This mini forum is intended to provide a simple means of discussion about the Kaypro Kaypro II computer. If you want to share your own experience or memories, or add relevant information about this system: post a message!

I worked tech support for the original Kaypro II and the Kaypro 10 as my first job out of high school. I took calls from Peter Hyams helping him send files by modem to and from Sri Lanka, and from William F. Buckley Jr. trying to format his printing in Perfect Writer.

I was a freelance writer when I bought my Kaypro II about 1984 from 47th St. Photo in NYC. My productivity increased dramatically. Simple and rugged $ it was modelled as the VW of computers. Kaypro encouraged people to fix their units themselves (a la Compuserve) I remember the text on my monitor was distorted. I called California, got the service tech who told me it was an easy fix. He stayed on the line as I removed the cover and found the plastic adjustment tool (included) for the tuning pots. Just as I was about to $ the tool into one of the pots the tech warned me: "Be careful. The power source is right there. Don''t touch it." Too late! I had a silver bracelet that glanced against the power source. The next thing I know I''m on the ground across the room. There''s the smell of burnt hair in the room. I can hear the voice of the tech on the phone. He must of surmised what had happened: "I told you to watch it." Love that old machine.

Hello, I have an old Kaypro that I have not used for years and is sitting in a closet. I believe it''s the II model because it has two slots for floppy disks. It worked well up until the time I replaced it with an updated computer. I have all the disks for the programs, plus some extras. I also have all the books that go with the programs. I would love to sell this to someone who would appreciate its vintage. Anyone have any idea on the best way to do this?

I spent just over 40 years as a college professor, usually using computers in one form or another on a daily basis. I arrived at the University of Kentucky as an assistant professor in 1974 and by 1985 I had published a lot of journal articles and was looking for something else to try. My teaching included a class for the graduate students in agricultural production economics and had developed a set of class notes that I copied and gave to students on a continuing basis. The well-known-but-now-defunct publisher Macmillan approached me about my interest in developing an academic textbook by the same name. I was interested in doing this in part because I knew I could use my detailed set of class notes as a starting point. My teaching included a class for the graduate students in agricultural production economics and had developed a set of class notes that I copied and gave to students on a continuing basis. The well-known-but-now-defunct publisher Macmillan approached me about my interest in developing an academic textbook by the same name. I was interested in doing this in part because I knew I could use my detailed set of class notes as a starting point. At that stage in 1985, portable stand-alone computers were in their infancy, and word processors for such computers were at their very beginning as well. I had managed to get a somewhat portable computer, a Kaypro II, and had been using that in my office.The Kaypro II was a CP/M (pre Microsoft DOS) unit, with twin floppy disks. The word processor (WordStar) was surprisingly sophisticated for its time. The WordStar program was on one of the two floppy disks and what I was writing was stored on the other. Production economics in large measure is an exercise in applied calculus involving functions of several variables. This meant using subscripts, superscripts, math symbols and matrices. WordStar had no problem dealing with subscripts and superscripts. I could $ a code for those. Math characters were trickier, but there was a way to $ a different code if this was a spot where a math character was needed. Diagrams showing graphs as linked to the math were a problem, as the simple drawing packages for portable computers had not yet been invented.

I wrote my dissertation on a Kaypro 2 in the early 90s. By the time I was done, two faculty members had given me their Kaypro 2s.I may have been the original Kaypro museum :)

Hello i have a Kapro II and i install the Gotek drive with flashfloppy and t works perfect with all the software for the Kapro II If you want more info. just email me Greets adko

I bought some Kaypro 2 disks off of Ebay - I have a Mint $not so much as a scratch$ dual floppy drive Kay pro .. I wanted to sell. the Machine turns on and asks for a boot disk but the ones I bought do nothing. Where could I get a real kaypro 2 boot disk

Started the restoration of the Kaypro 2x and the Kapro 10. Both were a bit dusty but cleaned up on the outside well. One keyboard has the help template attached for word processing. The other needed some cleaning, noticed the pin strip is starting to come off. The Kaypro 10 fan filter under the grill fell to pieces. They did not come with CPM floppies, has anyone made the switch to a floppy emulator? For the 10, has anyone switched to an MFM Hard Drive emulator? seeking recommendation.

