Early Vertical Drives

Drive Cage

Since the original Kaypro machines had their floppy drives mounted vertically I will attempt to describe how the "cage" that holds them is mounted.

The cage is made up of 2 panels and 4 spacers. The spacers are what physically hold the drives to the case with the longer screws. The two panels make up the shielding to lessen the interference with other internal components.

In place the main shield and spacers are arranged as seen in this picture.

Inserting the first drive is challenging since the spacers are not mounted to the case so it can take some time to lineup the bolts through the case, through the spacers and into the A drive. I find it easier if I remove the B drives spacers while installing the A drive.

The second drive goes in just like the first one. The only difficulty with this drive is lining up the bolts with the B drive. (Note that my drive B appears to be a replacement drive from 1985. Not in the photos.)

The bolts from a bottom perspective:

Finally, the top bolts are used to attach the top plate. Note that the two furthest screws go through the top plate, main shield, then into the drive.

A missing cage?

In all of my early machines with vertical drives and in Daniel Daigle's #2561 (the earliest Kaypro by Serial Number) the cage is clearly present. (David's machine below.)

But the images that I have of the Thomas Brase's Kaycomp #2767 there is no sign of the cage.

If it left the factory this way then there are two possibilities.

That the "Kaycomp" machines may have been assembled before they were aware of the interference problem that the cage was likely designed for or before the cages had been delivered to the factory. Putting their assembly out of serial number order. (This is a problem throughout Kaypro's history.)

If #2767 was David Thompson's machine then he may have based some of his reviews in Microcornucopia on a machine that would have been prone to more extreme problems than other early Kaypros before they turned the drives to be horizontal.
The dispatch location of Bend in Oregon has a special significance. The computer journal ‘Micro Cornucopia’ by David Thompson was published from there for almost 10 years. So I imagine (for myself) that this Kaycomp once belonged to David. Maybe I can solve the mystery.Thomas's website

I could be more certain of this fact if there was another Kaycomp machine that we could look at the insides of.