offices and some viewers are probably going to have history with it.
What a tank of a machine! It's just a shame that keyboard connector isn't as tank-like as the rest of the machine. I'm guessing it took a hit sometime in the past and didn't quite break completely, then age and being moved around and used finally cracked it the rest of the way. Good to see it fixed up and working though. I'm pretty sure I would've hated CP/M if I ever had to use it back in the day. It's just different enough from MS-DOS and slightly more convoluted to use that it would've frustrated the hell out of me.
This is so cool. Takes me back to college, when I used an Osborne 1 that my parents gave me when they boughtg the upgraded Osborne Executive, and then I used a Kaypro when the Ozzie's floppy drive failed. WordStar was my first word processor and to my mind was one of the best in terms of being inutitive and providing good results.
You have to take the tablet (in pocket of dressing gown) to cure your hangover before you do anything else. Collect everything including the mail and then go out.
I loved the way Kaypros looked. I'm almost 100% positive Ricky Schroder had a Kaypro set up in the living room at some point on Silver Spoons, but google is failing me to finding any reference or picture of it.
The computer I had growing up was a Kaypro IV. My mom and dad played Infocom text adventures on it religiously. We had many, including Spellbinder, Wishbringer, Zork, and Hitchhiker’s. I remember paging through the manuals and cluebooks when they’d pick up a new one, back in the 80s. The clue books had some kind of magic marker you had to use to see the solutions. I can say with 100% confidence that this game worked just fine out of the box on a Kaypro IV.
Noise without those caps CAN disrupt other devices plugged in to the same outlet\strip. Such as printers(including one HP laserjet from the mid 1990's), external floppy power supplies, external CD-ROM drives, MODEMS, early wired networks(close cabling).
Actually if you want a nice easy to use CP/M machine, all MSX machines with a disk drive have MSX-DOS which is CP/M 2.2 compatible. Uses FAT12 instead of CP/M FS and most use 3.5" floppies. The original MSX standard is only 40 columns, so be sure to look for a MSX2 or 2+
21:14 - 0 (zero) is not related to root:root as in Unix/Linux? Because actually users and groups ID started with 0 which is root and grow up from there to include system users and groups as well.
I am an archaeologist and the teams i worked with used Kaypros. I think we had two and then a Kaypro IV arrived. They were luggable and indestructible ! That was their virtue. I used one in Syria, transported from Melbourne Australia to northern Syria. As a CPM machine they used Wordstar and Lotus 123 which was fine for my work. In Syria they used some sort of specialist surveyors software. It all worked like a charm. But as I recall the PC's started to arrive in the early to mid 1980's and took over - more as status symbols as Kaypros were more usable,
Would love to find a Cordata Luggable (5 inch green screen - seriously sharp!), had one years ago but it kept breaking down and I didn't know enough (back then) to fix it, would love another one now... Love this Kaypro though, next best thing in my book Like the Cordata - seriously sharp screen. Thanks for sharing this and keeping these old machines alive.
This video saved my bacon! Had a Rifa cap blow on me on my own kaypro 4 a couple of weeks ago; I found the cap in the power supply but was too scared to look for a replacement. Knowing they aren't even needed is a relief. Thanks!
Do you have the Joo Jenta 200 Super Chromatic Peril Sensitive Sunglasses with your copy of Hitch Hikers? That will help you at least not notice when you die!
personally i would replace the RIFAs(with non RIFAs 😉) they dont only reduce interference from the machine to mains, but keep down spikes coming from the mains which can cause rectifier shorting failure
I just got one of these from Ebay with drive B replaced with a Gotek drive. It came with a USB stick and I can access it fine. Could you do a video or provide me more information on how to get programs and load them on the USB in the proper format to use with the Kaypro?
cool stuff... if you need a idea for a video, then i would love to se and hear about you'r floppy writing setup.... tools and hardware ... would be cool....
