Zenith Minisport and Minisport HD

The basic Zenith Minisport.

COMMENTS

The Zenith Minisport and Minisport HD were a couple of really interesting (to me) laptops. The reason?  2 inch floppy drive.  That's right 2"!  As far as I can tell, they're the only computers of any type to come with this configuration.  The HD doesn't have an internal floppy drive.  Both machines came with an external 3.5" drive for more compatibility.

The 2 inch drive is basically a cut down 3.5" HD floppy drive.  The capacity is 720K.

DOS is in ROM and since the floppy drive is rather wonky, a program called Fast Lynx is installed in ROM also for serial port transfers between the Mini and a desktop or another laptop.

You could buy either a 1 Mb unit for $1999 or a 2 Mb unit for $2800.  Both configured 640K for DOS with the balance of the memory was setup as a RAMdisk, EMS, or a combination of the 2.  It was actually quite easy to convert a 1Mb unit into a 2 Mb unit.  Simply find a 1 Mb SIPP (yes sipp!) and solder it into the motherboard.  You did have to bend the SIPP over and put a bit of non-conductive tape between it and the motherboard, but that is pretty simple.  If you didn't use a low power SIPP, you will sacrifice some battery time.

The Mini came out around the time Zenith sold their computer line to Group Bull, a French company.  In fact, the HD is listed as a Group Bull/Zenith unit.  The Minisport line only lasted a few years and then faded into the woodwork.

The Group Bull/Zenith Minisport HD

Yeah, it really is that small!

See, I told you!

Really thin!

Yank the floppy drive out and install a 20Mb hard drive and voila!  The Minisport HD!

Both models have the exact same back set of connectors.