A friend who had an early computer store is trying to identify a machine. Some guesses are Zenith mini sport, clone of a Toshiba T1000 and some kind of HP device.
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6Not really any of them. It seems to be a rather straight PC-XT no-name clone. – Raffzahn Sep 11 '21 at 18:15
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Serial number #65 - who knows how many were made? – Jon Custer Sep 11 '21 at 22:13
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2weren't there a few dedicated "word processors" - sold as typewriter replacements for college students - in a form factor similar to this? I'm thinking olivetti? though I guess not with dual floppy drives. – davidbak Sep 11 '21 at 22:52
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4@davidbak 10 Fkeys, Alt, PrtSc with , etc. - definitely* a PC clone. "Fancy typewriter" machines would almost certainly have a simpler and/or more word-processing-specific keyboard. – manassehkatz-Moving 2 Codidact Sep 12 '21 at 01:23
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@manassehkatz-Moving2Codidact - oh yeah, good points – davidbak Sep 12 '21 at 02:21
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3It's a contender for https://retrocomputing.stackexchange.com/questions/9650/did-any-laptop-computers-have-a-built-in-5%C2%BC-inch-floppy-drive at least :) – knol Sep 12 '21 at 06:43
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1Those chunky hinges make it look like a Bondwell CP/M machine – knol Sep 12 '21 at 06:51
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The screen aspect ratio makes it look as if it has a CGA-equivalent display with square pixels. I'm guessing there is no brand name on it anywhere, but a look inside might find some part manufacturers. – John Dallman Sep 12 '21 at 14:53
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It may just be perspective distortion, but those dual floppies in the first photo look pretty big. Are they 5-1/4"? It would be a total anachronism for them to be half-height 8-inch drives with modern-looking eject mechanisms, but just making sure. – snips-n-snails Sep 12 '21 at 16:17
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@snips-n-snails If anything I think they might just be slimmer than normal 5.25" drives. Like perhaps three of them would fit in the space two normal drives would take? That would make them the same size as the mechanisms from the combo 5.25"/3.5" drives, something available and not custom to use? It could just be a trick of the perspective though. – mnem Sep 12 '21 at 21:27
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My guess would have been the Toshiba T1000, it's very similar. Same screen dimensions, floppy drive on the side. I used one briefly in the 1980's. – Mark Ransom Sep 28 '21 at 16:40
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Found this while browsing one of the links on the "laptops with mini-diskette drives" question:
It appears to be a generic 80186-based IBM PC AT clone, distributed as "Tava Flyer". I couldn't find any meaningful information about Tava Corp. (Irvine California, apparently), except that they existed in 1983 and are no longer active. Some sparse information on the "Flyer" can be found at these sites, the second also has a digitalisat of a sales brochure:
Treehugger
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Interesting. The label on the machine looks copy/pasted on - makes me think this was a machine made for a bunch of companies that each private labeled it. In addition, it is described as an AT clone but: (a) it has an 80186 and not an 80286, (b) the floppy drive is 360KB and not 1.2 MB, so even if (as was the case for most people at least for a while) you used AT for speed over XT but used standard MS/PC-DOS applications (i.e., no protected mode) floppy disks for transfer would have been incompatible (or "only at XT 360KB capacity). Also slower (< 5 Mhz vs 6 or 8) than a real AT but "laptop". – manassehkatz-Moving 2 Codidact Sep 17 '21 at 14:43
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80186 @5Mhz can be considered an XT, the CPU has only the real-mode part of the 80286 – Tommylee2k Mar 22 '23 at 08:11
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We distributed TAVA Flyers as part of an integrated package that included our SalesMaker software by Daedalus Technology and Proquest Technology of Texas. They were brought in by our French software distributor. Distributique (i.e., France's Reseller News) ran a 4-page spread with a demo diskette for those interested.
DWIGHT DEBACKER
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