TurboROM Kaypro Update

[Allison]

>
>Subject: TurboROM Kaypro Update
>   From: Doc Shipley <doc at mdrconsult.com>
>   Date: Sun, 29 May 2005 01:53:41 -0500
>     To: General at mdrconsult.com, "Discussion at mdrconsult.com":On-Topic and Off-Topic
> Posts	<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
>
>   Allison offered to provide a system disk made on a Kaypro 4/84 w/ 
>turborom, but has a time-critical prior project that prevents restoring 
>5.25" disks to the 4/84 right now.
>
>   I had also asked on the CP/M newsgroup, and somebody there sent me a 
>set of teledisk images that might help.  The Support and Developer SSDD 
>disks for a turborom'ed K-II, which are unfortunately not bootable, and 
>the DSDD Software Support Disk that came with the TurboROM purchased for 
>his own K10.
>
>   I have a Mitsubishi MF501A-352U DSDD drive (with full-height black 
>face-plate, no less), so I have it temporarily replacing the Kaypro's 
>Tandon TM100-1A.

Those are very nice drives.

>   And the K10 Software Support disk finally got me to an A0> prompt! 
>It looks like the turborom is fairly model- and version-agnostic.

Yeehaa!  turbo rom is fairly complient and also good to have.


>   The hard drive formatter (K10FMT.COM) works, as do TURBOGEN.COM and 
>MOVTURBO.COM, so I can now boot from the hard disk.  :)
>
>   I'm not CP/M-savvy at all, but it looks like I have enough here to 
>make this a functional system.
>
>   Allison, I appreciate the encouragement and the info.  I'd like to 
>stick a pair of 3.5" drives in, so if you do run across the DIP switch 
>settings for the floppy personality module, I'd like to have that.  And 
>a system disk would still be interesting when your other work slows down.

I have them here.

Each switch pair corosponds to one drive of the possible four.

pairs are 1/2, 3/4, 5/6, 7/8.

The settings are:

off/off  no drive installed (odd number switch being on, drive exists)
off/on   no drive installed (even numbered switch selects 48/96tpi)
on/off   48tpi drive
on/on    96tpi drive

For a 3.5" floppy you need to select 96pi and format with the advent 
formatter (not a dos formatted disk!).  Also the floppy must have a 
drive select header/switch that allows for 4 drive non-twist cable 
select.  It's possible to use newer 3.5" drives but plan on modding 
the drive select right at the edge connector.

Disk notes: Two sided 96tpi 3.5 or 5.25 gets you either 720k or 781k 
formatter dependant. Also 3.5" drive are being used as 720k (one 
hole media) so they must be able to function as such.   The 48tpi 
drive get you half that.  Oh, the last drive is the one (and only!) 
to have terminating resistor installed/enabled.

My 4/84 has two 3.5" embedded inside (drives D: and E:) as if it were 
a hard disk and one on the console front (A:) the second drive is a 
usually 48tpi(teac FD55BV) for compatable ops.  Having the drives
inside the case seems useless but they have media in them and are 
fully loaded as a useful 1.4mb library.  In the CP/M world that's 
a considerable amount of space.

>   And finally, a question - does the Kaypro support a serial console at 
>all?  The VDT is OK, but it's tiny.  :\

Yes it can.  I believe the IObyte needs to point con: and key: to 
serial port.  This is very bios dependent.

Hope this helps.

Allison