ce magazine december issue

Come a Long Way Baby!
Despite its name, the
Kaypro II was the first
Kaypro model. The name
was KAYPRO II, because
the Apple II was the most
popular system (besides the
IBM PC) around back then,
and Kaypro decided to
follow in the image.
It was conceived by Non
Linear Systems inc., a
company with over 30
years' experience of
producing small portable aerospace electronic equipment, which would later
become Kaypro.
The Kaypro systems were known to be square-built ! All the hardware is packed
into a solid aluminum case. These computers can resist to a lot of trouble as they
proved when ten of them (Kaypro IV & 10) were used by doctors for the Paris-
Dakar 84's edition. Non of them failed despite extreme conditions.
One asset of the Kaypro, over the Osborne 1 which was available at about the same
time, is the 9" built-in monitor, easily twice the size of the Osborne's. Though the
Kaypro 2 has no graphic features, it can display 80 x 24 characters. There are two
single-sided / double-density full-heigth 5.25'' disk-drives (190k each). One can be
used to boot CP/M and the other to run the software.
The Kaypro II is a real "luggable" system. Even if it weights more than 10kg, it can
be easily moved with the handle found at the back.
At the rear of the system, one can find a serial port, a parallel port, a keyboard
connector, a brightness control knob and reset button.
Perfect Writer, Perfect Calc, Perfect Filer, Perfect Speller, S-Basic, CP/M and
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