I always wanted to own a Kaypro, so when I saw two for sale on craigslist I made the decision to purchase them. A Kaypro 2 (with an X label next to the 2) S/N 244666 and a Kaypro 10 S/N 122619.

I was told they were owned by a pastor. He purchased the Kaypro 10 after using the Kaypro 2 for a year (or so).

Having been stored, I plan to open them up clean and inspect before powering them up. A telco style connector is broken on the Kaypro 10 keyboard, so I will need to fix it.

I have a complete set of manuals from my old Kaypros. If you would like them or more info please email: pianotuna@hotmail.com

I have an old Kapro II, purchased in early 1982, and it did come bundled with three basics: the interpreted obasic and mbasic, and the compiling sbasic.
MBasic was in fact microsoft basic.

Included software with purchase included also Aliens, Catchum and Ladder... text-mode clones of space invaders, PacMan, and Lode Runner. Plus a bunch of basic games, mostly in obasic.

Stupid thing still run great.

Hello all.
I sold computers for a couple of different dealer in Rochester, NY back from 1977 - about 1985 when I moved to Florida. Back in the day is was common for manufacturers to offer computers as prizes in sales contests. I won several computers including an Apple $$e, an Apple $$c and a Osbourne 1. I hated the Osbourne''s 5" display and knew that it was prone to floppy disk drive issues. I had a customer who wanted one in the worst way as they were in short supply at the time. I sold him mine for about $100 off normal price and instead bought a Kaypro II. It was in my opinion a much better machine. About same weight as Osbourne, about same size, bigger screen and fewer issues.

I purchased one of the first KPII. It was luggable weighing in at about 30 lbs. It came with Word Star, MS Basic, Sbasic and the Perfect series of software. It had two horizontal drives with 19KB each.
I was a member of our local KP user group for years, President at the demise because we had become a Pizza club, i.e. meeting for socailable reasons once a month, not to work on the computer aspects...Killed by MSDOS.
Because of the lack of available software I "borrowed" the Osborne public domain library and tested each disk on the Kaypro and made a Public Domain library for the Kaypro. Ending up with about 120 PD disks. I would go to the meeting (taking my computer) and copy them for the members at $5 each, come home with bills in every pocket.
One of the members added a 10 meg disk controller to his KP and put the entire PD library on his hard drive, and he bcame the PD librarian (lot faster just writing instead of copying).
Bought a KP 4, painted my old II a bright purple gave it to my daughter.
Finally transitioned to a MSDOS machine, which I fitted with a CP/M emulator which allowed me to keep using the PD library.
The screen on the Kaypro allowed a full 8" wide document display which was a whole lot better than the Osborne 4 inch.
Key board was excellent, and I added a 10 foot telephone cord on it to allow me to sit back and copy stuff.
At the time the 5 1/4 disks were selling for about $5 each and I made a lot of money buying in bulk for as little as 40 cents each an repacking them and selling for amounts from $2 to 70 cents according to what the traffic could bear. Probably sold 10,000 disks.

remeber my Kaypro II well. The company I worked of brought a couple of Northstar Avantages. And I was given a Kaypro II as a commision thanks (much to my surprize and delight). It was a briilliant machine and it was light enough to carry anywhere.
I used CP/M and wrote in Dbase II at that time. After a few months (as I had a electronic interest) I upgraded the Kaypro's floppies to DSDD giving me a 960k per drive. Another friend of mine brought one and decided to design a graphics board. He got it working by bank switching the 64k of ram between the main CPU memoryu and the graphic memory. Of course time passed on and I started to use IBM PC's. But I still had my Kaypro. In a fit of insanity I found myself needing a IBM portable PC for contracing but they were FAR too expensive.
So I saved up my money and brought a 386 mothboard, 200 meg HD, and a small 9" color IBM monitor. Yess - I converted my Kaypro into a portable IBM. I also modified the keyboard so that the top could lifr up giving me a cable bay, and one ot the floppies frives was removed to give a floppy storage area. It worked brilliantly and was indestructable due to the case. There are a couple of lifts with score marks on their door when they closed on me too quick. Unfortunately all things must end and I retired it several years ago but it was a wonderful machine and a legacy to its persistance.

