Kaypro - Kaypro By Model and Year

Kaypro By Model and Year

Kaypro's nomenclature was odd, with the numerical designations for their machines having more to do with the capacity of the drives than the order they were produced. Kaypro also released several different models with the same names, perhaps hoping to capitalize on the name recognition of their older machines. As a result, identifying exactly which model a Kaypro is often requires an inspection of their hardware configuration.

All of the computers listed below are of the portable type unless otherwise noted.

• 1982
  • Kaycomp I - The original Kaypro, was a demonstrator model shown mainly to prospective dealers. It had the same case as future models, but was painted green with two single sided floppy drives that were mounted vertically on opposite sides of the monitor like the Osborne I, its intended competition. A computer virtually identical to the later Kaypro II but labeled "Kaycomp" (not "Kaycomp I") on the side was sold to the public in limited numbers. This version had two vertically mounted drives on the right and a Keytronic keyboard with all-black keys rather than the blue numeric keypad.
  • Kaypro II - The first commercially released Kaypro, was an immediate success, dominating its competition, the Osborne I microcomputer. The Kaypro II had a 9 inch internal monitor instead of the Osborne's tiny 5 inch display, and single sided floppy drives. A redesigned version of the Kaypro II was released in 1984 that allowed block style graphics, and had half-height drives. This version of the Kaypro II had a version of Space Invaders along with the typical ASCII games.

• 1983
  • Kaypro IV - An evolution of the Kaypro II, the Kaypro IV had two DS/DD drives (390 KB) and came with Wordstar in addition to the Perfect Suite of software.
  • Kaypro 10 - The Kaypro 10 was one of the earliest computers to come standard with a hard drive. It came with a 10 megabyte internal hard drive and a single DS/DD floppy drive. All of the computers produced until then had been green or light grey or grey and blue, but the K10 was dark grey, almost black.

• 1984
  • Kaypro 4 - The Kaypro 4 was virtually identical to the IV, but featured half-height drives instead of full height drives, a 4 MHz clock speed and had basic graphics capabilities. It also had an internal 300-baud modem.
  • Kaypro 2X - The Kaypro 2X was similar to the Kaypro 4, but it lacked the built-in 300 baud modem that was available in the Kaypro 4. Kaypro 2X's were often sold in a bundle with the Wordstar word processing software suite, spreadsheet and database software. The impact printer that was also included in the bundle was labeled as the "Kaypro Printer", but was actually a re-branded Juki 6100 daisywheel printer.
  • Kaypro Robie - The Kaypro Robie was the only CP/M based Kaypro to be non-portable. Designed as a desktop computer, it had the same motherboard as the Kaypro 4. It was also equipped with two 2.6 MB high density floppy drives and a 300 Baud modem. The floppy drives were notorious for failing as they literally scraped the media off of the disk substrate, leaving many customers with drives which they could not read. The Robie was jet black, with the drives mounted above the screen, and the front panel angled upward. The Robie did not sell well, but it did make periodic cameo appearances on the ABC television series Moonlighting, as the desktop computer used by Bruce Willis' character David Addison. Due to its black color, the fact that it sat upright and looked like a helmet, and its handle mounted on the top, it was nicknamed "Darth Vader's lunchbox."

• 1985
  • Kaypro "New" 2 - A scaled-down Kaypro 2X for the budget buyer, came with minimal software, and did not feature the internal modem.
  • Kaypro 4+88 - A dual system computer, the 4+88 was equipped with both an 8088 processor and a Z80, and was capable of running both the MS-DOS and CP/M operating systems. It came with 256 KB of RAM for the MS-DOS operating system that could double as a RAM disk for CP/M.
  • Kaypro 16 - Very similar in appearance to the Kaypro 10, the Kaypro's 16's main difference was that it had an 8088 processor and 256 KB of RAM and ran on the MS-DOS operating system instead of CP/M. The Kaypro 16/2e came with Dos 3.3, 2 5.25" 360k Floppy Drives and 768K Ram.
  • Kaypro 2000 - Kaypro's first and only laptop, it was an MS-DOS machine that ran on heavy lead-acid batteries. Similar in basic appearance to a modern laptop, it featured a detachable keyboard, rugged brushed aluminum casing and a pop-up 3.5 inch floppy drive. In what seems to have been a recurring comparison, it has been called "Darth Vader's laptop".
  • Kaypro PC - Late on the PC market, the Kaypro PC was intended as a competitor to the IBM PC-XT desktop machine. Running at a faster clock speed than IBM's machine, it was available with a larger hard drive than that offered by IBM and an extensive software package. It featured the motherboard on a bus card, which, like the Zenith Z-series machines, promised upgradability.
  • Kaypro 286i - A 6 MHz 286 desktop, it was the first IBM PC/AT compatible, with dual 1.2 MB floppy drives standard and an extensive software package but no MS-DOS 3.0, which had not yet been released, requiring the user to purchase PC-DOS 3.0 from IBM.

• 1986
  • Kaypro 1 - The Kaypro 1 was the last CP/M model Kaypro introduced. In most ways, it was simply a Kaypro 2X with a smaller software package. It is distinctive from earlier Kaypro models because of its vertically oriented disk drives.

• 1987
  • Kaypro 386 - A 20 MHz 386 desktop, with an extensive software package. It featured the motherboard on a bus card.