The entire MS-DOS 2.11 operating system fit on a 360K floppy disk with room to spare.

Since the Kaypro 16/2 only came with two 360K floppy disk drives, the first thing you were instructed to do was to make working copies of each of the original disks. To facilitate this operation, as soon as you booted the computer from an original disk, the Kaypro AutoStarting Master Disk batch file initiated a copy operation that essentially consisted of a Format command followed by the command: Copy A:*.* B:.

After creating a working copy of the operating system disk, you could boot the system. Here’s what the boot up operation looks like. You’ll notice that the command prompt configuration puts the time before the actual A> prompt.

Using the DIR /W creates a wide directory display that shows all 27 files that make up the MS-DOS 2.11 operating system.

Each of the eleven disks includes a little utility named D.COM which simply displays a directory listing. As you can see, this listing employs color to delineate the information and is very easy to read.

I’m not sure if D.COM was an actual MS-DOS 2.11 utility or something that Kaypro or MicroPro added to the disks.

The GW-BASIC interpreter and the MITE modem communications program came together on a single 360K floppy disk.

GW-BASIC was a dialect of BASIC developed by Microsoft.

While GW-BASIC lacked many of the structured programming language features, it did provide enough power to create rudimentary business programs. It also possessed a lot of graphics and color commands, as well as sound commands which made it perfect for creating simple games.

It is rumored that the GW stands for Gee Whiz after what Bill Gates said the first time he saw it!

While the Kaypro didn’t come with a modem, the software package included Mycroft Labs’ MITE, which, at the time, was a very powerful, and reliable, data communications program that used the XMODEM error checking protocol.

Sold separately, MITE for MS-DOS carried a retail price of $195.00 in 1985.

To help you get up to speed with the MicroPro applications, WordStar, CalcStar and DataStar, the software package included the MicroPro Tutors on four 360K floppy disks.

Here is the splash screen for the WordStar tutorial that was on the first of the MicroPro Tutors disks.

Each one of the tutorials begins by asking for your name, which StarTutor then uses to address you as it walks you through the lessons. As you can see, the StarTutor encourages a one-on-one type of interaction which was a very effective instructional technique. I learned a lot from this little guy back in the 1985.

The anchor of the MicroPro application suite was WordStar which shared a 360K floppy disk with MailMerge. Of course, MailMerge is a merge printing add-on for mass mailings of letters.

WordStar’s splash screen identifies this as version 3.31p. The menu bar at the bottom of the screen indicates the commands associated with the function keys F1 thru F10.

The WordStar Opening Menu provides you with access to a set of file management commands as well as displays a directory listing of the files on the disk.

Pressing the D command accesses the Open screen and you’re prompted to type the name of the file that you want to create or that you want to open.

The Main Menu provides you with access to all the commands that you’ll need when creating and editing a document.

Back in those days, a mouse wasn’t really an option so you had to move the cursor using the arrow keys on the keyboard. To make cursor movement easier, WordStar introduced the [Ctrl] key diamond for basic cursor movement. As you can see in the Cursor Movement section of the menu, pressing the [Ctrl] along with s,e,d,x keys (which form a diamond on the keyboard) moves the cursors one character or line to the left, up, right, or down. This diamond allows you to quickly move the cursor while keeping your hands in the touch typing position with fingers on the home keys, thus allowing to you keep your typing rhythm.

CalcStar was the spreadsheet application in the MicroPro suite and it too fit on a single 360K floppy disk.

CalcStar’s splash screen identifies this as version 1.46. It also indicates that portions of this spreadsheet application were licensed from Digital Research, the company created by Dr. Gary Kildall to market and develop his CP/M operating system.

If you study this screen closely, you’ll see that the spreadsheet’s basic layout has changed very little since the early days. As you can see in the Cursor Movement section of the menu, CalcStar employs the same the [Ctrl] key diamond for basic cursor movement.

While there isn’t a grid overlaying the main data area, once you begin entering information, you can see the cells. Notice that you don’t actually type in the data area, rather you type at the edit: prompt at the bottom of the screen.

In 1986, I created an electronic checkbook register in CalcStar and stopped using the paper-based register in my checkbook. I liked this little application so much that I actually used this checkbook register until 1991. Notice the formula in the contents: prompt at the bottom of the screen.

While the database application in the MicroPro application suite was called DataStar, the disk was labeled InfoStar. I believe that MicroPro was in the process of renaming the program.

The database application, which included several supporting applets, such as FormGen and ReportStar, came on two 360K floppy disks.

DataStar’s splash screen identifies this as version 1.60.

This screen shows one of the data entry forms used in the DataStar tutorial.