Date   : Mon, 26 Nov 1990 14:53:22 GMT
From   : sdd.hp.com!samsung!noose.ecn.purdue.edu!ea.ecn.purdue.edu!wieland@ucsd.edu (Jeffrey J Wieland)
Subject: Strange Kaypro problems

In article <1990Nov22.110949.12852@hayes.ims.alaska.edu> floyd@hayes.ims.alaska.edu
(Floyd Davidson) writes:
>In article <1990Nov22.030504.6649@simasd.uucp> donm@pnet07.cts.com (Don
Maslin) writes:
>>
>>                                                      11-21-90
>> 
>>      On the later machines, at least, the drive light (and motor) stay
>>      on for several seconds after disk access and then turn off.  I
>>      would assume that yours should do that also.
>
>The Kaypro monitor ROM has no provision for timeout on the disks.
>Micro C's ROM and TurboROM both do.

That's because the Kaypro ROM does a physical write every time BDOS is
called to write a record.  There is an option in Kaypro's configuration
program (the Write Safe flag?) to turn this off, but Kaypro warns that
this might cause some programs to trash files.  This probably only
happens with files that aren't closed before the program exits.

>I installed a TurboROM on a K-10, and once had a copy of the first
>ROM that Micro C sold.  I don't recall that the BIOS needed to be 
>changed with either of them.  Mind you I could be wrong on that,

I you want to use a parallel printer with a TurboROM, you have to use
the TurboBIOS.  It appears that the ROM entry point was changed (at
least for my Kaypro 2X, CP/M 2.2H).  Besides, you will need the
TurboBIOS to support hard drives, RAM drives, or 96 tpi floppy drives.
Or to use the Multicopy Turboset program -- lets you use almost any 5.25"
floppy disk format on your Kaypro without using memory resident software
like Uniform -- it sets up the disk parameter tables in high memory to
access other formats.  Also allows you to use DosDisk for accessing
MS-DOS floppies.  There is also a version of DosDisk for the KayPlus
ROM.  MultiCopy and DosDisk are available from Plu*Perfect Systems.
I don't have a current address for Plu*Perfect.  DosDisk is also 
available from Sage MicroSystems East, 1435 Centre St., Newton Centre, MA 
02159-2469, voice: 617-965-3552, modem: 617-965-7259 (password=DDT)  
(MABOS on PC-Pursuit).

--
                           Jeff Wieland
                       wieland@ecn.purdue.edu