Haha kind of the same for me. Born in 84 and always had computers in our house. Found a Vic20 in the garage when I was 11-12, read the manual and played around with it. Not interested in doing this myself, but it’s awesome and interesting seeing someone doing it today and all the hoops they have to jump through to make it functional.
@@heyjustj This has been a core male trait for thousands of years, when somebody is working on something, men will gather around, nod, all agree "yep the damn things busted" and marvel at the workings of another man.
Interessantes Video. Propofol kam bei mir zuletzt bei einer Magenspiegelung bei Ulcus Duodeni zum einsatz. Ich habe die ganze Nacht vor schmerzen nicht schlafen können, nach dem Aufwachen, nach dem Eingriff habe ich mich gefühlt als wenn ich Stunden lang geschlafen habe und war mehr als ausgeschlafen. Mich würde interessieren, auf welchen Effekt von Propofol dies zurückzuführen ist?
Shelby, did you use a 360K drive to write those floppies? I am having difficulties creating my own floppies for the Kaypro IV with my Greaseweazle. Thanks!
Yes, you are much better off using a 40 track drive to write disks for another 40 track drive because the head on these are wider than an 80 track drive. The IV I have used Tandon TM100-2A's which are the same drives as an IBM PC. It should be possible for you to connect them to your greaseweazle if you don't have any other 40 track drives.
The title says IV; computer says 4; the note at the botom at 1:43 says IV; and at 3:27 "IV" is crossed out at the background, leaving the 4. I'm confused.
The Kaypro IV only exists in Kaypro marketing and the start screen/labels from the early Kaypro disks for the 4. The machines themselves were never released as a IV. They just didn't update the early software.
Regarding the RIFA / X-Capacitors: While they were used as filter caps here, there are legitimate uses where you definitely need them. X- and X2-capacitors are designed to be between line and neutral, there are also Y-capacitors which are connected from line/neutral to earth. They are built to withstand overvoltages and "heal" themselves without creating a short - which they do unless they are 30years+ and yellowed like those you showed. The thing to keep in mind is the "capacitor- power supply" used in many appliances with either low wattage or used as standby supply. There the X2 is used like a series resistor to drop voltage directly from the AC plug towards a zener-stabilized DC power supply. There you definitely need to keep them in or replace them 🙂
Given neutral is connected to earth (with busbars, in the breaker box) in the UK, I wonder if there’s anything which still has Y caps sold here (presumably multi-region devices would).
Don't turn it on... take it APART! (no, really - take it apart first - that rattling noise could very well be something conductive and you don't want to get shocked ⚡ ).
There was a Kaypro II edition of HHGTTG. How do I know? Because I bought it, Zork, and Planetfall all for it. Collossal caves, however, I got on 8" IBM, and the store nicely enough copied it over to kaypro format. Wordstar, dad got with the Kaypro as a bundle in. Along with Perfect Writer, Perfect Calc, Microsoft Basic (Old and new), S-Basic (a compiled basic), Catchum, and Ladder.
I’m 39 and I really hope the younger generations take the time to appreciate things like this and understand how computers work. It’s so useful to not only know how to use technology on the front end, but also what’s happening behind the scenes. There was a time where you needed to have a basic understanding of both sides to use a computer. Troubleshooting tech and those types of problem solving skills are so insanely valuable IMO.
I'm 23, and I agree ✨
Your Kaypro IV has Kaypro 4 written all over it
That's what I was thinking
It’s a IV. The floppy drives and display are a giveaway. I assume at some point in its life it must have had the outer shell replaced.
I worked with a fellow who in the early 1980s wrote a book on the Kaypro. He printed to a daisy wheel printer. A chapter would take overnight to print keeping his family awake. Whack! Whack! Whack! Whack! LOL. (RIP Bill L.)
That would have been one of those nights his wife would have made him sleep on the couch, but in the end it was all worth it lol.
Back in the day, we used Kermit, which seemed to be available for anything, and hook different machines together by serial cable sand send files from one to another using Kermit. Which got around incompatible disk drives.