i need a boot disk for the kaypro 1 computer...anybody have a kaypro 1 ???

I came across my old Kaypro II. Its amazing how much technology has advanced in 20 years. Maby not, I guess.

I have not located my original software or manuals yet but by searching the internet I was able to locate near everything. I still have the originals somewhere. I cant see ever getting rid of this system. It really has no value compared to todays technology but just by looking at it and using the keyboard you can tell that its priceless part of computing history. Im really glad I never threw it out.

Does anyone know how much wattage the kaypro 2's power supply is? Or How Much current it is capable of sourcing?
Thanks

I have one that I got for Christmas, and I'd like to add that the Kaypro is a cool computer, even here in 2004. It is pretty solid, and I still have fun on it. The only problems are that it makes a high-pitched sound that is like a TV's, and I tried replacing the keyboard cord and it didn't work.

I have a Kaypro II that I bought new in the early 80's. It was damaged in a fire and I'm trying to get an estimated value for insurance purposes. Included were all the original software and manuals plus application software like WordStar, SuperCalc, and dBase II. Everything was in pristine condition. Can anyone recommend a source or bought or sold the same recently?

If you want to discuss/buy/sell Kaypro computers please join this new email group.

Thank you.

Just hauled my old KP2 out of the closet after almost 10 years- still works and yes, I have a boot disk for CP/M 2.2-send an address and I can try to make a copy.

I found that it took several tries to get the system to boot correctly (cleaning?), so if you have one that's failing, don't give up too fast.

Anyone else have Wordstar? I liked that one much better than Perfectwriter, so if anyone has manuals I'd love to get ahold of them.

As for value, I remember seeing one at a used computer store for $10, as-is. I think they're worth more as a keepsake than as a PC these days.

Hello, I need the CP/m 2.2 for the kaypro. If you've got it send it to: telefrancisco@terra.com

I have a Kaypro II, which I bought in 1982, and have been the only owner. I wish to sell it. Is there a market for it?

It was 1984, in Greece, in a private school sponcored by NCR Hellas that i learned programming in MS/COBOL on a Kaypro II. It was either this or an IBM PC, and at the time i thought it was much prettier than the IBM. Of cource, beauty is a factor that has nothing or very little to do in specifications, but for some reason, it then stroke me better than the IBM. The keyboard was very good to work on, very easy for someone who had never been in front of a keyboard before at the time.
CP/M was the operating system of the Kaypro II that i'm reffering to, and except Cobol we were also tought Basic and Word processing, on the Wordstar word Processor. These were the days !

The Kaypro II kept me company for almost 7 months, but at the time i was only learning, and it was not untill much later that i was able to fully understand what it ment to me.

I still have one Kaypro II with a unique feature that we added to several of the Kaypros. This one has 128K of memory instead of the standard 64K. That made Supercalc "fly" much faster and obviously with greater spreadsheet capacity!

I considered myself the "Perfect Maverick". At the time they were including the Perfect software series (Writer, Calc, etc.), I was using Supercalc, Wordstar and Dbase II. My favorite story from those days was my first experience with Dbase. A friend of my son gave me a floppy and said "try this new database program", and the two of them left for the evening. When you started Dbase II the only thing that appeared on the screen was a dot! Luckily after a few efforts I typed "Quit" and finally got my computer back!

I'm looking for a boot disk for a kaypro 2 computer. If you can make a copy of one or have one please email me.