Kaypro 4/84 questions

[Allison]

>
>Subject: Kaypro 4/84 questions
>   From: Brian Wheeler <bdwheele at indiana.edu>
>   Date: Mon, 05 Nov 2007 13:13:40 -0500
>     To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
>
>I recently acquired a Kaypro 4/84 and I'm in the process of cleaning it
>up and getting it happy.
>
>There are a couple of problems with it that maybe someone can shed some
>light on:
>* one of the keyboard latches is broken.  Anyone know a good substitute
>and/or workaround?  I don't care so much about it, but it'd be nice to
>be able to lug it into the kitchen and carry something else at the same
>time :)
>
>* They keyboard cable is missing, but I substituted a keyboard cable
>from a DEC terminal keyboard and it seems to work.  The tech manual I
>found online says that using a phone cord causes dropped characters due
>to the smaller wire gauge, so I'm hoping that this cable will be sturdy
>enough.

The DEC cable is about the best choice available.

>* There is a screw in the 2nd floppy drive opening.  I've tried removing
>the drive sled (via the screws on the bottom), but alas it seems like
>the drives have to come out of the front individually.    The screws are
>pretty solidly inserted and I cannot get them loose without stripping
>them.  I'm not able to get to the inner ones easily without removing the
>motherboard and the monitor.   Is it possible to take the bezel off of
>the drive and then slide the cage backward and then out?  The drives are
>the shugart ones.

Mine had screws top and bottom.  They tended to vary things.

>* I'd like to replace the 2nd drive with a 3.5" floppy.  I've found a
>Sony HD drive along with a power and plug converter.  Knowing that PCs
>use a twisted cable scheme, what things should I be aware of when
>cabling in this new drive?  Will it be supported in some manner by the
>software?  Its not a big deal if it turns out to be a 360K 3.5" floppy,
>as long as its readable by my linux box.

I've done this using a 3.5" to 5.25" adaptor.  The software will not utilize
the full 80 tracks of the 3.5" floppy and possibly both sides if the roms
are not updated.

The Advent turborom with disk personality card and likely others support this.

The drives I used had the 1-4 jumper like 5.25" floppies so it was a matter
of pin to card edge adaptor, power adaptor and drive select jumper.  For later
drives you make have no choice but to make a "funny cable" to do drive select.
the reason for that is those drives are locked to cable select.

Allison