The Kaypro emulates the Lear-Siegler ADM-3A.
Back in the 80’s I had a side gig that I would call “Folding floppies”. What I was doing was taking the 8” floppies and coping to the customers 5 1/4 “disks. There were a few different versions of 5 ¼” disk formats out there at the time, as you can see, by this video.
The trick was to send a version of X-Copy receive only (as it was smaller) to the host machine and then send the full version of X-Copy to do the actual transfers. This was all done over the serial connections. What took the time was to work out the serial port set up for the host machine.
Fun fact (if noone has mentioned it already) is that the RIFA capacitors are made by a Swedish company.
It's name is Radio Industriernas Fabrikations Aktiebolag which translates to the Radio Industries Manufacturing Company.
Aktiebolag, most common languages I can usually figure out the gist because they are usually sharing similar words, but that word does not tie in 😂 if you don't mind me asking, what does it translate to in English? Edit----from my astonishingly powerful abilities of deduction I've figured out it is the "company" part of the translation but I was asking for more information, just to make my vague question more sensical 😅
@@wilfredpayne433 aktiebolag = a limited company in english, such as "Company Ltd." :)
That fact was not fun at all you liar.
@@wilfredpayne433 Simple Google search: Aktie = Share/stock and Bolag = Company.
@@wilfredpayne433it's the company type, in english it would be Ltd or PLC
The blinking prompt on disk activity is something I haven't ever seen before, and I'm surprised it never took hold. That's actually a really good unobtrusive way to show that, and I wish it was still around.
Wow.. I had this exact same model! Bought it in Port Isabel, Texas in '83 (well, my dad bought it for me). Also had a Telex TTX-1014 daisy wheel printer and a Hayes 300 baud smartmodem connected to it. I also had a fake-leather soft carrying case for it. I remember I always routed the keyboard cable straight back and under the back corner of the case, then directly up to the port. Played games like Ladder (an ascii copy of Donkey Kong), Star Trader (a kind of space trading game), CatChum (Pac Man copy). Did a LOT of grade-school and high-school reports on WordStar. I wish I still had some of the old floppies.
A Hayes? Your dad must have been rich. I could only afford an Anchor Signalman.
I was under the impression that the RIFAs were safety capacitors that were required. After you mentioned deleting them as they were really noise filtering, I found an article on allaboutcircuits from 2019 that explains the X and Y safety caps. If you eliminate them then you've eliminated the safety risk that a standard capacitor might create. Interesting reading and thanks for pointing out that they are not necessary.
I would say they're often not needed for the operation of the device that has them. However, they are not only there to protect the device from external noise, but in a device with a switching power supply, they also act to significantly reduce the conducted noise put back onto the mains and also transmitted noise radiated from connected cables.
Yep, the safety is versus a regular cap rather than versus none cap :)
Dude, your videos really are so enjoyable and fun. It truly improves my day and I am able to take my mind off of how rough things are. I think a lot of my favorite channels truly underestimate their value as how much they are enjoyed for such a bigger reason than just great fun and informational. But you deserve another level of gratitude for how much it's relaxing and straight up enjoyable. I know I'm not the only one who sees it like that. Please keep doing what you do and thank you for being you! 😊🌎❤️🕺🏻🖥️
9:30 Kaypro had animated prompts.
I repeat, it had animated prompts!
I want that. For bash. On Linux.
I only ever touched a CP/M only box in the 90's and it was an Osborne afair.
Why mention Linsux. You want it for bash. The OS is irrelevant.
@@bradallen8909 are you ok, are you having a stroke or something?
I believe zsh can be made to do that!
I like fish myself though, even though you can duplicate everything fish does in zsh the defaults are so sensible and its way of browsing command history is so easy
I lioved the Kaypro!!! What a fantastic lugable! In college I was the first in my dorm to have a personal computer and I used it for both wordprocessing (WordStar for the win!) and as a smart terminal connected to the Vaxen in our Computer Science lab via its internal modem. I worked for a Kaypro dealer and at one point you could turn the lower priced half height dual single sided drives into dual sided by sinply moving a jumper on each drive... :) Best...
