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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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    Not really any of them. It seems to be a rather straight PC-XT no-name clone.
    – Raffzahn
    Sep 11, 2021 at 18:15
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    weren'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, 2021 at 22:52
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    @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, 2021 at 1:23
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    It's a contender for retrocomputing.stackexchange.com/questions/9650/… at least :)
    – knol
    Sep 12, 2021 at 6:43
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    Those chunky hinges make it look like a Bondwell CP/M machine
    – knol
    Sep 12, 2021 at 6:51

2 Answers 2

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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 (Irvine California, apparently), except that they existed in 1983 and are no longer active.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:

http://vintage-laptops.com/en/tava-flyer/?lang=en

https://www.1000bit.it/scheda.asp?id=2167

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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, 2021 at 14:43
  • Fantastic work :D well done
    – knol
    Sep 17, 2021 at 15:46
  • 80186 @5Mhz can be considered an XT, the CPU has only the real-mode part of the 80286
    – Tommylee2k
    Mar 22 at 8:11
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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.

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    Did the TAVA Flyers look like the pictures?
    – RonJohn
    Mar 21 at 22:22
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    I'd be interested in any pictures you could add to your answer!
    – knol
    Mar 21 at 23:18

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