I went to the Vintage Computer Festival in May of 2018. I went hoping to find some great bargains at the dealer's room, but mostly to see if anyone had any big old minicomputers on display. No luck on minicomputers, but plenty of micros were to be seen, including many rarities that I had never seen before. In the dealer's room on the first day of the show, I found this Kaypro 10 for sale for only $125. It had a note on it that said "10MB HDD. It works! Lots of software!". I stuck to it like glue until the dealer's room was ready for business!
What struck me, apart from the promise of the note on it, was that it was clean, no scratches, and looked like it was fresh out of it's box from 1984. When we got it back to the motel room, I had to fire it up! I did test it in the dealers room, too, but just long enough to see it boot. I wanted to actually use it.
The first thing I noticed about it when I started setting it up, was that unlike the Kaypro II I had, this one boasted a fan with an air filter -- something that most old computer manufacturers didn't think was necessary, but as we all know, air flow really is important in any electronics that generate heat. The big difference with the Kaypro 10 was that the Z-80A CPU ran at 4 Mhz, while the older Kaypro II was a Z80 running at 2.5 Mhz. It generated more heat, but seriously, it wasn't a noticeably hotter speed. But the fan was a great addition, which most likely helped preserve it by allowing it to run a little cooler.
In addition to the standard Centronics Printer port and 25-pin Serial port, was a second 25-pin serial port for a modem. Otherwise the computer had the exact same case, same power supply, and same monitor as it's older brothers. The case was definitely Kaypro's strongest point. It was a great, simple, effective design.
Pardon the blurry side view. The keyboard is essentially the same as the previous models. Same case, same layout. The only difference is that they are black, instead of blue. Same old Telephone handset cord to connect it up!
The new thing on this Kaypro that makes it even better is the folding stand underneath it. Most people used to lay the computer on top of the keyboard, which was easy, and worked, but the rubber feet would wear the paint. So they made this simple stand to prop it up to save the beauty of your keyboard's shiny finish. It's the little things that really make it seem like it's much more advanced, even though it's mostly the same as the older versions.
So here we go, all set up and ready for a spin! Literally -- since the hard drive inside of it is an old Winchester MFM hard drive, just like the 10MB hard drive you would get for your IBM PC or TRS-80 Model 3.
READY!
POWER ON!
Hard Drive activity!
CP/M 2.2 loading!
Never saw Master menu before! This was indeed a new thing to me. It's an old menu program that you could program yourself by editing a text file to point to your programs. I wasn't interested at all in trying to remember my CP/M skills. This menu made everything easier to get to!
Instinctively I locate the games -- those are the most important things to test your computer with!
Oh, boy! Space Invaders Clone! That really dates things!
I explored the hard drive, and found a lot of stuff. I believe that it may contain most of the Kaypro software that was produced during the 80's. Once i get a Floppy Emulator hooked up, I can begin rescuing it all to preserve it for others to download and run. It has several versions of BASIC on it, and a lot of basic programs. The important thing is that it works perfectly now, and that I can start backing things up as soon as I find the settings for the floppy emulator.
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