I love when new or old stuff has "Simple" "Hacks" to improve/unlock features or performance. Just sucks that most stuff these days are locked down in hardware so even if the features and capability is there, the chip (and/or circuits running it) are designed not to allow (easy) tampering to get more out of what you paid for.
Yes, the Kaypro was my Resume machine when I move back to Seattle from Yakama.
That’s so fun and cool!! I don’t even know what a Vaxen is, what’s a Vaxen?
@@meredithunitA VAX is a mainframe by DEC. Colloquially VAXen would be plural for multiple VAX mainframes, as geeks we like to play around with language, so ox and oxen, but box and boxes, because one is animate while the other isn't, therefore as a joke we refer to computer servers as boxen as they are "live" ergo animate boxes, and therefore similarly vax and vaxen. Ah, old school nerd humor.
@@martinlebl631 oh 😂 that’s clever, okay cool
Filter caps, while not critical, are still good to have. You should replace them with modern equivalents.
6:00 Rifa madness!!!!
did I just see an awesome rubbery effect on your desktop?! I haven't seen that stuff since old ubuntu/gnome 2!
Yes, you can turn on this effect on KDE/Plasma desktop.
The Peggy Hill computer , KOTH has made me always want one.
I am all IV this video - I mean all 4 this video - I mean all four this video - I mean all for this video.
C'mon. Replacement caps are like 1 buck a piece for shiny new ceramic X or Y types. Replace them, if not for your own sake, do it for the people who live around you. RFI sucks and it's just nice to have the system all complete like it should be.
If you don't mind the smell of your own farts in your office cubicle, it doesn't mean that people around you won't be bothered by it.
(I wrote a college term paper on a KayPro. Beautifully sharp screen; very easy on the eyes.)
CP/M world-view is "computer connected to terminal via serial port". So where's the KeyPro's terminal? It's emulated on the motherboard. Specifically, it emulates an ADM-3A.
i will give you a hint for the hitch hikers game... you need to take pain killers to get rid of the hangover to get out of the room, and you only have a certain number of turns.
19:21 Kwin wobbly windows caught me off guard.
I always thought those Kaypro's looked like serious business with that simple, industrial looking metal case and the logo font. It has a hint of 70s about it while being from the 80s.
Very cool video, as are all your videos. We'll done.
its cool how it still works cuz it started in 1892
Those Z80 I/o chips were excellent. They worked with the processor to give hardware vectoring of interrupts, with prioritization, which meant you could do a lot of efficient interrupt driven I/o with a Z80 based system. Don't people know this? It's one of the stand out features of the processor
I can probably remember how to play Infocom's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy up to the point where the Vogons toss the 2 of you out an airlock & wake up in the Heart of Gold. The Babel Fish scene is rather complex.
Yes it works perfectly fine without those caps. Yes it's just sloppy work not installing them. They cost peanuts.
Keyboard connector: Plastic tends to get brittle over time. And especially something like the keyboard connector that gets a good amount of stress, it can break easily. The good news is that DigiKey sells replacement connectors that work and fit just fine. I replaced the connectors on my 4/83 and 4/84 systems.
This Kaypro might be old, but quite good for business work.
Wordstar had a programming macro language built-in to the system. You could change whatever key sequence you wanted to something else.
I wrote a bunch of modifications to Wordstar to support an old colour dot-matrix printer that I had for my Apple ii clone. The macros worked perfectly.
that is pretty damn cool and useful
Makes me think of how customisable Emacs is
The clarity on that monitor is shockingly good
to this day i thought that you all talk about reefer caps but after seeing the logo here and you explaining that its just the brand i finally understand you actually mean rifa
I'm a simple man, I see Shelby and I instantly hit like! Keep up the awesome content and I'll keep tuning in
Shelby is the coolest
Those RIFA caps always amuse me for some reason. They were manufactured in the town where I live, and I'm friends with one of the men from the design team for those caps, lol.
