WWH@NCCIBM1.BITNET ("Bill Weinel") (06/12/90)
> A friend brought a Kaypro II by the house for repair. It would not boot. > I got it going, but was surprised to discover that it has single-sided > drives (something around 190 K per drive). This is the first time I've > ever touched a "real-live" Kaypro. Can this be upgraded to DSDD?? A > DSDD Kaypro is not a bad machine, but this thing would seem to have limited > usefullness. Anybody know if the ROM upgrades sold by MicroC/Emerald (were > they MicroCode??) will work on a machine like this?? I have applied their > upgrade to a Xerox 820-1, and really like it. Is it worth thinking about > for this machine??? Roger, I recently finished upgrading an old Kaypro II to a Kaypro 8 by doing the same type of thing which your refering. Micro-Cornucopia has ROM upgrades available to upgrade a II to a 4 or 8 at a very reasonable price. The bad news is that they're going out of business.. so if you want one you'd better order it now. I assume that Dave Thompson will probably still have them available through his brothers company (Micro- Sphere in Bend,OR) even after Micro-C goes under. By ording a PRO8 ROM from them and doing a few hardware mods you can add up to 4 DSDD 40 trk 48tpi (360k) drives to the machine and give it the ability to run at 5 Mhz clock rate. I put 4 half height Teac FD55s in mine and love it. BTW: When you call them be sure and use the standard number as the 800 number has been disconnected. I beleive they are in the office from 10am til 2pm PDT M-F unless they've shut down already. As for a comparison to the 820-1.. yes, it is worth it. The 820-1 and the Kaypro II are almost identical machines at the motherboard level. Only a few minor differences in the disk controller area seperate them. As far as this goes, the Kaypro is a superior machine since it already has a WD 1593 for a disk controller chip (and is thus able to do DD with only minor hardware modification). The Xerox requires replacement of the controller chip and some mods to the data seperator circuit in- order to do double density as well as a clock rate speed change. To sum up.. I'd recommend the conversion process. It requires some work on your part, and you have to be handy with a soldering iron, but it's cheap and yields a superior machine. TWYL Bill