UT Sandiego reports that Andrew Kay, founder of Kaypro Computers, has passed away. The article goes on to mention that he was a pioneer in the field of digital electronics, inventing the digital voltmeter in 1952.
Let's remember a pioneer in the industry.
For those who were not around back then, Kaypro's first computer, the Kaypro II, was set in an aluminum case, weighed 29 pounds (13 kilograms) and was equipped with a 2.5 MHz Zilog Z80 microprocessor, 64 kilobytes of RAM, and contained two 191-kilobyte 5¼-inch double-density floppy-disk drives. The top, unsnapped, became the keyboard (with the CP/M layout of Control but not Alt key). It ran on Digital Research, Inc.'s CP/M operating system, and sold for about US $1,795 (equivalent to $4,400 in 2014).
At the time of its release, it was considered a portable computer even though it had to be plugged into an outlet.
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Programmer David Given has done the leg work to contact and ask R. T. Russel about releasing the Z80-based BBC BASIC as Free Software. It is now available under the non-reciprocal zlib license:
As part of the work I've been doing with cpmish I've been trying to track down the copyright holders of some of the more classic pieces of CP/M software and asking them to license it in a way that allows redistribution. One of the people I contacted was R.T. Russell, the author of the classic Z80 BBC BASIC, and he very kindly sent me the source and agreed to allow it to be distributed under the terms of the zlib license. So it's now open source!
[...] So the reason why this is important is that BASIC has, rightly, a reputation for being a pretty terrible language; but BBC BASIC was a dialect specifically commissioned by the BBC in 1981 as an educational aid. As a result, BBC BASIC supports named procedures, local variables, recursion, and other structured programming features. Unlike Microsoft BASIC, you can write proper structured, maintainable programs in BBC BASIC without needing to refer to any line numbers anywhere. And it'll run faster that way: [...]
[...] The original version was written by Sophie Wilson at Acorn in 1981 for their 6502-based range of BBC Micro computers and during the early eighties every school child in the United Kingdom was exposed to it, spawning a whole generation of bedroom programmers.
Earlier on SN:
[Ed's Comment: 170619-0724UTC. Added additional link to the original story]
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 04 2014, @11:54PM
My pops bought kaypros to run our family business - both as point-of-sale and book-keeping with a spreadsheet and database.
I was just wee back then, but I used to fart around on the one he kept at home.
I'd say the experience was instrumental in setting me on my career path.
So thanks Alan, you made a big difference in my life even if you never met me.
(Score: 3, Informative) by frojack on Friday September 05 2014, @01:12AM
We forget how hard it was to make anything small in the days when all we had was CRTs.
Three of these guys were competing in the "luggable" space all in the early 80s. There was the Kaypro, and the Osborne 1 [wikipedia.org] and the Compaq Portable [oldcomputers.net].
The first two were pretty much the last gasp of CP/M.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by martyb on Friday September 05 2014, @04:02AM
I was working on a project at one company where PCs were at a premium — one per user. I stumbled upon an old Compaq Portable. Though it was a bit slow, it gave me an extra machine that I could use while my main PC was busy slogging through other stuff. IIRC, the Compaq was an 80286 with a 9(?)-inch monochrome display and a 40 megabyte hard disk as well as a 5¼-inch floppy drive. By comparison, my main PC was a PS/2 Model P70 [cuw.edu] which had an 80386 @ 20 MHz, 8 megabyte of RAM, a 120 megabyte hard drive, and a 1.44 megabyte 3.5" floppy drive. At well over 20 pounds, it was lighter than the Compaq, but still a beast to lug through the airport along with all my other luggage!
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 2) by EvilJim on Friday September 12 2014, @05:28AM
Holy crap, that's flash, the first luggable I ever used was IBM branded I believe, was an XT with 640k, 2x 5.25" floppy drives and no hard disk. something like a 7" orange CRT. used to rock the hell out of 'castle' on that... even ended up with data corruption in the game which left open bits of walls and made getting around in there much easier :)
(Score: 3, Interesting) by kaszz on Friday September 05 2014, @01:29AM
Remember that when these things came out. Being able to bring any computing at all with you was an achievement! Internet would been something like an acoustic coupled modem with 300 bits per second to a mainframe that let you mail other people internally. And you better had a good salary, generous employer or just a work description that included access to cool stuff.
Oh and multitasking.. are you from mars!? Add 100 stupid questions that a 5-year old may ask from adults.....
Then came 16-bit, multitasking 10's MHz, MMU, packet networking, flat screen etc..
(Score: 2) by tadas on Friday September 05 2014, @01:44AM
Does anyone remember hacking the Kaypro? You could upgrade a Kaypro II (single sided double density) to a Kaypro IV (double-sided double density, or for the truly adventurous, quad-density) by cutting a trace, applying a jumper and replacing the drive. The ROM was socketed, and third-party replacements were available.
Anybody remember Micro Cornucopia magazine (once accurately described as "Mother Earth News for hackers")? In addition to great hardware and software articles, they sold upgrade kits, ROMS and schematics for the Kaypro. They had an annual gathering for subscribers in Bend, Oregon that was called "SOG" (for "Semi-Official Gathering") that was a blast. MS-DOS and the PC-compatible world took over, the editor had a case of burnout, and the magazine folded in the late '80s. I still miss it, and occasionally leaf through my full run and remember the good old days...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 05 2014, @03:38AM
> Anybody remember Micro Cornucopia magazine
Yes I do. [archive.org] Although I had forgotten it until you mentioned it.
Flipping through that PDF is kind of like eating a long forgotten comfort food.
I remember our first PC was a 186 system from PCTech, they used to advertise on the back cover of Micro Cornucopia. I wonder what ever happened to them?
(Score: 3, Informative) by tadas on Friday September 05 2014, @10:50AM
After huge success in the '80s, Kaypro ran into business problems, primarily because it stuck with CP/M for too long after the world went to DOS. Kay appointed many of his relatives to positions in the company, leading to the diagnosis that the company had "too many Kays, not enough Pros".