From Howard Boyle (May 2006)
I was the engineering manager for a number of the Kaypro projects and it was a pretty interesting job. The Kaypro 2000 was our first laptop computer. The case, LCD and pop-up disk drive were made by Citizen Watch Company in Japan. They were not cheap! The case was the biggest problem as it was made with sort of an extrusion process and then anodized. Because the finish was anodized aluminum and not painted, any flaws showed up and the part needed to be rejected. The keyboard and later the keypad and telephone (yes telephone) that attached to the unit were made in Hong Kong. Getting the keys to “feel” right was quite a project as they are plastic and not rubber as you might guess (also the bumper that went around the computer). On the follow on laptop project the Kaypro 2010, the case was made by a sheet metal shop in California and painted. That was a much better solution for production but the look was somewhat different. LCDs were always a problem as large (for that time) panels tended to have defective pixels so the yields were not great. Interestingly, we used Gates “D” cell lead acid batteries for the laptops as they had the capacity we needed but charging them and keeping them from becoming too discharged was a constant engineering challenge. Then there was the backlight relay problem…. Well, it was quite an interesting time for the industry and for the company.
Curator: Thanks Howard! |