Kay’s attitude didn’t help. He was showing less of the adventurousness that had led to his hard-disk portable.
And he now felt that the Kaypro II was just like the old Volkswagen bug and would always be around—an ominous parallel considering VW’s recent fiascos in the auto market.[13]
Kaypro later dropped the Kaypro II and replaced it with the $1,595 Kaypro 2X. It’s still a II, though, except for some improvements such as more disk space. The 2X’s disks store almost 400K each.
Some software programs endured because enough people learned and liked them; and the Apple II in one form or another would last; but the Kaypro II? Even with hundreds of thousands of users? What about the ill-fated Osborne? No, computer buyers normally spurned antiques. Within a year or two Andy Kay might change his mind and ponder whether to update the Kaypro II drastically or kill it.
In November 1984, well over six months later than Kaypro had promised investors, a 16-bit IBM-compatible machine appeared.
“He’d rather not call it an IBM clone,” said an industry observer. “He’d rather call it just a 16-bit computer. It’s a matter of pride.”
The 16-bit model, a portable with a 10-megabyte hard disk and 256K RAM, looked somewhat like the Kaypro II and IV. It had an =expansion slot= into which you could plug a device to hype up the performance of the machine or expand its versatility; and it offered free WordStar along with other software. At $3,295 it sold for $1,700 less than a hard disk portable from Compaq. But it faced stiff competition from machines such as the hard disk desktop from Leading Edge, which was discounted to as low as $2,000. The 16 just wouldn’t wallop rivals the way the original Kaypro II had.
And it shared some of the drawbacks of the Compaq and many other IBM clones—especially the keyboard. The left shift key was in an awkward position like the IBM PC’s, with a weird, nonalphabetical character separating it and the “Z”; imagine the reaction of touch typists who had enjoyed the Kaypro II’s close resemblance to the traditional Selectric keyboard. Many makers of 16-bit machines had aped the horrid PC keyboard, causing one reviewer to liken them to idiot savante piano players who imitated the mistakes of true geniuses.