Don Maslin was the "go to" guy for archiving disk CPM OS disks back in the day. Sadly he has passed on, but much of his efforts is still available online.
I think my brother got CP/M disks from him in the mid 90s, when we ended up with Osborne 1 and Kaypro at a university surplus auction. They both worked, and were interesting excursion into CP/M, which was already retro at that point.
I had the Amstrad CPC 6128, it's CP/M+ looked exactly like what you show. I also had all the infogram games. And the drive as well, a single-sided Shugart 440K 5.25" drive. Brings back memorie.
Did you take the aspirin. You have a hangover and you have to take the aspirin to get out of the bedroom.
He mentioned it is “more usable”. I ask, usable for what these days?
More of that CP/M stuff please ;-)
Oh hey, a Kaypro 4. Not to be confused with the Kaypro IV
You mean the Kaypro 4 '84 with the built in 300baud modem and half height 5 1/4" floppy drives! I have one of these that I bought while in college and still have it along with all the floppies and books. I also have a number of language compilers for it. At one point, I had upgraded to an external 1200baud modem, then eventually a 9600baud.
And yet, after that opening, I’m even more confused why the disk definition and video thumbnail say IV rather than 4! Haha
It's great to see a Kaypro. I grew up with a Kaypro 16 DOS machine. I have been searching everywhere for one, but I don't think they were very popular.
"RFI Caps are not needed" Oh Boy....I have the suspicion all hell will break loose here in the comment section. 😆
Rightfully so.
Kaypro? That things not even y1k compliant
We had a Kaypro II when I was a kid. That Nemesis game was my favorite when I was 6 or so, be careful of footpads. Did you try to lay down in front of the bulldozer in Hitchhiker’s?
Dude I'm so glad I found your channel. You and your work are amazing!
While sometimes its nice to see people fixing various issues with old stuff, sometimes its also nice when something just need little to no fixes and it just WORKS
Thanks for another interesting video buds, while the Kaypro might not be a choice gaming machine, I know it did at least end up in peoples homes and offices and some viewers are probably going to have history with it.
Peggy Hill thanks you for fixing her system. lol jk
I have the same cleaning swabs. Did you get those because of Adam Savage's video too?
IV, 4, Four, Fore, for, hoar, lore, swore, door, more,... ✍
He said there were IV screws on each side.
Door... Hodoor 😂
LOVE this channel.
What a tank of a machine! It's just a shame that keyboard connector isn't as tank-like as the rest of the machine. I'm guessing it took a hit sometime in the past and didn't quite break completely, then age and being moved around and used finally cracked it the rest of the way. Good to see it fixed up and working though. I'm pretty sure I would've hated CP/M if I ever had to use it back in the day. It's just different enough from MS-DOS and slightly more convoluted to use that it would've frustrated the hell out of me.
Thank you for using a NON-powered real screwdriver to remove these screws. the electric screwdriver tends to badly damage this old equipment!
This is so cool. Takes me back to college, when I used an Osborne 1 that my parents gave me when they boughtg the upgraded Osborne Executive, and then I used a Kaypro when the Ozzie's floppy drive failed. WordStar was my first word processor and to my mind was one of the best in terms of being inutitive and providing good results.
Arthur C Clarke wrote his novel 2010 on a Kaypro II in the early 80s.
Super cool seeing one of these again . Magically whisked away to grade school again !
You have to take the tablet (in pocket of dressing gown) to cure your hangover before you do anything else. Collect everything including the mail and then go out.
I loved the way Kaypros looked. I'm almost 100% positive Ricky Schroder had a Kaypro set up in the living room at some point on Silver Spoons, but google is failing me to finding any reference or picture of it.
