page_title: Kaypro
section_title: Hardware
hierarchical_section_title: Kaypro / Kaypro computers / Hardware
caption_attribution_description: English: A Kaypro II motheroboard.
context_page_description: Kaypro Corporation was an American home and personal computer manufacturer of the 1980s. The company was founded by Non-Linear Systems to compete with the popular Osborne 1 portable microcomputer. Kaypro produced a line of rugged, "luggable" CP/M-based computers sold with an extensive software bundle which supplanted its competitors and quickly became one of the top-selling personal computer lines of the early 1980s.
  Kaypro was exceptionally loyal to its original customer base but slow to adapt to the changing computer market and the advent of IBM PC compatible technology. It faded from the mainstream before the end of the decade and was eventually forced into bankruptcy in 1992.
context_section_description: The Kaypro II has a 2.5 MHz Zilog Z80 microprocessor; 64 kB of RAM; two single-sided 191-kilobyte 5¼-inch floppy disk drives (named A: and B:); and an 80-column, green monochrome, 9" CRT that was praised for its size and clarity (the Osborne 1 had a 5" display).
  Early in the Kaypro's life, there was a legal dispute with the owner of the Big Board computer, who charged that the Kaypro II main circuit board was an unlicensed copy or clone.
  The outer case is constructed of painted aluminum. The computer features a large detachable keyboard unit that covers the screen and disk drives when stowed. The computer could fit into an airline overhead rack. This and other Kaypro computers (except for the Kaypro 2000) run off regular AC mains power and are not equipped with a battery.
  The Kaypro IV and later the Kaypro 4 have two double-sided disks. The Kaypro 4 was released in 1984, and was usually referred to as Kaypro 4 '84, as opposed to the Kaypro IV, released one year earlier and referred to as Kaypro IV '83. The Kaypro IV uses different screen addresses than the Kaypro II, meaning software has to be specific to the model.
  The Kaypro 10 followed the Kaypro II, and is much like the Kaypro II and Kaypro 4, with the addition of a 10 megabyte hard drive (dually partitioned A: and B:) and replacing one of the two floppy drives (the remaining drive being addressed as C:). The Kaypro 10 also eliminated the complicated procedures to turn the computer on and off often associated with hard disk technology.
  Kaypro later replaced their CP/M machines with the MS-DOS-based Kaypro 16, Kaypro PC and others, as the IBM PC and its clones gained popularity. Kaypro was late to the market, however, and never gained the kind of prominence in the MS-DOS arena that it had enjoyed with CP/M. Instead, Kaypro watched as a new company—Compaq—grabbed its market with the Compaq Portable, an all-in-one portable computer that was similar to Kaypro's own CP/M portables with the exception of running MS-DOS with near 100% IBM PC compatibility.  The Compaq was larger and less durable—whereas the Kaypro had a heavy-gauge alumininum case, the Compaq case was plastic, with a thin-gauge aluminum inner shield to reduce radio frequency interference—but rapidly took over the portable PC market segment.
  The 1985 introductions of the Kaypro 286i, the first IBM PC AT clone, and the Kaypro 2000, one of the first laptop computers (an MS-DOS system with monochrome liquid crystal display and durable aluminum case), did little to change Kaypro's fortunes. Kaypro's failure in the MS-DOS market and other corporate issues helped lead to the company's eventual downfall.
caption: A Kaypro II motherboard
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