Re: Bringing a Kaypro II to life

Posted on 2021-08-07, 07:01

by

by babtras

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I found the issue. An amputee, U60, was missing pin 7. I changed it out when the screen was entirely dead, before I discovered the clock crystal was dead. So there's a reasonable chance that I didn't align the chip to socket correcly when swapping and did not notice I broke the pin. Rather than …

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Re: Bringing a Kaypro II to life

Posted on 2021-08-07, 03:42

by

by babtras

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

LC4 should come from U11 pin 6 (top right, sheet 2) to U18 pin 3, then from U18 pin 4 to U16 pin 2, then out from U16 pin 4 to the enable pins (pin 8 ) on U29&30 and the inputs to the U15 NAND gate. I had found the same thing on the schematic and scoped that pin out last night and verified that …

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Re: Bringing a Kaypro II to life

Posted on 2021-08-07, 03:22

by

by babtras

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I have 2 of these systems that I have yet to tear into. I wish I could be of more help, but this forum is dedicated mostly to gaming on 486/pentium systems. I would recommend contacting the greybeards over on: https://www.vcfed.org/forum/forum By their standards, Kaypro 2's are rather "new". ^.^ I …

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Re: Bringing a Kaypro II to life

Posted on 2021-08-05, 20:20

by

by babtras

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

As an update, for anyone insterested, I haven't resolved the problem but have discovered that it only affects video RAM that relates to two of the four chips. The corrupted text contains a pattern, with even bits more likely than odd bits to be randomly on. It behaves almost as though there should …

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Bringing a Kaypro II to life

Posted on 2021-08-04, 05:40

by

by babtras

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I had a dead Kaypro II up until recently. I was able to verify that it was only mostly dead and it only had a dead display but could otherwise be booted. After swapping ICs endlessly with another, working Kaypro II, and with the guidance of someone on Facebook, it was narrowed to no clock on the …

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Re: CP/M device files

Posted on 2021-07-28, 20:09

by

by babtras

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

So if you've got a low density 5.25 drive on a DOS machine, you wanna look for a package called 22DISK or 22DSK which is the disk interpreter package for the 22Nice CP/M emulator that can read Kaypro disks. It may "sorta" work on 1.2MB for reading them, but only the 360K can write to them reliably. …

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CP/M device files

Posted on 2021-07-15, 17:00

by

by babtras

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

I have a Kaypro II with questionable drives - I can read and boot from the drive but cannot write to either drive and I don't have the confidence to disassemble and repair the drives. I'd like to transfer BASIC source over to it. Unfortunately the 360kB disks it uses cannot be read by the other 5.25 …

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Re: Documentation repository

Posted on 2021-07-12, 06:49

by

by babtras

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

It's not something I have done, but I have two scanners and plenty of free time, and would be happy to scan any manuals etc that you have, if you are happy to post to the UK. I see there are a few places to upload them to. I missed out on a full manual for the PVI-486SP3 that was recently on ebay, …

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Documentation repository

Posted on 2021-07-11, 18:33

by

by babtras

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I have a few old manuals that might be helpful to someone, that don't appear to have been shared anywhere that's indexed by search engines. Is there a favoured place where I can share them or someone who scans/archives/shares manuals that I can send them to? For example: https://imgur.com/QNlwiMq. …

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Re: What retro activity did you get up to today?

Posted on 2021-07-09, 20:19

by

by babtras

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Got a 386 desktop going, with a genuine AdLib card in it. Installed the AdLib Jukebox and enjoyed grooving to the tunes. Now I can start working on how to play music from a Turbo C++ program.

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Re: CF To IDE (and SD Card) not working

Posted on 2021-07-09, 20:04

by

by babtras

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I have had mixed success with CF->IDE adapters, I have a few here that are apparently read-only. The drive is seen and you can run fdisk to partition it, but upon reboot the partitions are gone and you have a blank card still. Switch to another adapter and BIOS doesn't detect it, but it works just …

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Re: post up pics of your "computing area"

Posted on 2021-07-09, 15:44

by

by babtras

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

badmojo wrote on 2021-07-09, 10:41: No offense to the craftsman but I wouldn't be able to relax sitting under that lot 😬 I wonder, if many-universes theory is correct, in what percentage of alternate universes I've been crushed under a pile of retro computers. Good way to go I suppose.

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Re: post up pics of your "computing area"

Posted on 2021-07-09, 15:38

by

by babtras

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

not only is it tiny but it's also overcrowded and messy as fuck. FML Messy AF is the natural state of my office. My pic is not an accurate reflection of normal circumstances. I sympathize with the space issue. It is unfortunate that retro computing hobbies consume so much space. Emulators just …

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Re: post up pics of your "computing area"

Posted on 2021-07-09, 07:59

by

by babtras

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Shared this awhile ago on reddit. It's still defying gravity just fine.

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Re: Problem with my ISA I/O card

Posted on 2021-07-09, 07:41

by

by babtras

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I cannot say I have had any floppy issues with the Goldstar Prime2(C) cards, when I have had drive issues it was always the drive itself. But I have recapped all my IO cards and this chip is found in bottom barrel cards which have the worst capacitors imaginable and there's a good chance this might …

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Re: Problem with my ISA I/O card

Posted on 2021-07-09, 06:00

by

by babtras

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I know this is an old thread, but I have stumbled upon it while trying to resolve my own related issue. Goldstar Prime 2 IO card. It gives me "Drive Not Ready" errors trying to boot from 5.25" floppies. I tried 3 different drives. I tried the drives on a newer Socket 7 machine and they work. So I …

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Re: Compaq SLT 286

Posted on 2021-07-09, 05:50

by

by babtras

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Hey babtras! I just got myself an 286 slt, would you happen to know how to use the compaq tool to update configurations and would really appreciate it if you could share your program. Apologies, was lost in time. Retro computing is my winter hobby when I'm trapped indoors. I just posted the code in …

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Re: Compaq SLT 286

Posted on 2021-07-09, 05:45

by

by babtras

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Hi Babtras, I have a SLT 286 and would like to avoid Dremel work as well. Can you share the CMOS writing tool please to make it boot? That would be great! Thank you! Hello, apologies for taking 4 months to realize someone commented here. I'll provide the code below. This code compiles with Turbo …

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Re: Interpreting diagnostic codes

Posted on 2020-11-14, 04:33

by

by babtras

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Have you ever opened it up and checked the main board ? There could be damage from old CMOS battery or something else.... I have had it open dozens of times in my efforts to repair it. I have fully disassembled, cleaned, reassembled, inspected etc. - Cleaned spill residue of some sort with alcahol …

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Interpreting diagnostic codes

Posted on 2020-11-13, 18:40

by

by babtras

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I felt ambitious enough to take another stab at repairing an NEC ProSpeed 286 that I have tried many many times to repair unsuccessfully. At some point in the past before I obtained it, it suffered some sort of spill that entered through the RAM expansion port and left a white residue. That residue …

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