Swidden are world famous for 3 things! Smorgasboard, Greta and RIFA. Back in the day Swidden was world famous for Smorgasboard, ABBA and RIFA
The computer I had growing up was a Kaypro IV. My mom and dad played Infocom text adventures on it religiously. We had many, including Spellbinder, Wishbringer, Zork, and Hitchhiker’s. I remember paging through the manuals and cluebooks when they’d pick up a new one, back in the 80s. The clue books had some kind of magic marker you had to use to see the solutions. I can say with 100% confidence that this game worked just fine out of the box on a Kaypro IV.
Nice history lesson about those terminals and their lack of standards until a single dominating player came about in the vt100
Noise without those caps CAN disrupt other devices plugged in to the same outlet\strip. Such as printers(including one HP laserjet from the mid 1990's), external floppy power supplies, external CD-ROM drives, MODEMS, early wired networks(close cabling).
Lear-Siegler ADM-3A terminal - This is out of the Kaypro 10 User's Guide.
Actually if you want a nice easy to use CP/M machine, all MSX machines with a disk drive have MSX-DOS which is CP/M 2.2 compatible. Uses FAT12 instead of CP/M FS and most use 3.5" floppies. The original MSX standard is only 40 columns, so be sure to look for a MSX2 or 2+
21:14 - 0 (zero) is not related to root:root as in Unix/Linux? Because actually users and groups ID started with 0 which is root and grow up from there to include system users and groups as well.
Hi Shelby: question. Are the config file and cpm-tools parameters for the kpiv the same for a Kaypro 2?
I am an archaeologist and the teams i worked with used Kaypros. I think we had two and then a Kaypro IV arrived. They were luggable and indestructible ! That was their virtue. I used one in Syria, transported from Melbourne Australia to northern Syria. As a CPM machine they used Wordstar and Lotus 123 which was fine for my work. In Syria they used some sort of specialist surveyors software. It all worked like a charm. But as I recall the PC's started to arrive in the early to mid 1980's and took over - more as status symbols as Kaypros were more usable,
Kaypro 4 vs Kaypro IV can be distinguished by just calling the IV one "Fourth". (At least that's how I was taught to read roman numerals)
Despite reading the novel eight times, I'm constantly panicking 🥵 Also; we need to address that Mikko monitor. Seriously.
Would love to find a Cordata Luggable (5 inch green screen - seriously sharp!), had one years ago but it kept breaking down and I didn't know enough (back then) to fix it, would love another one now... Love this Kaypro though, next best thing in my book Like the Cordata - seriously sharp screen. Thanks for sharing this and keeping these old machines alive.
This video saved my bacon! Had a Rifa cap blow on me on my own kaypro 4 a couple of weeks ago; I found the cap in the power supply but was too scared to look for a replacement. Knowing they aren't even needed is a relief. Thanks!
Do you have the Joo Jenta 200 Super Chromatic Peril Sensitive Sunglasses with your copy of Hitch Hikers? That will help you at least not notice when you die!
personally i would replace the RIFAs(with non RIFAs 😉) they dont only reduce interference from the machine to mains, but keep down spikes coming from the mains which can cause rectifier shorting failure
Won't those capacitors help with preventing the random CRT zap back to the PSU? I thought that could kill these old things.
Does anybody remember when Peggy Hill owned a Kaypro?
P.S. I miss Mike Judge
OK, it's the Kaypro IV, not to be confused with the Kaypro 4, yet has a big fat numeral 4, not IV, on the side.
What are you talking about?! Unix can also port map, and so can DOS to a certain extent... CP/M was not the only OS to be able to do this...
I just got one of these from Ebay with drive B replaced with a Gotek drive. It came with a USB stick and I can access it fine. Could you do a video or provide me more information on how to get programs and load them on the USB in the proper format to use with the Kaypro?
cool stuff... if you need a idea for a video, then i would love to se and hear about you'r floppy writing setup.... tools and hardware ... would be cool....
Wasn’t WordStar copy-protected?? You also mention a lot of games and copy-protection on floppies was pretty standard then.
What Linux distro do you use? I know the DE is KDE Plasma, just curious.
...doesn’t George R. R. Martin still use WordStar to write his books?
