Friday, April 30, 2010

Kaypro-My first real computer

Back in the earliest of the early 1980s, I purchased my first real computer made by Kaypro. Kaypro was noted as creating the first portable computer, they did not consider this a "laptop" by no means. Pretty exciting day, but very miserable by today's standards. To think of it, my Blackberry Tour has more power and storage on my hip than this computer. It was classified as "portable", meaning it was the size of the largest airline carry on luggage allowed and was not light at 30 pounds. Some of it's features:Price:US $1595, Weight:26 lbs, CPU:Zilog Z80, 2.5 MHz, RAM:64K, Display:9"green phosphor screen, 24 X 80 text only, Storage: Two internal 5-1/4" SS-DD 195K drives, OS:CP/M, SBASIC.
Above you will find the photo of a young Kurt Harden of Cultural Offering in college with a Kaypro on his desk. One of the features with this computer that most do not have today are manuals, see below.




1 comment:

Patrick Guanciale said...

Received the following email message from Mark Evans:
Went to College a year before Kurt ,,,,,,,I think I only remember maybe One Kaypro at the university in 4 Plus years.

Patrick and Kurt..Innovators now…Nerds in the early 80’s.