ucbesvax.skwoo@ucbcad.UUCP (07/30/83)
#N:ucbesvax:5600009:000:2998
ucbesvax!skwoo Jul 30 01:40:00 1983
My Pitch for Kaypro II:
A list of articles that discuss Kaypro II computers:
"The Kaypro II, Stiff competition for the Osborne 1", page 66
by Peter McWilliams, December 1982 issue of "Popular Computing."
"Kaypro II", page 84
by Dan W. Post, January 1983 issue of "Interface Age."
"Burnouts, Bargains, and Two Sleek Portables", page 418
by Jerry Pournelle, January 1983 issue of "Byte."
Hardware Overview of Kaypro II:
CPU: Z-80
RAM: 64k
DISC: dual 5 1/4" single-sided, double-density, 194K drives
Keyboard: a VT-100 style keyboard, 14-key numeric keypad (nice!)
Screen: 9", 24x80, green phosphor (nice!)
Serial/RS-232C interface
Parallel printer interface
and it's portable, if you consider 26 pounds to be portable
Software Package:
CP/M 2.2
Perfect Software:
Perfect Writer (pretty good word processor)
Perfect Speller (not a full spelling checker)
Perfect Calc (I don't use it much, but others say it's buggy!)
(It is no longer included in the Kaypro II package.)
Perfect Filer (I use it to keep names and addresses and I
think it's pretty good.)
Profit Plan ( a financial package from Chang Lab, I never used it.)
S-BASIC (Most people hate this buggy software.)
(It's suppose to be structured Basic. In my opinions you
should either write Basic programs with M-Basic or
write structured programs with Pascal.)
Some dealer may offer Word Star instead of Perfect Software.
Dealers may throw in these two software for free or 75 dollars.
M-BASIC (good old Microsoft Basic)
WORD+ (a full spelling checker)
Documentations:
The Perfect software manuals are pretty good, but they are
far from perfect.
User groups:
The best thing with buying a Kaypro computer is the
group I am with, BAKUP, which stands for Bay Area Kaypro
Users and Programmers. There is also a national organization
KUG, Kaypro Users Group, which publishes a news letter bi-monthly
and maintains an electronic bulletin board.
Cost:
Hardware and software are sold together for about $1600.
Bad news:
no graphics
not extendible at all
(However, there is a company that makes a Z-80/8088 co-processor
board so that you can use CP/M-80, CP/M-86 or PC-DOS software.)
reliability was bad, but it's improving
Conclusions:
I bought a Kaypro II because as a graduate student majoring
in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, I needed
a computer to write programs and reports. Kaypro II
fulfilled all my needs and more, and I am very happy with
it.
New Models:
Kaypro IV: same as Kaypro II but with double-sided, double-
density drives. ($~2000)
Kaypro X: 10 Megabyte Hard Disk !
a 370K floppy disk drive
graphics
4 MHz Z-80
2 RS232 Serial ports
1 parallel Centronics port
light pen jack
9" non-glare screen
(all for, brace yourself, ~$2800)
Please send any questions and comments to Stephen Woo (ucbesvax!skwoo)
"MAY THE FORTH BE WITH YOU".....I am a Forth lover.