The case on your Kaypro literally says 4 on it, but the title is IV? Am confuse.
I don't even like 80's computers, i'm just here to indulge in a man loving his hobby. Thank you for sharing that passion with the world!
Haha kind of the same for me. Born in 84 and always had computers in our house. Found a Vic20 in the garage when I was 11-12, read the manual and played around with it. Not interested in doing this myself, but it’s awesome and interesting seeing someone doing it today and all the hoops they have to jump through to make it functional.
@@heyjustj This has been a core male trait for thousands of years, when somebody is working on something, men will gather around, nod, all agree "yep the damn things busted" and marvel at the workings of another man.
4:20 -- Reminds me of the power LED of the Model 1 Sega Genesis 😆
Don't Muntz the Kaypro, just install new filter caps.
Interessantes Video. Propofol kam bei mir zuletzt bei einer Magenspiegelung bei Ulcus Duodeni zum einsatz. Ich habe die ganze Nacht vor schmerzen nicht schlafen können, nach dem Aufwachen, nach dem Eingriff habe ich mich gefühlt als wenn ich Stunden lang geschlafen habe und war mehr als ausgeschlafen. Mich würde interessieren, auf welchen Effekt von Propofol dies zurückzuführen ist?
those machines were portable alright... portable enough to slide to other side of the desk.
It's not Abandonware if you don't ever abandon it, thanks for sharing!
God that screen looks amazing like the day it was made.
I wonder if that was Peggy Hill's Kaypro
Shelby, did you use a 360K drive to write those floppies? I am having difficulties creating my own floppies for the Kaypro IV with my Greaseweazle. Thanks!
Yes, you are much better off using a 40 track drive to write disks for another 40 track drive because the head on these are wider than an 80 track drive. The IV I have used Tandon TM100-2A's which are the same drives as an IBM PC. It should be possible for you to connect them to your greaseweazle if you don't have any other 40 track drives.
23:52 That is some bizarre transparent hand stuff going on.
KDE is awesome :)
The title says IV; computer says 4; the note at the botom at 1:43 says IV; and at 3:27 "IV" is crossed out at the background, leaving the 4. I'm confused.
The Kaypro IV only exists in Kaypro marketing and the start screen/labels from the early Kaypro disks for the 4. The machines themselves were never released as a IV. They just didn't update the early software.
Best channel on RUclips.
Regarding the RIFA / X-Capacitors: While they were used as filter caps here, there are legitimate uses where you definitely need them.
X- and X2-capacitors are designed to be between line and neutral, there are also Y-capacitors which are connected from line/neutral to earth. They are built to withstand overvoltages and "heal" themselves without creating a short - which they do unless they are 30years+ and yellowed like those you showed.
The thing to keep in mind is the "capacitor- power supply" used in many appliances with either low wattage or used as standby supply. There the X2 is used like a series resistor to drop voltage directly from the AC plug towards a zener-stabilized DC power supply. There you definitely need to keep them in or replace them 🙂
Given neutral is connected to earth (with busbars, in the breaker box) in the UK, I wonder if there’s anything which still has Y caps sold here (presumably multi-region devices would).
Don't turn it on... take it APART! (no, really - take it apart first - that rattling noise could very well be something conductive and you don't want to get shocked ⚡ ).
OK, in this case it was just some loose stickers... but the principle still applies. 😉
1983 and all so complicated. I admire your knowledge and fascination with the hardware and software of the time.
so its the kaypro IV and not 4 yet is says Kaypro 4 on the side?
makes sense.
There was a Kaypro II edition of HHGTTG. How do I know? Because I bought it, Zork, and Planetfall all for it. Collossal caves, however, I got on 8" IBM, and the store nicely enough copied it over to kaypro format.
Wordstar, dad got with the Kaypro as a bundle in. Along with Perfect Writer, Perfect Calc, Microsoft Basic (Old and new), S-Basic (a compiled basic), Catchum, and Ladder.